Festival Focus August 1, 2016

FESTIVALFOCUS YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

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MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 2016

VOL 27, NO. 7

Biss embarks on Beethoven sonatas journey

Tonight! Season Benefit: A Feast of Music

cludes Beethoven’s first piano sonata—and his twenty-first. The recital on August 16 Ludwig van Beethoven was not a simple includes his "Appassionata" sonata, and the man, and he did not create simple music. August 17 performance features his "MoonRushes of emotion, swells of passion, and light" sonata. intense power course through his symphoBeethoven’s early piano sonatas, penned nies, his string quartets, and, of course, his in 1795, drew heavily upon influences from sonatas.

Haydn and Mozart. But it took nearly three Renowned pianist Jonathan Biss, pro- decades to compose all thirty-two works, fessor at the Curtis Institute of Music, has and as the sonatas progressed, Beethoven’s spent much of his stubborn personalartistic life exploring ity and flair for the dra“I want each program the complexity of matic began to shine Beethoven’s works, through. Structuring his to represent as wide and this season he recitals the way he has, a range of music as launches one of his Biss is allowing each most musically ambiaudience to experipossible...One of the tious projects to date: ence that progression a three-year journey in a single night. miracles of Beethoven through Beethoven's “I thought if I did it entire cycle of thirtyis that the language is chronologically, then two piano sonatas. that would mean each so various.”

The undertaking evening stays within begins tomorrow at a certain period and Harris Concert Hall, Jonathan Biss more within a cerPianist where Biss will pertain language,” Biss form the first of three says. “And the miracle recitals this season. He’ll continue the series of Beethoven—one of the miracles of on August 16 and 17 before returning in 2017 Beethoven—is that the language is so variand 2018 to complete the full cycle of piano ous.” sonatas.

As both an accomplished pianist and an “I want each program to represent as educator, Biss is an ideal performer to take wide a range of music as possible,” Biss audiences on this journey. In 2013, more says, explaining that he’s chosen to perform than 35,000 people from around the world the sonatas out of chronological order. Tomorrow evening’s recital, for instance, inSee Biss, Festival Focus page 3 KATE DROZYNSKI

Festival Focus Writer

Allow the world's premier summer music festival to fill your dance card tonight at its annual Season Benefit.

The event at the Hotel Jerome includes welcome cocktails and a silent auction starting at 6 pm and dinner and performances starting at 7 pm. Tickets are $2,000.

For more information or to purchase tickets, contact Jenny McDonough at 970-205-5063 or jmcdonough@aspenmusic. org.

Free percussion work outdoors Don't miss Inuksuit, a free percussion performance on the David Karetsky Music Lawn outside the Benedict Music Tent, at 1:30 pm on Sunday, August 7. Read more about this environmental piece

by John Luther Adams on page 2.

BENJAMIN EALOVEGA

Pianist and Beethoven master Jonathan Biss will play three recitals of Beethoven sonatas, on August 2, 16, and 17.

Stephen Hough explores contrasting Paganini variations LINDA BUCHWALD

Festival Focus Writer

On Sunday, August 7, pianist Stephen Hough, joined by the Aspen Festival Orchestra, will perform two works based on the same Paganini theme— Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, op. 43, and Lutosławski's Paganini Variations for Solo Piano and Orchestra.

"I think this is a fascinating program," says Alan Fletcher, president and CEO of the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS). "You have Rachmaninoff’s tribute to virtuosity and the tradition of Paganini, and then you have Lutosławski's very different tribute as well."

The two pieces use like harmonies, but the Lutosławski is more modern, says Hough. "They both have a similar kind of orchestral palette, very glittery, although the Lutosławski has much more percussion in it than the Rachmaninoff," he says.

The Lutosławski is also much briefer, almost like an encore, says Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor. "Rachmaninoff put the theme through many more variations—thirtysomething-odd minutes—whereas Lutosławski put the theme through several variations, and then he said what he had to say in eight minutes,"

Santourian says.

So, why has Paganini's Caprice No. 24 inspired so many composers? "I think it's harmonically very clear, so it's a beautifully clean shape that you can do all kinds of things with," says Hough. "If you imagine having a skeleton around on which you can build many kinds of different bodies, I think that's what it is. It has this purity to it, which means you can adapt it a lot. I suppose it's the same as other things in art. If you say you want to do a virgin and child, it's a very simple image, so you can do all kinds of things with it."

See Hough, Festival Focus page 3

ANDREW CROWLEY

Pianist Stephen Hough joins the Aspen Festival Orchestra on Sunday, August 7, for Paganini-inspired works by Rachmaninoff and Lutosławski.

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Experience music from above the Arctic Circle this week LINDA BUCHWALD

Festival Focus Writer

This summer at the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS), audiences will get a chance to hear music from Russian, Nordic, and Alaskan composers as part of one of the season's mini-themes, "White Nights: Showcasing Music from Above the Arctic Circle."

"I wanted to showcase this part of the world and the incredible variety of music that we know and love and never have thought of as one group or one region," says Asadour Santourian, the AMFS's vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor.

As part of "White Nights," violinist Jennifer Koh's Wednesday, August 3, recital will include two works by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho: Frises and Graal théâtre. Frises was originally written to be played following Bach's Partita No. 2 for Unaccompanied Violin in D minor, which will also be part of the recital.

Koh first came across Saariaho's work more than a decade ago, when she heard her opera, L'Amour de loin. Koh immediately delved into everything Saariaho had written.

"Graal théâtre was the first work of hers that I performed and worked on and lived with, and I loved being in that world so much," says Koh. "I think after that I've basically played everything that she's written for violin." Frises was also the first work of Saariaho's that Koh premiered in the U.S., so to her, this recital is about beginnings.

Koh is drawn to Saariaho's music because she feels it's about the complex inner lives we all lead. "The part about music that

I love is that you immerse yourself into other people's worlds, so with each composer, you see the world through someone else's eyes and experiences and characters, and that's always been beautiful to me," Koh says.

The Aspen Chamber Symphony will also perform a program of Saariaho and Sibelius at 6 pm on Friday, August 5, featuring conductor Robert Spano, soprano Jennifer Check, baritone Matthew Worth, and flutist Camilla Hoitenga. Santourian says the program will provide a beautiful juxtaposition. "Since the early 2000s, Saariaho has emerged as a composer who is occupying herself primarily with acoustic instruments with some flavoring of electronics," he says. "Her past informs her present, and her sound is wafting clouds of perfumed music. It's extremely unique in its makeup—in the voicing of the combination of instruments, in the language. Her musical syntax is entirely original to her."

Another highlight of the "White Nights" mini-festival is Inuksuit, a free percussion performance by John Luther Adams that will be performed outdoors on Sunday, August 7, at 1:30 pm on the David Karetsky Music Lawn outside the Benedict Music Tent.

"John Luther Adams—who has made most of his career living in Alaska, which is not usually thought of as a big center for classical music—brings a great sense of that landscape into his music," says AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher. "He’s one of the persuasive landscape composers, if you will. A sense of the majesty of nature pervades his music."

During Inuksuit, a co-production with the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, audience members can move freely throughout the performance area. "It's a very personal experience," says

JÜRGEN FRANK

Violinist Jennifer Koh will perform a recital featuring works by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho on Wednesday, August 3. This week features this and more events celebrating composers from above the Arctic Circle in conjunction with the season minitheme "White Nights."

Jonathan Haas, an AMFS percussion artist-faculty member.

"Everybody, in a sense, will make up their own mind whether it was fascinating or whether it was serene or whether it was compelling because a lot of it is based on how the audience members decide to route themselves through the many different stations where the percussionists are playing. It won't ever sound the same way twice, and it will mean many different things to many different people in any one performance."

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BISS: Pianist plays 14 Beethoven sonatas in three recitals Continued from Festival Focus page 1

enrolled in “Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas,” a free Coursera.com course taught

by Biss for the Curtis Institute of Music. The demand for Biss’s online course has been so great that additional sessions continue to be offered.

“He has, I think, the most intense and stubborn personality of any of the great composers,” Biss says of Beethoven and of what continues to make the composer such a fascinating figure to music-lovers.

“Just from the moment you hear his music, you feel pulled toward it. We’re coming up to 200 years after those late pieces were written, and we’re still trying to sort them out. They’re so adventurous and so questioning and so spiritual that they remain new, and they remain mysterious. I think the big story is really just how much happened over the course of one man’s compositional life.”

According to AMFS President and CEO

Alan Fletcher, Biss has become such a respected Beethoven master in large part because of his ability to understand the many layers that make up the composer’s works.

“There are three genres that Beethoven worked at throughout his career that were equally important to him in every phase of his life,” Fletcher says. “And those are piano sonatas, string quartets, and symphonies.

Typically, Beethoven first tried things out in the string quartets, then in the piano sonatas, then in the symphonies.”

Recognizing this development of ideas is integral to interpreting Beethoven’s work.

For Biss, whose mother, Miriam Fried, is a renowned musician and educator herself, this comes naturally.

“He grew up with this music,” Fletcher says. “He didn’t need to be told, ‘You need to think about the string quartets as you approach the sonatas.’ He was born with that.

And I think that’s a great gift.”

ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL BOX OFFICE HOURS

BENJAMIN EALOVEGA

Pianist Jonathan Biss has spent much of his artistic life studying Beethoven and his work, making him an ideal artist for tackling the full cycle of the composer's piano sonatas.

Harris Concert Hall: 9 am through the intermission of the evening concert, daily.

Wheeler Opera House: 9 am–5 pm daily.

Student Spotlight: Brian Mangrum AMFS this summer, and his sister plays piano and clarinet.

Sometimes you have to let go of your first infatuation “Everyone in my house plays an instrument, so it gets to make room for the love of your life. pretty loud at times,” Mangrum says with a laugh.

Just ask twenty-one-year-old French horn student Because of music’s strong presence in his life, ManBrian Mangrum, who played violin for ten years before grum says he’s always been certain he wants to pursue shifting his focus entirely to the horn. a career in it.

“I started violin when I was four and played up until “I saw what my parents were doing, and I thought it I was fourteen or fifteen,” Mangrum says. “But I pretty was really cool,” he says. “I love that you don’t have a much stopped practicing violin as soon as I started 9-to-5 job. I really like getting to perform completely horn [at twelve]. I really liked violin, but at a certain different rep all the time. You’re always working on point, I don’t know what it was, I decided I liked the something for a recital in six months or a piece for next horn better.” week. There’s always a lot going on.”

Sometimes it just comes down to Mangrum says Aspen is a great “I've known Brian trusting instinct, and for Mangrum, training ground for life as a professince he was a boy, who is spending his third summer sional musician. He came to the at the Aspen Music Festival and AMFS for the first time in 2013 upon and I've observed his School (AMFS) and who recently the recommendation of his teacher, won the AMFS Brass Concerto John Zirbel, whom he worked with talent, dedication to Competition, the horn was love at at Marianopolis College in Montreal first sight. excellence, and pursuit and who is an artist-faculty member He played it for the first time when at the AMFS. of the greatest musical a chamber music coach at another “I wanted him to experience the music festival let him try the instrurichness of the musical environment expression.” ment out. He was instantly hooked, that Aspen offers,” Zirbel says. “I also and after that first fateful time giving knew he would make a significant John Zirbel the horn a try, Mangrum immediatecontribution to the horn class at AsAMFS artist-faculty, French horn ly picked up the instrument and bepen.” gan focusing all of his attention on it.

Zirbel appears to be right, as Man“I think it’s just the sound that I love,” he says. “And I grum just performed Strauss's First Horn Concerto with love its role in the orchestra. Pretty much every time the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra after winanything cool is happening, the horn is playing.” ning the Brass Concerto Competition.

Before Mangrum was able to find his instrument soul In addition to spending his summer in Aspen, Mangrum mate, he started out as simply a lover of classical music. is studying at Rice University's Shepherd School of MuIt was hard to avoid; both of his parents are musicians, sic. He loves the horn more now than ever, and Zirbel, so he grew up in a home swelling with the sounds of who may know Mangrum’s talent better than anyone, their favorite CDs or of them practicing their instru- sees greatness in the young horn player’s future. ments.

“I’ve known Brian since he was a boy,” Zirbel says. “I’ve Mangrum’s siblings are musicians, too: his younger observed his talent, dedication to excellence, and purbrother, Marty, plays French horn and is studying at the suit of the greatest musical expression.”

JESSICA CABE

Festival Focus Writer

HOUGH: Paganini

variations

Continued from Festival Focus page 1 According to Santourian, Hough, who has been a regular guest artist at the AMFS over the past thirty years, is the perfect musician to tackle these pieces. "His musical curiosity has no limits, and whatever he chooses to perform, he throws himself into it," Santourian says. "Stephen has recorded all of the Rachmaninoff works for the orchestra and piano, and he performed them in a marathon fashion a couple of years back, so he knows these works intimately."

Santourian also adds that these pieces fit in nicely with the AMFS's season theme, "Invitation to Dance." "They're not necessarily based on dance, but there's a great feeling of dance in them," he says. "And Stephen just loves this kind of a party, if I can call this concert a party."

Hough is a composer himself, and even though he doesn't write in the style of Rachmaninoff, he does think that, having struggled to write himself, he has an understanding for what a huge difference every decision makes—putting a note in a particular place, putting a marking to grow louder or softer, etc. He appreciates moments of Rachmaninoff's genius. "I think this piece is wonderfully written," Hough says. "It's marvelously written for the piano and the orchestra, and the composition hangs together so beautifully. It's full of invention, color, romance, glitter, power, and also has a dark side to it as well. He keeps introducing this Dies Irae theme, which is the theme of being condemned to hell, so it's not all fun and games," he says. Hough is especially in awe of the eighteenth variation, "when he turns the tune upside down and makes it into this most beautiful moment of lyricism and Romanticism."

For his part, Hough always hopes to surprise, uplift, and stimulate audiences with his concerts. "If they listen with intense concentration, you feel that onstage, and it gives you a tremendous burst of energy," he says. "So we're sharing this together, and that's very exciting to me."