Aspen Music Festival 2017 Festival Focus Week 6

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MONDAY, JULY 31, 2017

VOL 28, NO. 6

Seven Angels inspired by climate change

Jonathan Biss Beethoven sonatas project 7:30 pm August 1 and 8 in Harris Concert Hall

JESSICA CABE Festival Focus Writer

Acclaimed pianist and Beethoven scholar Jonathan Biss returns to Aspen for the second year in a three-year project of performing every Beethoven Sonata. This season features the composer’s “Pastoral” Sonata and other favorites.

What does the end of the world look like? Composer Luke Bedford and librettist Glyn Maxwell drew inspiration from Milton’s Paradise Lost and the ever-present issue of climate change to imagine just that.

Audiences will have the chance to experience this imagining of the fall of mankind at 4:30 pm on Saturday, August 5, in Harris Concert Hall when the Aspen Opera Center and Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, conducted by Yves Abel, offer a concert presentation of the U.S. premiere of Seven Angels.

Seven Angels was Bedford’s first opera, and the British composer says writing it was a giant leap into the unknown.

“Initially it was quite a scary thing because up to that point, I hadn’t written a piece longer than about twelve minutes,” Bedford says. “To suddenly go to something that’s eighty minutes is a big jump. And it’s a much bigger scale; you’re working with so many people, from

For tickets and more information, visit www. aspenmusicfestival.com or call the Box Office at 970-925-9042.

Season Benefit: An Enchanted Feast of Music 6 pm Monday, August 7, at Hurst Hall on the Bucksbaum Campus Exceptional performances are paired with gourmet delicacies courtesy of Hotel Jerome, in a special evening honoring Robert J. Hurst. Call 970-205-5063 for tickets and information.

the writer to the director to the singers to the costumers and everyone else.”

Despite the challenges, Bedford and Maxwell crafted a brilliant musical parable that combines a classic story with a contemporary issue.

Seven Angels mirrors Paradise Lost in that it begins in medias res. Seven angels find themselves in a deserted, barren landscape, and they begin to tell the story of what happened to turn the once-beautiful place into a wasteland.

To tell this fairy tale-like story, they gradually transform into the characters. There is a king, queen, prince, and four servants who live in a beautiful garden much like the Garden of Eden in Paradise Lost. The royalty spend most of their time eating gluttonously and selfishly. One of the servants, a waitress, starts looking after the prince more closely and teaches him that thinking and caring about other people is a much healthier way See opera, Festival Focus page 3

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The U.S. premiere of composer Luke Bedford’s lyrical and timely opera Seven Angels takes place at 4:30 pm on Saturday, August 5, in Harris Concert Hall.

Sharon Isbin plays concertos by Brubeck, Rodrigo, and Shore CAITLIN CAUSEY

Festival Focus Writer

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Guitarist Sharon Isbin will perform in a Special Event recital at 8 pm on Saturday, August 5, in Harris Concert Hall.

Many of the featured guest artists who travel to Aspen each year have performed here for so long that they have nearly become synonymous with the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS). Having performed here every summer since 1993, classical guitarist Sharon Isbin—Grammy Award winner, prolific recording artist, and founder of The Juilliard School’s guitar department— is among this group of beloved musicians.

She returns on August 5 for a Special Event recital featuring beautiful and beloved concertos by film score master Howard Shore, Chris Brubeck, and Rodrigo.

“We’ve had a long association with Sharon.

She is an alumna of the program and has come to be more of a fixture here,” observes Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor. “Sharon has made us very proud with her accomplishments: expanding the guitar repertoire, commissioning new works, and recording a variety of material. She always brings unique discoveries to each of her programs each year, and this year is no exception.”

Isbin’s recital on August 5 will include a wellloved Rodrigo piece and two newer works: Howard Shore’s theme from the Oscar-winning film The Departed and Chris Brubeck’s deeply personal Affinity: Concerto for Guitar

and Orchestra.

After being given just a few weeks’ notice before recording the Shore piece, Isbin recalls that the experience presented a wonderful opportunity to work with the acclaimed film score composer while exploring how to relay the inner workings of a character through music.

“The imagery you see during the film at times is gory, but the music has an ethereal quality— it opens a window to the character’s soul,” she says. “It’s something you wouldn’t see or experience if it wasn’t for the actual score, which makes the character development even more See Isbin, Festival Focus page 3

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MONDAY, JULY 31, 2017

FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

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Joyce Yang plays Liszt, faculty perform Martin with orchestra CAITLIN CAUSEY Festival Focus Writer For her upcoming performance with the Aspen Chamber Symphony, Van Cliburn Award-winning pianist and radiant Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) alumna Joyce Yang has been training for a marathon—a Liszt marathon, that is. Yang will perform the Hungarian composer’s Rhapsodie espagnole, arranged for piano and orchestra

by Busoni, on August 4.

“The trick with a piece like this is that I can’t expect myself to go from nothing to everything in a short time,” she explains.

“Presenting a Liszt piece is like learning to run a marathon again, even if you’re very fit. You do have to train; you can’t just wake up and do it. Physically, I have to be disciplined.”

With dramatic waterfalls of sound and all the triumphant pyrotechnics that audiences should expect in the piece, Yang is prepared to work up a sweat. She notes that Busoni’s orchestration of the original work, however, brings what could be a grandiloquent piano solo piece back down to earth.

“What we know about Liszt is that his virtuosic passages tell us what a diva he was—and he was the first to really tour as concert pianist in his day. So this piece you can see was written for that kind of showstopping performance,” Yang says. “With Liszt, you can’t often hear the backbone of a piece because there is so much glitter around it. But now with the orchestra, this one has gained spectacular color, especially adding the percussion. Different instru-

ments heighten the different portions, and it almost brings sanity to the piece. It gives the work structure, in my mind, while keeping this extraordinary virtuosity.”

Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor, says of Yang’s blinding talent, “Joyce Yang is fearless and peerless, and she loved the idea of this work, took it on, reigned it in, and she will regale us with cascade upon cascade of bravura. She is also a person with great imagination, so the more introspective, lyrical moments will shine as brightly as the brilliant passages.”

Also on the program on August 4 is the Aspen Chamber Symphony performing Martin’s little-known but wonderful Concerto for Seven Wind Instruments and Timpani featuring AMFS artist-faculty members. Each season, the Festival seizes opportunities to showcase its musicians on faculty, and this concerto presents a special chance for the public to witness each musician’s particular artistry on full display.

Festival regulars will recognize these gifted and accomplished individuals: flutist Nadine Asin, oboist Elaine Douvas, clarinetist Michael Rusinek, bassoonist Nancy Goeres, hornist John Zirbel, trumpeter Kevin Cobb, and timpanist Jonathan Haas. The piece will also feature fellowship trombonist Brian Wendell.

“The Martin Concerto for Seven Winds and Timpani gives us an opportunity to present our faculty in concerto form, and each of the movements in this work focuses on each one of their instruments,” Santourian notes of the performance. “It’s a tour de force for each one of them

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MONDAY, JULY 31, 2017 3

OPERA: Seven Angels influenced by Paradise Lost Continued from Festival Focus page 1

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Radiant pianist Joyce Yang will perform with the Aspen Chamber Symphony at 6 pm on Friday, August 4, at the Benedict Music Tent.

in an extremely enjoyable manner, written idiomatically for their instruments and highlighting the abilities of that player. That’s why we chose it.”

The program closes with Brahms’s Third Symphony, a powerful work inspiring contemplative thought and nostalgia; expect an especially gorgeous offering for the clarinet, cello, and horn. The evening is sure to be one of inspiring music studded with unforgettable performances.

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of living. Meanwhile, the garden is not being looked after sage of hope at the end despite writing about the end of the world.” and has started to fall apart.

Seven Angels had its world premiere in 2011, and the In the second act, the king and queen call a conference Aspen Music Festival and and invite a general, an inSchool (AMFS) is proud to dustrialist, and a priestess “Bedford has the gift of lyricism present its U.S. premiere to weigh in on how to save this week. Asadour Santouthe garden and all the garin a contemporary setting, with a rian, AMFS vice president dens of the world. contemporary voice.

His works ... are for artistic administration “They’re debating about the end of the world but not disjunctive or atonal or in any way and artistic advisor, says Bedford’s work had been not doing anything about cacophony. He sets out with the long programmed for the Aspen it,” Bedford says. “They’re Contemporary Ensemble just sort of enjoying the line as the objective.” in the past, so when he last bits of the garden. and the artistic team began Eventually, the garden Asadour Santourian looking for a new opera to dies, and the whole fairy AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration and Artistic Advisor present this summer, Sevtale falls apart. en Angels came to mind.

“But after this,” Bedford “Bedford has the gift of lyricism in a contemporary setcontinues, “the waitress and the prince fall in love, in a way. We were very clear we wanted some sort of mes- ting, with a contemporary voice,” Santourian says. “His

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works are eminently lyrical. They’re not disjunctive or atonal or in any way cacophony. He sets out with the long line as the objective.”

AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher says the opera also fits well into the objectives of the Aspen Opera Center.

“It’s a really great work for our Aspen Opera Center because it has many roles, and they’re all strong roles,” Fletcher says. “Seven Angels is a very equal cast, and so it’s a great assignment for our young singers, and it’s also a nice mix of a contemporary story but a classic story. It’s dramatically very interesting.”

Bedford says he’s thrilled the opera is getting its U.S. premiere in Aspen with the AMFS’s student singers.

“Obviously, as it’s my first opera, it’s a very special piece for me, and I hope the singers are enjoying it because there are some challenging things in there,” he says. “But equally, one thing that’s important to me is lyricism and expressionism. I hope there are things that the singers can enjoy, and they’re just fantastic musicians in Aspen, so I’m sure it’ll be tremendous.”

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

Wheeler Opera House: 9 am–5 pm daily.

Hadelich plays with orchestra, trio recital ISBIN: Special Event

recital this Saturday

CAITLIN CAUSEY

Festival Focus Writer

Can you think of anything you love so much that you wish it would never end?

For violinist and Grammy Award winner Augustin Hadelich, who has performed in Aspen several summers running and captivated audiences worldwide with his enthralling musical sensitivity, one of those cherished loves is Brahms’s Violin Concerto in D Major. Hadelich has played the work since he was twelve years old and will present it with the Aspen Festival Orchestra on August 6.

“What I love about the Brahms concerto is that the orchestra is not just a backdrop or accompaniment, but an equal partner. It is like playing chamber music on a very large scale,” he says. “There is no other great concerto that has so many instances in which the violinist follows the orchestra. At the same time, the soloist gets to shine in the most dramatic and poetic moments and is the one who drives the development of the material.”

Hadelich adds, “The famous opening of the slow movement is one of the most beautiful oboe solos ever written, and whenever I stand on the stage listening to it, waiting to enter, I wish that moment would last forever.”

The August 6 program is rounded out with Beethoven’s Overture to Egmont and Christopher Rouse’s Fifth Symphony, led by Aspen Conducting Academy alumnus Joshua Weilerstein, who has garnered praise internationally as a young star in recent years.

“To me, Christopher Rouse is one of the world’s great composers, living or not, and I’m thrilled to bring his music to a new public,” Weilerstein says. “The piece is inspired in part by Beethoven’s world-famous Fifth Symphony, so I’m happy to have Beethoven’s Egmont Overture as a sort of partner piece to the symphony.

Brahms’s Violin Concerto is evergreen, but pairing it with a brand new work and a revolutionary work of the past will bring out its freshness even more. I think it will be a truly exciting program.”

Continued from Festival Focus page 1

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Violinist Augustin Hadelich performs with the Aspen Festival Orchestra at 4 pm on Sunday, August 6, in the Benedict Music Tent. He will also perform a trio recital with pianist Martin Helmchen and cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker at 8:30 pm on Wednesday, August 9, in Harris Concert Hall.

Festival regulars will surely recognize the conductor’s surname, as he is the brother of cellist Alisa Weilerstein and the son of Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) artist-faculty members Donald Weilerstein and Vivian Hornik-Weilerstein.

AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher notes that bringing Weilerstein and Hadelich together on the same stage is “a perfect combination of an alumnus of our program...and someone who was not a student here, but whom we spotted very early on in his career as a leading young artist and have made a big investment in.”

Hadelich fans should also note that he will appear in a trio recital on August 9 with cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and pianist Martin Helmchen. Their beautiful, lively program includes works by Haydn, Kodály, Takemitsu, and Brahms.

After a duo performance in 2015 and a solo recital in 2016, Hadelich says, “I thought it would be fun to do a chamber music evening this time. Helmchen and Hecker are both fantastic players; I love the piano trio repertoire and can’t wait to work with them.”

beautiful and fascinating.”

Isbin premiered Brubeck’s work with the Maryland Symphony Orchestra for a riveted audience in 2015, after the composer invited her and conductor Elizabeth Schulze to participate in the intimate creative process he undertook to complete the piece.

His father, the late Dave Brubeck, served as inspiration for a portion of the work.

“It was the first time a composer invited us to participate and have an influence on the direction of the piece,” Isbin remembers.

“It takes enormous strength, self-confidence, and trust to ask a performer to interact at that very early stage.”

Of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, Isbin says it is a piece that is sure to strike a chord with the audience. Written with the intention of transporting listeners to the gardens of the Royal Palace of Aranjuez in Madrid, the concerto held a deeper secret meaning for its composer.

“The slow movement that I’ll be playing is very emotive; it evokes the essence of the Spanish soul with all of its nostalgia and yearning,” she explains. “Rodrigo wrote it after his wife had a miscarriage; he’d come back from the hospital every night, and to console himself he’d play this.”

After being given the blessing of Rodrigo’s own daughter to move forward, Isbin released a recording of the piece with mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard on their new album titled Alma Española. The pair performed together in Aspen during the summer of 2014, and Isbin says that this initial collaboration laid the groundwork for not only the album but numerous other performances across the country.

With more than two decades of AMFS appearances under her belt, Isbin insists that she never tires of returning to Aspen.

“I’ve spent a good chunk of my life here, and I am so grateful for the support and generosity of Festival patrons who love the instrument and love the guitar department,” she says. “Returning to make music in one of the most beautiful settings in the world—to me, it’s like a second home.”