Impromptu Magazine Summer 2018 by Aspen Music Festival and School

IMPROMPTU A Magazine About the Aspen Music Festival and School

Summer 2018 | FREE

VIOLIN STAR SARAH CHANG LOOKS BACK AT THE ASPEN OF HER CHILDHOOD

Plus EDWARD BERKELEY: ASPEN OPERA CENTERâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S STAR MAKER A MUSIC FESTIVAL PRIMER AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE

ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL 2018 SEASON JUNE 28–AUGUST 19

Throughout modern history, Paris has attracted and inspired artists and thinkers. This summer, the Aspen Music Festival and School’s 70th season, Paris, City of Light, explores the creative essence of Paris, especially as it was during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The season showcases works by Parisian composers such as Debussy and Fauré, as well as masterpieces inspired by the city itself, such as Mozart’s “Paris” Symphony. Prepare to be transported to Paris at the height of its most imaginative, innovative epoch. Nearly 1,000 musicians gather in Aspen each summer, as more than 600 of the world’s best music students join more than 200 of the top professional performing and teaching classical artists. With performances by five full orchestras, dozens of chamber music concerts, fully produced operas, as well as master classes, lectures, and children’s events, the 2018 AMFS season has something for everyone. A full schedule of events is available at www.aspenmusicfestival. com. For an abridged schedule, see pages 30–34. For tickets and information, visit www.aspenmusicfestival.com or call the AMFS Box Office at 970 925 9042.

FEATURES

10 BACK TO (THE ASPEN MUSIC) SCHOOL WITH SARAH CHANG Violin superstar Sarah Chang talks with James Inverne about the magic of Aspen, where she has come every summer of her life. A student, then a star, she is now adding a new role: mentor.

16 EDWARD BERKELEY: ASPEN OPERA CENTER’S STAR MAKER They arrive with big voices, but it’s Aspen Opera Center Director Edward Berkeley who helps opera students develop that special quality that draws the spotlight.

21 A MUSIC FESTIVAL USER’S GUIDE A guide for approaching the more than 400 events of the Aspen Music Festival and School.

23 ASPEN CHRONICLES: THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE AT THE ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL Aspiring music students come from all over the world to study in Aspen. Three students offer a glimpse of what it’s like to play side-by-side with the world’s best professional musicians.

ON THE COVER AND ABOVE SARAH CHANG PHOTOS: CLIFF WATTS

Aspen Opera Center Director Edward Berkeley works with students in the popular Opera Scenes Master Class.

IMPROMPTU EDITOR IN CHIEF Laura E. Smith MANAGING EDITOR Kristin Cleveland ASSISTANT EDITOR Christina Thomsen GRAPHIC DESIGN BeeSpring Designs Impromptu is a publication of the Aspen Music Festival and School.

CONTACT Aspen Music Festival and School 225 Music School Road Aspen, CO 81611 info@aspenmusic.org ADMINISTRATION 970 925 3254 BOX OFFICE 970 925 9042

www.aspenmusicfestival.com

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE 5 NOTES FROM THE FESTIVAL Disney comes to Aspen; students from around the world; exploring science and music; Happy Birthday, Harris; and more. 8 ASK THE MUSICIANS AMFS artists share how they chose their instrument or focus in music. 30 ABRIDGED EVENTS CALENDAR Explore some of the hundreds of events taking place this summer. 35 FACULTY FOCUS AMFS artist-faculty reflect on how they define success. Young violinist Katherine Woo reflects on choosing music over medicine, and on performing with a superstar.

2018 SEASON JUNE 28â&#x20AC;&#x201C;AUGUST 19, 2018 Robert Spano Music Director Alan Fletcher President and CEO

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ALEX IRVIN

38 STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

NOTES

ELLE LOGAN

FROM THE FESTIVAL

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NOTES FROM THE FESTIVAL

Harris Concert Hall Celebrates 25 Years In the summer of 1993, the Aspen Music Festival and School celebrated its 45th anniversary by opening the 500-seat Joan and Irving Harris Concert Hall. At the time, the Aspen Music Festival Tent was still largely a seasonal canvas structure; the new auditorium became the Festival’s first permanent performance facility. Harris Concert Hall almost didn’t open in time. In addition to the remarkable engineering the underground building required, construction had to weather one of the severest winters on record in Aspen. Serious snow began in late October, and by June 9, 240 inches had fallen on the construction site, putting the project fifty days behind.

The Harris Concert Hall 25th anniversary will be commemorated with a recital by Aspen alumnus and violinist Robert McDuffie on July 28.

LIVE DISNEY EVENT On July 30 Walt Disney Animation Studios presents “A Decade in Concert,” a new film-and-liveorchestra event as part of the Aspen Music Festival and School’s (AMFS) summer program. Relive favorite Disney magic moments with this brandnew creative compilation of scenes and music from Moana, Tangled, Frozen, Zootopia, and more, played by a full orchestra.

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ROY WILLEY (BOTTOM HARRIS CONCERT HALL); ALEX IRVIN (TOP HARRIS CONCERT HALL)

But open it did on August 20, 1993. The Opening Gala Concert featured AMFS alumna Renée Fleming and Pinchas Zukerman with the Aspen Chamber Symphony, and a premiere of Joan Tower’s Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, which was commissioned for the concert hall’s debut. With sound designed by acoustician Charles Salter, Harris Concert Hall has been called “the Carnegie of the Rockies.”

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Choral Masterpieces Mozart’s powerful Requiem, known for its purity and pathos, was written by the dying young composer at least partly while on his death bed. The genius of one of history’s greatest music minds shines through in this choral work, performed this summer on August 17 as part of the Aspen Music Festival and School. The vocal ensemble Seraphic Fire anchors the performance. Seraphic Fire has another reason to be in Aspen this summer. The group is partnering with AMFS in a new, two-week educational program designed to train professional ensemble singers, the only summer program of its kind in the country. See Seraphic Fire and students in two choral recitals August 20 and 22 featuring repertoire spanning Monteverdi to spirituals to recent commissions and Fauré’s Requiem.

STUDENTS THE WORLD OVER Meet five of the more than 600 elite music students training in Aspen this summer. ALBERTO AGUT is a twenty-six-year old clarinetist studying with Michael Rusinek this summer in Aspen—a fifteen-hour flight from his hometown of Xilxes, Spain. ADRIANA RUIZ will experience a 7,700-foot elevation change when she arrives from her hometown of Santiago de Cuba, the second-largest city in Cuba, but she’ll make the climb to be a part of the Seraphic Fire Professional Choral Institute’s first season in Aspen. LENKA PETROVIC is a harpist from the city of Belgrade in Serbia—5,700 miles from Aspen. It is a long journey but one she’s excited to take to attend her first summer music festival ever! She will study with Nancy Allen and Sivan Magen. MARIO RIVERA ACOSTA is a violist with the Boulder-based Ajax Quartet and will study at the Center for Advanced Quartet Studies with the Pacifica Quartet this summer in Aspen—far from his hometown of San Pedro Sula, Honduras. ESME BOLUCK is a seventeen-year-old pianist from the Turkish capital of Ankara who first studied in Aspen at age twelve. This will be her sixth summer at the Festival and she will study with Yoheved Kaplinsky and Julian Martin.

MARTA XOCHILT PEREZ

Science and Music Lecture Series What makes a concert hall sound like a concert hall, or a drum like a drum? How much is physics, how much psychology, or is it something else altogether? Speakers explore these questions and more at the Aspen Music Festival and School’s Science of Music talks each summer. This year’s talks feature lead acousticians talking about concert venues on July 26, a neurologist and composer together on August 2, and a percussionist from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on August 9. Presented with the Aspen Science Center.

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Ask the Musicians

“HOW DID YOU CHOOSE YOUR INSTRUMENT OR FOCUS IN MUSIC?” INON BARNATAN / PIANO My mother used to play piano when she was a teenager, and she still played every once in a while on an upright in the house where I grew up. When I was three-and-a-half, I began correcting my mom’s piano playing, rather obnoxiously, she tells me. But even though I knew nothing of music then, I was usually right, and so my parents had me tested, and it turned out I had perfect pitch. And so began a love affair with the piano that never ended. JONATHAN BISS / PIANO

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Pianist Inon Barnatan

JOAQUIN VALDEPEÑAS / CLARINET As I was heading toward seventh grade I had two good friends and all of us wanted desperately to play the trumpet (Herb Albert and the Tijuana brass were very popular then). The new school where we were headed happened to have a new college grad

as the music teacher and he had created a wonderful music program for the school. We signed up for this music class, and when it came time to choose our instruments they were distributed by alphabetical order and by the time they got to the Vs of my last name they were out of trumpets. I was given this black instrument called a clarinet. I stuck with it just to be with my friends

ALEX IRVIN

I really have no idea how I chose the piano; the violin, as the instrument both my parents play—and therefore the instrument I grew up hearing—would have made much more sense. But the piano was apparently my sole fixation from the very beginning. There have been many moments over the years when, hearing a particular oboist, or violinist, or singer, I thought, "I wish I could make that sound." But given the endless, staggering repertoire we have as pianists, I know better than to complain!

but they soon quit and I continued. This music class was alluring to me for some reason, our music teacher let some of us conduct the ensemble on occasion which I thought was very cool. CONRAD TAO / PIANO, VIOLIN, AND COMPOSITION There is a short answer here, which is that I chose to focus on the piano as my primary instrument after a series of concerts in which I performed Mendelssohn’s E minor violin concerto on the first half of the program and Mendelssohn’s G minor piano concerto on the second half. I was fourteen, and I remember having two thoughts after those nine concerts were wrapped up: “That was fun,” promptly followed by, “Never again.” That’s the short answer. And yet the truth is that I still haven’t really chosen, that my current location vis-à-vis what I “do” as a musician— playing the piano, composing, improvising, performing with electronic instruments, occasionally producing projects—is the result of some odd confluence of luck, pragmatism, closely honoring whatever my interests may be in the present, and—perhaps most importantly—the continuing absence of a single crystallizing moment where music seemed unequivocally “for me.” Student JJ Koh (left) with artist-faculty member Joaquin Valdepeñas (right).

ALAN FLETCHER / PIANO AND COMPOSITION My mother was a musician, and my four older siblings (there is also one younger one) all had piano lessons. As soon as I could crawl, I would sit under the piano during these lessons; when I could stand high enough I’d try to play what they were playing, afterwards. At age three, I wanted to start lessons, but my mother made me wait until I was four! When I was five, I announced that I also wanted to write music. One of my first efforts was an opera written to be acted out by our family collection of troll dolls. My older brother made

“One of my first efforts was an opera written to be acted out by our family collection of troll dolls.” a wooden stage for the trolls, and we turned them into marionettes by holding them by their long hair. Many years later, at my wedding, my siblings surprised me by having remembered (with perfect accuracy) the words and music to the “Troll Love Song,” written when I was six.

ALEX IRVIN (VALDEPEÑAS)

SHARON ISBIN / GUITAR When I was nine, our family moved to Italy for a sabbatical year where my father was invited to be a science consultant. My older brother asked for guitar lessons, and my parents discovered that a former student of Segovia, Aldo Minella, was concertizing throughout Italy and commuting to our town of Varese to teach. But my brother wanted to be the next Elvis Presley and had no interest in classical guitar. So out of family duty and a desire to avoid more

Classical guitarist Sharon Isbin

piano lessons, I volunteered to take his place! JUAN OLIVARES / CLARINET I started on a saxophone because my band director was a sax player and he was a jazz musician. When I first heard him, he was playing the Pink Panther theme. I was 10 and I thought that was awesome. I immediately gravitated towards that instrument. Down the road, I would hear, "We need an extra clarinet player for this piece," and it was easy for me, so that’s where the clarinet came from. Eventually, I realized that you could do so many things because the clarinet is such a versatile instrument. You can play jazz, you can play klezmer, you can play folk music, you can play classical music. I especially liked the fact that you could do all those things and also play in an orchestra full time, which was a huge thing for me. That’s why I dropped the saxophone and stayed with the clarinet. I really like the fact that I can do all those things and be accepted in all of those different genres.

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NICK HELDERMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

BACK TO (THE ASPEN MUSIC)

SCHOOL WITH SARAH CHANG Just because she got ejected from Jimmy’s at age sixteen doesn’t mean that the famed violinist wasn’t one of Aspen’s best students—or, finds James Inverne, that she doesn’t remain so today.

CLIFF WATTS

by James Inverne

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ALEX IRVIN

The late conductor James DePreist with Sarah Chang, 2009 (top); Conductor James Conlon and Sarah Chang, 2003 (bottom).

What is Aspen? When you go there, to the music festival, you understand. You understand why it is one of the world’s most famous, most revered. You understand why people are drawn to it, year after year. You understand why every super-talented music prodigy wants to study at that famous campus. You understand, more than anything, that it is all about the students. Not just the current intake at the Aspen Music Festival and School, who permeate every level of the Festival itself, from playing on its stages to busking in the town square to giving out the concert programs. Many of the great musicians who regularly mark Aspen in their diaries were once students there too. Even those who weren’t will say how they learn from their young colleagues; how, in teaching the new generation, they themselves are taught. And so they, also, are students at Aspen. Yet it is true that there is a nucleus of brilliant performers who are such devoted artists, who would seemingly rather go without any number of other things than miss out on their Aspen fix every year, and who are correspondingly so beloved of the Aspen audiences, that they somehow seem to epitomize the Festival itself. None more so than Sarah Chang. One of the sweetest photographs in the Festival’s archives is of a very young Chang, on the stage in the Music Tent. She looks perfectly at home on that platform; more, she looks almost as though it is her home. And Chang, now rather taller and—as one of the world’s most in-demand violinists—more used to all the world’s most famous concert halls, and with multiple admired recordings under her belt, still accedes to that description. “It’s unlike any other festival,” says Chang, “All of us soloists do the same twenty festivals around the world, and many of them have student programs. But Aspen has this way of seamlessly blending the artists and the faculty and the students into this wonderful tight-knit circle where you are all one, and you’re all at the same concerts. You go to concerts together, you play concerts together, you hang out at the same restaurants, you’re part of a wonderful community. It has always been that way at Aspen, and when you come back here it brings you full circle.” That notion, of “coming full circle,” is important to her, as it is to many creative people. For an artist to understand who they are, surely they need to hang on to who they were—to the things that inspired them, that excited them, at the start? But to layer onto that the accumulated knowledge and understanding that experience and, well, life bring. She seizes on that idea. “Full circle—that’s what a life in music is. There is a part of your upbringing and your childhood that you always need to hold onto. And Aspen, this whole music world that has been created

ALEX IRVIN (BOTTOM LEFT AND RIGHT); CHARLES ABBOTT COLLECTION (TOP LEFT, MIDDLE); MARGARET DURRANCE (TOP RIGHT)

in this small town, it coaxes you to go back to that, it almost begs you to allow your memories to wash over and to allow yourself to become a student again and soak up all of these amazing experiences.” This feeling is even there in the way musicians are encouraged to prepare for their concerts, she adds. “Other festivals, and I love a lot of other festivals, but other festivals will ask you to do a chamber music concert alongside your concerto concert, and they will say, ‘Oh, so-and-so is in town and we’ll slap this group together and you can do a concert together.’ And you get together, and you get one rehearsal and we’re all soloists and chamber music isn’t what we usually do! And you’re feeling that this isn’t how it should be. Having four or five big box-office names doesn’t mean we know how to approach

chamber music! You need the time and the environment and the nurturing that Aspen offers, and that invites us all to feel like we’re going back in time, back into the practice rooms and to feel like students again. To spend time with your colleagues and rehearse, go out to dinner, back to rehearsal. In that environment, where it’s nice and you feel safe and with that approach—then you feel you can make music the way it was meant to be made.” This summer, Chang will also be trying out something new on the larger scale. Her concert in the Benedict Music Tent will be the little-played Stravinsky Violin Concerto. Although she is warming it up at other venues before bringing it to Aspen, she hadn’t known of it until Aspen’s Artistic Advisor and Vice President for Artistic Administration Asadour Santourian suggested it to

her. And suggested it again. And again. “Here’s the thing,” she laughs, “Asadour has literally seen me grow up, since I was a child at Aspen, and I trust him and I value and respect his repertoire ideas. He’s like a walking encyclopedia and his ideas are brilliant. Sometimes we get together for dinner and he throws out these great suggestions, gems. In previous years, I learned the Piazzolla Four Seasons of Buenos Aires because of him, also the Barber Violin Concerto. And Asadour—and I really appreciate him doing this—has been on my case, I kid you not, for the last four years to learn the Stravinsky. So I’m starting to play it this season purely because he put it in my ear and my brain and I love and trust him.” It is indeed a fascinating work and not least for the soloist. Stravinsky long resisted writing a violin concerto

Violinist Sarah Chang has been coming to Aspen as a student, and then as a guest artist, since she was five.

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because he apparently never quite felt he had a deep understanding of the instrument. When finally he did, in 1931 (it was premiered by a young Polish virtuoso, Samuel Dushkin, who recorded it with Stravinsky conducting as, later, did Isaac Stern), what he delivered was far from the violin fireworks expected from so many violin concertos. Instead, Stravinsky tends to treat the violin as a texture within the orchestra, a gorgeous tint in his multi-colored palette. It’s not a piece for the soloist to show off, but it is, says Chang, one for them to deeply enjoy. “It is highly approachable and really appealing for the ear. Some of the melodies are so infectious and very dance-like. For some of the Russian concertos of that kind of period, they’re so full of doom and gloom that you can actually feel depressed yourself—try

playing a Shostakovich concerto for two weeks in a row! Stravinsky shows light at the end of the tunnel.” This kind of musical adventure, too, has become part of the attraction for Aspen. “I love that Aspen also makes efforts to premiere new composers and to do interesting but less-wellknown works.” And this, she says, brings her back again to feeling like a student. “Because you’re working with colleagues from major orchestras and they’re sitting there and you’re sitting there with students and studying a work, and you open up your mind and soak everything in, in a way that Aspen always makes you do, and that you always love! So we’ll all be working on the Stravinsky together.” In fact, the unusual nature of this

Sarah Chang in recital with Andrew von Oeyen at Harris Concert Hall, 2013.

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particular work has caused Chang to change her approach slightly. “Usually the soloist will start from the solo violin part. But there is so much technical flair in this work, and I looked and realized very quickly that the solo violin line is only about one-twentieth of what is going on! So I started from a conductor’s score and learned it from that, to be able to see everything laid out. This is such a chamber-music-like piece in terms of its structure that it didn’t feel right or complete to do it the usual way.” In fact, that structure ended up informing the rest of Chang’s visit this year. “It is so chamber-like that Asadour and I decided to use that as a theme and so my other repertoire this year explores pieces that use ensembles in a chamber music way—so I am also

playing the Bach Double Concerto, and Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence, which is a large-scale string sextet.” Things have, of course, changed in some respects since Chang’s student days. She thinks the new Bucksbaum Campus is “amazing, sleek, gorgeous.” But it doesn’t take much nudging to get her to wax lyrical and nostalgic about the old Campus, the old Music Tent; not because she thinks they were better (quite the opposite), rather, “just because I grew up there.” Which sets off a parade of memories; legendary teacher Dorothy DeLay’s “ridiculous, fun” student happenings where sixteen students would between them perform four concertos in a single concert, one movement each; sitting “on the cold ground with my colleagues at the old Tent, watching our friends

playing—now they’re all concertmasters of big orchestras or successful soloists,” getting “kicked out of Jimmy’s when I was sixteen with a fake ID.” Asked to define the magic Aspen formula, the reason that both Festival and School have such consistent, spectacular success, she ventures, “It’s the same as it has always been. That connection between teacher and student, and that whole tight circle, between teacher and student and your colleagues. That never changes, and that’s the foundation that you need to build a career on. That whole dynamic is as true and as pure as possible. It’s about absolute integrity, the working experience . . . and friendships!” Much of that might be extended to Aspen’s wider family; its audiences, its supporters, its staff and volunteers.

Everyone is together, high up on that mountain, in that beautiful little jewel of a town. We all explore and enjoy the music, the musicians, we all find our lives enriched in those summer months, and when Sarah Chang plays her big performance of the Stravinsky Violin Concerto, her audience will explore it with her. They will learn from her, she from them, and all of us from Mr. Stravinsky. And that makes every last one of us an Aspen student.

Sarah Chang performs Stravinsky's Violin Concerto in D major with the Aspen Chamber Symphony on August 10 in the Benedict Music Tent. See her in recital in Harris Concert Hall on August 15.

ALEX IRVIN

Sarah Chang performs in the Benedict Music Tent in 2015.

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EDWARD BERKELEY ASPEN OPERA CENTER’S STAR MAKER

In Oz, there was a man behind a curtain. At Aspen’s Wheeler Opera House, there’s a man beside the curtain—more specifically, leaning against the proscenium arch. If not for his trademark bright white athletic socks, he might blend into the scenery. But to those who watch him interact with Aspen Opera Center students as they perform scenes from some of the world’s best-loved operatic works, it becomes clear that Edward Berkeley is, in fact, a man with a gift for helping rising opera stars find their voices and develop that special quality that has propelled many to starring roles in operas the world over.

ALEX IRVIN

By Kristin Cleveland

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ALEX IRVIN

Berkeley has been director of the Aspen Opera Center (AOC) at the Aspen Music Festival and School for more than thirty years, and he’s been directing operas and teaching here since the early 1980s. His first summer, he was invited to direct Albert Herring for the Festival’s opera on the recommendation of Eastman School of Music faculty who spent summers teaching at the Festival. He recalls being overwhelmed by the mountains after having spent previous summers at theater festivals in the Berkshires. “All of a sudden, I went from those mountains to the Rockies. Knowing the people from Eastman, I knew that the quality of music would be good, but none of them had quite prepared me for how beautiful the town was. Of course, at that time, it felt like a very small town.” Those early summers in Aspen, he directed just one opera each season, taught an acting or text class or two, and had the freedom and anonymity to hike and bike around the area. Today he directs and oversees the production of two fully staged operas in the historic Wheeler Opera House and coaches students in weekly public Opera Scenes Master Classes. For an artist accustomed to doing much of his work behind the scenes, he has become a recognizable figure in Aspen. That fame has come as the opera program has grown and as Festival goers have been given a glimpse of the renowned director in action as he helps AOC students find and develop the inner gifts that have propelled the careers of such Aspen alumni as Isabel Leonard, Tamara Wilson, Bryan Hymel, Jamie Barton, Craig Verm, Benjamin Bliss, and opera superstar Renée Fleming, who was a student in 1982 and 1983. “The key, for me, has been to observe people and say, ‘This is a great quality or thing about you as a singer,’” explains Berkeley. “It could be the sound itself, it could be what they do, what they have to say musically. It could be an emotional quality inside.

It could be something big, it could be something small, but I try to see them as individuals who need to be encouraged in order to bring out the best of who they are,” he says. “It’s always tricky because we have singers of so many different levels,” he admits, “and different singers need different things. I try to approach all of the

“The key, for me, has been to observe people and say, ‘This is a great quality or thing about you as a singer.’ . . . I try to see them as individuals who need to be encouraged in who they are in order to bring out the best of who they are.” singers as maybe less experienced— but imaginative—artists who simply need help in bringing out their gifts,” says Berkeley. “I try to treat them as adults, no matter what, and as people who are ready to grow.” Berkeley knows a little something about being ready to make a leap when opportunity arises.

Born in New York City, he had an interest in drama from an early age. He played clarinet and piano in high school and was involved in summer theater camps. “I was already drawn to theater as an event,” he says. As an undergraduate at Carleton College, he immersed himself in Shakespeare, religion, history, and student theater productions, directing many of them. The college didn’t have a formalized theater major at the time, but he says, “I was able— essentially as an extracurricular leap— to commit to working in theater.” After earning his bachelor’s degree in history, Berkeley went on to graduate work, including a post-graduate seminar with Tom O’Horgan, legendary director of the ground-breaking Broadway musical Hair. When he returned to New York, Berkeley landed a “survival” job as a proofreader at The New York Times and in his spare time, he and some friends started a small theater called The Shade Company. Located in a loft on Canal Street, they were committed to producing both classic and new works. “I think a lot of people were starting theater companies at that time,” he says, “and we got mostly good response quickly.” One response was terrifying. Joseph Papp, producer of The New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater in Manhattan, came to see The Shade Company’s production of A Berkeley works with the cast of the Aspen Opera Center’s 2011 production of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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Midsummer Night’s Dream—and left at intermission. “[It was] a moment of terror,” Berkeley recalls. “We didn’t know what had gone wrong.” Two days later, Papp called Berkeley and invited him to direct The Tempest at Lincoln Center. Immediately after The Tempest, Papp hired him to direct Macbeth, then Pericles at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, and more productions the following year. “I got a fast start doing theater in New York,” says Berkeley. “I went from directing in a very small house off Broadway—a small space, which I loved—to directing at Lincoln Center and other much larger spaces within six months.” That work led to shows on and off Broadway and an introduction to composer William Penn and his faculty colleagues at the Eastman School of Music—pianist Robert Spillman; director Richard Pearlman, and mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani—who asked Berkeley to direct an early American ballad opera called The Disappointment. It was his first experience with opera. At the time, they were all spending summers as artist-faculty at the Aspen Music Festival and School and asked Berkeley if he would be interested in coming to Aspen to direct an opera. Berkeley loved that first summer in the Rockies back in the early 1980s, coming back again and again. Over time, he has broadened and deepened the program. One wildly popular addition has been the Opera Scenes Master Classes. He developed the public Saturday morning classes in part to expose students to the realities of professional opera, reasoning that one of the most important things Aspen could do was to give them performance time. “Not all students get a principal role,” he points out. “I felt we could do a series of scene classes for the public that would give singers of every level the chance to get up and perform in front of [an audience]. Then I get up there and talk to them about what

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they’re doing effectively as actors,” he explains. “They go through the issues— the tension, the stage fright—of singing in front of people, which is something that they all have to get used to. And then they have to develop their ability to communicate with each other—and the audience—as singers, in an exciting, dramatic fashion.” From his perch by the proscenium, Berkeley will ask performers questions like: “What does this person want as a character? In the way that you’re singing, how can we do this better?” He makes suggestions about different ways of approaching a phrase or a movement, how they’re listening to each other or to the music, or how to use the music itself. “Then we’re able to go back and repeat the material and have it grow

the way it would in normal rehearsal.” The method has become a favorite of opera students and audiences alike, and most Saturday mornings, the Wheeler Opera House is full. He has several theories on what makes these classes so compelling. “There’s something about the tension and release of working in front of an audience that lets performers admit how terrifying it is to sing, and how scary it is not knowing how well it’s going to come out,” he says. “The tension is going to be there every time—and having an audience watching heightens it. But when [students] start to realize that [they] can do it, it sometimes frees [them] to do it better. It’s pretty exciting.” Past students have related that they

ON MENTORING Berkeley counts among his mentors the late Julius Rudel, the twentytwo-year conductor of the New York City Opera who also served as first musical director of the Kennedy Center in Washington and conducted orchestras and operas around the United States and the world. For about ten years, he conducted an opera each season at the Aspen Opera Center. “An ability Julius sustained for a hugely long and important career was a willingness to remain open to new thinking,” says Berkeley. He recalls a singer who came to rehearsal with an interpretation of a specific Mozart phrase that he could only characterize as “very strange.” “Julius looked up from the piano, where he was conducting, and said, ‘Well, that’s interesting.’ Then he turned to me and asked, ‘Did you know that was coming?’ I said, ‘No.’ “He repeated, ‘Well, that’s interesting.’ Then he turned to the singer and said, ‘I’ve never heard that before, but I think it’s good. We can do this.’” “That’s when I realized that here was someone who had been conducting for over fifty years, doing major performances everywhere, but who still remained open to inspiration from someone who had no experience—someone who just had the instinct of a musician to look at something differently. “I think that’s important both in teaching and directing for me— knowing that someone may come in who has no real experience and no real development as a performer or an artist, but they still have inspiration and imagination. You have to stay open to that all the time, because you never know where inspiration is going to come from.”

CHARLES ABBOTT

“I didn’t feel like a student when I was in Aspen. I felt like an artist.” could actually feel the moment when something changed for them on stage, and Berkeley says it almost always comes out in the way they sing—they start to sing better. “The gift I get is really from the singers themselves, not anything I do,” says Berkeley. “It’s not that I’m teaching . . . vocal technique . . . , but rather [helping them focus on] what it is they’re trying to communicate . . . . Bringing focus to that seems to free up their voices.” Tiffany Jackson—who studied at the AOC during the summers of 1990–92 while she was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan and who returned several times as a guest artist to sing roles in Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni while working on her master’s degree at Yale and as a studio artist at the Houston Grand Opera—says, “I always felt like I could be totally free and wild when I was in Aspen, no matter where I was in my development vocally.” Jackson will earn her doctorate in vocal performance from the University of Connecticut in August and now also teaches voice. “In many instances, students feel uptight and self-conscious and think too much about being vocally perfect,” she says. “[You] lose [your] creative ability because you’re trying so desperately to impress [your] superiors. “When I was younger, with a lot of directors and voice teachers and conductors, I always felt like I was at their mercy. Ed is the complete opposite of that. You didn’t know he was actually teaching you. You weren’t made to feel you were the subordinate or the student. You were equal in the creative process. Of course, he never said these things—it was his approach, his way of working. It was like an exploration as opposed to trying to get the absolute best out of the student. It really wasn’t about that. It was ‘let’s try and get the best out of one another. Let’s explore and see where it takes us.’ “Ed cared about vocal challenges, but at the same time, he wanted us to be free dramatically, to be where we could just express ourselves. Then in turn, that made the singing even better. I didn’t feel like a student when I was in Aspen; I felt like an artist.” Jackson also reveals that Berkeley would take the opera students on weekly Sunday hikes. “He would charge up the mountain and it was easy for him, but we were all dying. Ed influenced me to include fitness in my personal and performance life because of those hikes,” she says. (And she has taken it to the extreme—training annually to compete in natural body building shows. Readers may recognize her as “Necessary Diva,” the body-building opera singer who made it to the Las Vegas Round of Season 6 of America’s Got Talent.)

Edward Berkeley coaches Tiffany Jackson onstage in 1990.

“In some ways,” says Jackson, “those long hikes were a metaphor for Ed’s method of teaching. I didn’t know where I was going. I was this black girl from inner city New Haven, and I’m hiking Lost Man’s Pass somewhere in Aspen! But Ed was leading us; he knew where we were going, and everything was going to be okay.” Berkeley believes that it’s the opportunity to see that visible and sometimes dramatic change in the singers that makes the Opera Scenes Master Classes so popular with Festival audiences—so much that they’ll stop students and Berkeley on the street, often to remark on the experience of watching a singer go from simply interesting to exciting. “The audience has become, to a lovely extent, truly engaged in what goes on,” he says. “They feel very free. I try to conduct class in a way that it is relaxed and casual; not a formal event where people feel shut out. Hopefully, it’s an event where audiences as well as singers feel completely involved. It’s become our own little religious event. And hopefully, we’re stealing people from the golf course,” he adds with a chuckle. This season’s productions at the Aspen Opera Center are Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville), July 12, 14, and 16; and Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann), August 14, 16, and 18. And don’t miss the concert performance/concept presentation of Leonard Bernstein’s one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti, woven together with Charlie Chaplin’s silent film, A Dog’s Life, August 5.

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BERKELEY’S “ALL-STARS” Edward Berkeley has worked with a number of Aspen Opera Center students who, early on, possessed that special quality that propelled them to prominence in today’s opera world. Here are a few of them. “Of course, Renée Fleming is the easiest,” says Berkeley. “She was with us for two or three summers and I [worked] with her on both new pieces and standard repertoire. It was clear that [she had] an unusual sound and gift very quickly.” In her book, The Inner Voice, Fleming recalls studying in Aspen with Berkeley’s colleague Jan DeGaetani, (one of the Eastman School of Music faculty who first invited him to Aspen), and adds, “I also met Ed Berkeley, who directed me in one of the best theatrical experiences I’ve had to this day, Conrad Susa’s opera Transformations, a setting of Anne Sexton’s poetry in which I played Sexton. We spent days on end just reading and analyzing her poems.” The following summer, in 1983, Fleming was cast as the Countess in the Festival’s Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). It was in that role that Jorge Mester, then the AMFS’s music director, heard her and suggested that she audition for Juilliard’s postgraduate program, which became another important step toward her professional career. When Fleming made her professional debut at the prestigious Metropolitan Opera in 1991, it was in the same role she’d learned in Aspen, the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro. She has gone on to be unquestionably the superstar soprano of her generation. Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, winner of the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, is a more recent alumna. Berkeley first auditioned

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Barton in Houston and thought to himself immediately, “We’ve got to get her here to sing the [role of the] Witch in Hansel and Gretel.” Barton came to Aspen in 2008 and performed the role to great reviews. “She actually went on to use the aria we worked on for Hansel and Gretel for her audition at the Met and . . . she just took right off,” says Berkeley. Barton made her Metropolitan Opera debut the following year. In 2017 the Met named her the winner of the 12th annual Beverly Sills Artist Award for young singers, and she is well into the beginning of a major career, singing major operatic roles all over America and Europe. Barton returns to sing with the Aspen Festival Orchestra on August 5. Baritone Craig Verm, who just this spring stepped into the lead role of Don Giovanni for the Dallas Opera when Polish baritone Mariusz Kweicien fell ill, studied at the Aspen Opera Center several times. He sang the role of the Forester in Berkeley’s staging of Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen in 2005. “It initially wasn’t clear where he was going,” says Berkeley. “Then he returned in 2014 to sing Eugene Onegin, which was stunning.” This summer, Verm will sing the role of Sharpless in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly with the Santa Fe Opera, and in the fall, the role of Peter in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel with the Pittsburgh Opera. Tenor Ben Bliss, who sang the role of Vladimir Lensky in Eugene Onegin with Craig Verm in 2014, has gone on to win major awards and during the 2017–18 season sang the role of Ferrando in Così fan tutte at the Metropolitan Opera, Seattle Opera, and Oper Frankfurt. He returns to Aspen August 10 to perform with the Aspen Chamber Symphony.

“One of the many reasons that my work is so endlessly exciting is that you never know who is going to be in the audience or the orchestra pit, holding your fate in his hands.” —R ENÉE FLEMING The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer Other Aspen Opera Center alumni taught by Berkeley now pursuing major opera careers include Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, who returns to Aspen August 9 to reprise with Sharon Isbin the Spanish song program that has propelled their 2017 album Alma Española up the classical music charts; tenor Bryan Hymel, who will sing Raoul de Nangis in Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots with the Opéra National de Paris this fall; and Tamara Wilson, who in the past year has sung the title role in Aida with the Washington National Opera and the role of Chrysothemis in Strauss’s Elektra with the Houston Grand Opera. She returns August 19 for Wagner’s Die Walküre on Final Sunday.

Tenor Ben Bliss returns to Aspen August 10.

A MUSIC FESTIVAL USER’S GUIDE With more than 400 events, the Aspen Music Festival and School’s summer schedule can be overwhelming to look at, much less choose from. Impromptu offers some guidance for different tastes and styles for the 2018 season.

ALEX IRVIN

FOR THE NEWBIE If you are new to classical music, and/ or to the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS), try one of the following: a Sunday afternoon or Friday evening signature orchestra concert; an opera with sets, lighting—and plot intrigue—to keep your interest; or any concert with Beethoven on the program. These are all accessible entry points that offer the listener both exquisite artistry and a solid place from which to cultivate future listening experiences. A few sure things for this group in 2018: Rossini’s operatic and comedic romp The Barber of Seville on July 12, 14, or 16; the Sunday, July 15, Aspen Festival Orchestra concert with Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and pianist Daniil Trifonov playing his own concerto; the Friday, July 27 Aspen Chamber Symphony concert with Beethoven’s evocative Seventh Symphony

and Inon Barnatan playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3; and the Friday, August 17 Aspen Chamber Symphony concert with Mozart’s Requiem sung by the ensemble Seraphic Fire and a remarkable line-up of vocal soloists. TIP: Wednesday’s all-student orchestral concerts are a fraction the cost and feature some of the repertoire’s most-loved works, like Holst’s The Planets (August 1), Ravel’s Bolero (August 8), and Gershwin’s An American in Paris (August 15). ANOTHER TIP: Enjoy any concert absolutely free by sitting on the Karetsky Music Lawn surrounding the Benedict Music Tent! F OR THE CULTURALLY ADVENTUROUS Do you want your musical experience to challenge you, expand you, leave you different than when you arrived?

There are events all summer for that, too. The AMFS offers the perfect platform for artists to plumb the depths of a given composer or form, and many do. The 2018 season has three different complete cycles being performed, offering listeners a chance to examine a composer’s output up close. On July 21, violinist James Ehnes plays a recital that begins a three-year exploration of Beethoven’s complete cycle of violin sonatas. On this program are sonatas no. 3, 4, 8, and 10. On August 7, cellist Alisa Weilerstein plays all six Bach cello suites—in one night. It’s a feat that could hurt a lesser cellist, but Alisa enjoys the challenge. Finally, on August 16 and 18, pianist and Beethoven master Jonathan Biss finishes his three-year cycle exploring Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas. August 16 features the “Hammerklavier” sonata and August 18 the beloved “Pathétique.”

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There are also programs curated specifically to help the audience hear music afresh—or simply hear fresh music. Pianist Daniil Trifonov’s recital on July 10 combines works that took inspiration from Chopin along with some of Chopin’s own masterworks. Violinist Augustin Hadelich’s daring recital on July 18 offers a modern take on virtuosity with works by Stephen Hartke, Takemitsu, and Ligeti. Hadelich is passionate about these knuckle-busting, ear-expanding works—come see why. On August 2, AMFS presents a concert performance of Bernstein’s oneact opera Trouble in Tahiti, shown with Charlie Chaplin’s movie A Dog’s Life. Each piece enhances and augments the other in this special concept evening. Or, from a more intellectual angle, try the Science of Music Talks July 26, August 2, and August 9 where leading musicians, scientists, and experts explore topics like concert-hall acoustics and music and memory. COST-CONSCIOUS Looking to dabble with little-to-no risk? Try something free or inexpensive while you explore what you might love best.

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Start with the free Karetsky Music Lawn from where you can hear any concert in the Benedict Music Tent al fresco. Or, get up close for less at an orchestral dress rehearsal on Friday or Sunday mornings. They may not offer quite the full intensity of the performance, but they are great for getting a taste. The AMFS also offers dozens of free recitals with its music students, the best and brightest emerging young-adult musicians from around the world. You can find free chamber concerts nearly every day of the week. Some to try: the Spotlight Recital at Harris Concert Hall each Thursday at 2:30 pm, or the Music with a View series on the beautiful roof at the Aspen Art Museum, Tuesdays at 6 pm. INSIDER’S VIEW The AMFS is a premier concert presenter and also the country’s leading summer training program for emerging classical musicians. Every day hundreds of students and artist-faculty engage in lessons, classes, and rehearsals, sharing their musical insights with each other and honing their craft.

Audience members can get a peek at the heart of this process in master classes and competitions open to the public all summer long. Master classes, where teachers coach students individually in front of an audience, are held in Harris Concert Hall each Tuesday and Wednesday at 1 pm and 10 am, respectively, with teaching artists such as Midori and Inon Barnatan. Dozens more free master classes, on nearly every instrument, are held throughout the summer. See www.aspenmusicfestival.com or pick up a Weekly Schedule tearsheet at hotels and visitors centers around town for a full schedule.

ALEX IRVIN (TOP); ELLE LOGAN (BOTTOM)

Above: Final Sunday in the Benedict Music Tent. Right: Violinist and AMFS alumna Midori teaches a student in a Master Class.

Aspen Chronicles:

THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE AT THE ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL When people think of the Aspen Music Festival and School, their first image is often of orchestral performances under the Benedict Music Tent. However, an integral and inseparable part of the Aspen music experience is expressed in that final word. Each year, when performers from the top orchestras in the nation and the world converge in this small mountain town, they are joined by more than 600 of the most promising young musicians from all over the globe. These aspiring artists come not only to perfect their technique, but also to learn how to live and work in the world of musical performance. Impromptu magazine spoke to three of these student to get a sense of their experience.

ELLE LOGAN

Reporting by Jessica Cabe, Rosie Constantine, Christina Thomsen

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BRIANNA GARCON French Horn 17 (Summer 2017) HOMETOWN Fort Lauderdale/Cold Spring, Florida EDUCATION In 2017, Garcon had just completed her junior year at the Dillard Center for the Arts, Fort Lauderdale NUMBER OF SUMMERS IN ASPEN 1 INSTRUMENT AGE

so many things I can do on horn that I can’t do with my voice. I also love traveling and meeting and playing with so many people and learning about their lives and what brought them to music.

What is a standard lesson like? I’m working on Kopprasch (60 Etudes for Low-Horn, Op. 6 by Georg Kopprasch), to really build my basic fundamentals and for pre-screening for auditions.

Where are you living? I’m in Marolt Ranch Housing. I currently have one roommate for the full session and then another for a half session.

Which orchestras are you playing in this summer? They’re trying to rotate brass in all of them. I’m just playing keynote in every single one.

Did you experience any culture shock when you got to Aspen? It was completely different from Florida. I’ve never seen mountains before or snow because it doesn’t snow in Florida and it’s really flat. The scenery looked like a painting. I didn’t think it was real.

How many rehearsals do you have per week? It’s every day except Monday, basically. Sometimes, I’m double-booked for two orchestras!

How many lessons do you have per week? One. But I try meet up with one horn student each week to listen to my college audition pieces.

What was your most recent rehearsal like? It was really fun. I had my first solo ever at the camp. I felt nervous because all the horn players are in college, at big schools, like Northwestern or Rice or Juilliard. They said I sounded good, so I felt good.

Brianna Garcon performs with the Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra.

AMFS ARTIST-FACULTY TEACHER

David Wakefield The summer of 2017 was Brianna’s first at the Aspen Music Festival and School. She was the youngest horn player ever to attend, and as a winner of the New World Symphony’s concerto competition for high school students, she was a recipient of the Katcher Family Scholarship-New World Symphony at AMFS. Impromptu staff checked in with Brianna over the summer to learn what the first-year Aspen experience was like. Why did you initially want to study in Aspen? I wanted to be really prepared for college . . . next year. This is the best place to do it.

Why? What do you love about being a musician? I started out singing and honestly, when I play the horn, it’s so similar. But it’s better because there are

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ELLE LOGAN

Do you want a career in performance? Yes!

How is the AMFS different from other summer music programs you’ve attended? The music festival is different because it’s preparing you to get an actual job. They already expect you to play and they are trying to help you be better. Camps I’ve gone to before would stay on one piece all summer. Here, I’m playing different pieces every week, and getting literature and orchestra experience. They are really preparing me for the real world. I’m getting exposed to amazing pieces— Dvořák, Prokofiev, Mahler—at 17, and it’s amazing!

What was your final lesson of the summer like? It was really a personal lesson. We were discussing college. I recently got all my college repertoire together and I realized how many pieces I have to learn. I’m auditioning at seven schools so that’s a lot of breadth that I need to learn. I don’t know, I guess I’ve expected myself to learn all the rep before summer ends, so I have four months. Mr. Wakefield told me I needed to calm down. He listened to one of the pieces I learned in a week and said, ‘You learned that in a week; imagine four months from now!’

Can you tell us about something interesting that happened this week? I went to a dinner with New World Symphony and the person who started my scholarship, Jerry Katcher was there. I got to meet him, and he said, ‘You’re the reason why I continue to give the scholarship every year.’ You’ve been playing with the Aspen Conducting Academy (ACA) Orchestra this week; what has that been like? We’re playing Messiaen. It’s basically a huge wind ensemble piece. It’s only winds, no strings. It’s very loud. I have ear plugs because the percussion gets so loud at one point!

ELLE LOGAN

Have you had any funny experiences here? I was playing in the AFO and we were about to perform and guess who is at the performance? Renée Fleming, [pianist Inon Barnaton], and a famous supreme court justice! The fire alarm . . . literally went off right before the concert, and then we have a guy carrying the supreme court justice. She has a guy just like from Driving Miss Daisy—he’s a black guy and he was carrying her around. I thought ‘Miss Daisy in person!’ What have you enjoyed about your experience here? I met a lot of new friends, I learned a lot about music, and I got a bunch of experience with professionals. I got to play next to amazing players who helped me and taught me.

Aspen? I’ve been wanting to come to here for a really long time. Everybody kept talking about what a wonderful place it is. I think the location and the orchestras are topnotch. What do you love about being a musician? It’s really simple, honestly. I think there are moments when I listen to a concert, especially when they are my colleagues, I know the journey that they’ve been through to put on this recital. There’s something about being with emotion and balance when you’re listening to a concert. It always reminds me of why I do what I do. I like the simple feeling of listening to all the sounds and the emotion that the music envelops. I think [the social connection of playing with other musicians] really helps and I think it honestly brings true happiness when we can play with people who understand what it feels like. I feel lucky to find myself in a situation like that. Where are you living? I live off campus. I meet a lot of people through orchestra, through gigs, and just mutual friends.

MEGAN YIP Cello AGE 21 (Summer 2017) HOMETOWN Portland, Oregon EDUCATION Last summer Megan was about to start her fourth year at The Juilliard School, New York City NUMBER OF SUMMERS SPENT IN ASPEN 1 AMFS TEACHERS Richard Aaron for the first session, and Michael Mermagen for the second session (Mr. Aaron is her teacher at Juilliard) INSTRUMENT

The summer of 2017 was also Megan’s first summer in Aspen. Impromptu was able to follow her throughout the summer to learn what the Aspen Music Festival and School is like for a college-age student. Why did you initially want to study in

Other hobbies? I have a really good friend who lives in town. We often cook together or go out to eat. There are so many good places to eat in downtown Aspen. Did you experience any culture shock when you got to Aspen? This isn’t a great story, but it was a really great learning experience. It was my orchestra audition: I was so nervous—really embarrassingly nervous. I just hadn’t played in front of people I didn’t know in a really long time. But I definitely learned from it because it was a very humbling experience. I learned that I have to get over that—I just think positive. Being in an orchestra in a place like this where you’re performing so frequently helps. Which ensembles are you playing in? I’m in the Aspen Chamber Symphony (ACS). What are your rehearsals like? I really

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What’s been the most fun you’ve had so far in Aspen? I think that would probably be that first hike. We did it pretty fast and it was hard because it was uphill the whole entire way. But it was fun because it was the first non-musical thing I had done besides regular socializing. What’s the most challenging thing you’ve experienced this summer? Just trying to find the balance between being able to do everything Aspen has to offer such as hikes or ice-skating or

Megan Yip plays in downtown Aspen.

just going out, and focusing on what I’m here for, which is practice and getting ready for next year. What have some of your ACS performances been like? Friday, we played Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite [with violinist Gil Shaham and singers from the Aspen Opera Center]. I thought [the opera students] were so good at acting—they made it hilarious. Recently you played the Leshnoff Chamber Concerto for Violin and Orchestra with Gil Shaham as a soloist. What was that like? First of all, he’s so sweet. The funny thing is that the Leshnoff was probably the best I’ve ever heard him play. It was so good, maybe because it was a performance and because of the adrenaline. It was just amazing. I was watching the audience watch him and they were just completely captivated. The rehearsals [with him] were very short. It’s a very straightforward piece. He’d talk and connect with the musicians who have solos with him. There was one part where there’s a cello solo that’s all running notes while he just has whole and half notes. He said, “I might be rushing; I will adjust to you.” What was your most recent lesson like? I added a second lesson. I really do need it. I’m getting ready for auditions and orchestra excerpts. Juilliard’s doing a collaboration with the Sibelius Academy and we’re going on tour with them after Aspen. I actually have to leave two days early because of that. We’re going to Helsinki and then Sweden. We’re celebrating Finnish Independence. We’re melding American

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and Finnish culture. We’re doing a piece called, Radical Light, by Steven Stucky. Then we’re doing one of the pieces in the Sibelius Suite. I feel like it’s going to be a really cool program. Have you had any particularly interesting experiences? We rehearsed with Markus Stenz, from the Netherlands Radio Symphony. I’ve been telling everyone that he has a lot of flair. When he conducts, it’s amazing because he doesn’t use a baton. He only uses his hands, and every movement in his hands means something, musically or in terms of how he wants to phrase.

JUAN OLIVARES Clarinet 28 (Summer 2017) HOMETOWN San Juan, Puerto Rico, then Miami, and now Toronto EDUCATION Undergraduate degree from The Glenn Gould School, Toronto; master’s degree from Rice University, Houston; entering the fourth year of his DMA degree at the University of Toronto where he is about to dig into dissertation writing NUMBER OF SUMMERS IN ASPEN 5 (Olivares is returning again in 2018.) AMFS ARTIST-FACULTY TEACHERS Joaquin Valdepeñas. He’s also studied with Bil Jackson and Mike Rusinek. INSTRUMENT AGE

Juan spent his fifth summer at the

ELLE LOGAN

like ACS because it’s smaller and it’s really nice to be able to play with professionals sitting up front. Being able to listen and watch what they do is really helpful. I’m just trying to learn as much as I can.

Aspen Music Festival and School in 2017 and is returning for his sixth year in 2018. His experiences reflect the progression of a student who has gone from developing technique to developing his own unique voice.

really combine. Organizations are really trying to make the music experience more—I’m trying not to use the word “acceptable” [laughs] but [they] kind of [are]. I . . . enjoy that element too—it’s

Especially in North America, wherever you go, whether it’s a conservatory or the big money makers in New York, you can really see classical music right at the center. I found that to be very fasci-

Why did you initially want to study here? The first summer was totally by chance. I was living down in Miami. I was a high school student and I applied to the fellowship program for New World Symphony. One of the clarinet fellows took me under his wing as a private teacher. They have a concerto competition for high school students and I won. Because of that, they offered me a fellowship to come to Aspen. The fellow [I studied with] there was a student of Joaquin Valdepeñas, so it worked out that I became his student, and the rest is history. What made you want to come back? The first three years I was always attempting to get an ACA fellowship, or bass clarinet fellowship, or E-flat clarinet fellowship. Those were the first three years playing in the orchestra program while I was still in undergrad, and obviously, very obsessed with trying to make my teacher happy. Halfway through my master’s, I started a contemporary ensemble with some friends at Rice and fell in love with that exploration of music. All of a sudden, that became . . . a focus of mine when I went back to Toronto to do my doctorate. Because of that, Joaquin [Valdepeñas] recommended that I submit a tape for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble (ACE). I got in last year.

ELLE LOGAN

Do you want a career in performance? Yes. Absolutely. Why? I do want to say it’s not my only goal. It’s a big life goal, depending on what transpires from my audition and post graduation. I feel like with contemporary music, especially with the post-modern movement, there’s a lot of attention on how classical music and pop music can

Juan Olivares plays outdoors at the Aspen Music Festival and School’s Bucksbaum Campus.

like the idea of curating. I think because I’m still young and I’m just about to finish school, I’m much more focused on performance. Regardless, I will always see my life in music however it transpires. There’s no doubt about that. I don’t see myself branching off to becoming a chef all of a sudden [laughs] even though I do like that. It’s because of my obsession right now and my strong interest in curating and performing and creating a completely different kind of musical experience rather than just the same old things. What do you love about being a musician? I grew up as an improviser. I played jazz and that was my life as I first started learning how to read and play music. I was always playing in Latin bands, jazz bands while I was living in Miami. The classical music thing was—I wouldn’t call it a sidetrack. It just all of a sudden opened up my ears to a very academic way of studying music. That’s really interesting too.

nating, so I gravitated towards studying it. It’s interesting because now I have my own things that I want to do, and the performances I want to put out there are bringing back my roots in folk music and improvisation. What I love about this whole kind of perspective is that I get to work with people who are extremely trained in their instrument, which is not so common in folk music. If you have open-minded players like the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, you can really explore. I think that’s totally my passion and the direction that I would love to go. Any other hobbies? I just came back from hiking. It’s one of my favorite things to do, and just being generally outdoors. I have a dog. I use her as my excuse to get up pretty much all the time. My first year, 2007, I went and climbed as many mountains as I possibly could. I also really like cooking. I like to

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What do you enjoy about rehearsals with the composition class? We actually get to influence the way [the composers] write. Obviously, they have an idea of what they want, and they show up with a piece. We start to read it the first week, then as we continue to rehearse the pieces for the First Glimpse concert, we get to tell [the composers], “Look, this works really well, and this really doesn’t work.” That kind of collaborative process is really cool. You don’t really get to do that with Mozart. Where are you living? Do you have roommates? I’m living down in Woody Creek. I have a host family that has a small cabin out next to their place. It’s

really nice to wake up and only see nature. There are no cars, no people, just a lot of grass and mountains. How is the AMFS different from other summer music programs you’ve attended? There’s a lot more freedom in Aspen than in some other programs

your role—you have your personality and you want to make sure that you know how to fit that kind of personality with other players and with the conductor-musician relationship. Joaquin has been such an all-around influence for me. Our lessons this year

“[In Aspen Contemporary Ensemble] we actually get to influence the way [the composers] write. . . . You don’t really get to do that with Mozart.” where it’s totally curated, and you don’t really have a choice to do your own kinds of projects. Obviously, the repertoire is chosen for ACE, but I only have commitments 9 am to noon every day, so the rest of the day I can teach, I can practice my own music. I still play a lot of improvised music. I’m trying to put together a little group. What are your lessons like? Well, Joaquin is like my musical father. He’s known me since I was eighteen and he’s been my biggest influence in terms of how to interpret music, how to find

Juan Olivares (right) plays with artist-faculty member James Dunham (left), accompanied by piano student Tengku Irfan during an Aspen Contemporary Ensemble performance in 2016.

have been more like check-ups rather than hardcore lessons. He knows my playing so well that I feel he spends less time teaching me and more time philosophizing with me, finding new ways of approaching things, and just talking about how I’m going to look at new music specifically. They’re a little like technique talks. How have things changed since your first year? Well, there was a different campus, that’s a huge difference! I was here when the Aspen Conducting Academy would rehearse in a barn. [We] would try and sneak in to watch but it was impossible, [because] we would have to slide this enormous door that would creak, so you would have to look through the cracks to watch. Also, I have a very different life now. I have a dog. My wife is coming into town. I have a car. I have a life outside of the Music Festival while it is still going on. That makes a huge difference. It’s cool to experience the city in a completely different place in my life than when I was 18, . . . not allowed to go out, biking around everywhere; whereas this time, I’m exploring more than just Aspen. It’s an amazing part of the Rockies. The Aspen Contemporary Ensemble performs Saturdays at 4:30 pm in Harris Concert Hall.

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ELLE LOGAN

explore all different kinds of cuisine and I’m a huge fan of Chef’s Table on Netflix. I would pretty much say if I didn’t play music . . . I would definitely be a chef. When you can get a whole bunch of people in one place and make some food for them—it’s the best feeling because everybody’s happy, everybody’s excited to eat . . . . It’s just like music. If you can get some good music happening, you can get a large group of people very happy.

2019 WINTER MUSIC January–March

Join us in Harris Concert Hall for the 2019 Winter Music Recital Series. And don’t miss The Met: Live in HD at the Wheeler Opera House.

Tuesday, January 29 YEFIM BRONFMAN piano Wednesday, February 7 JENNIFER KOH violin

Early Bird Special is just $120 for all three concerts!*

Thursday, February 28 MARC-ANDRÉ HAMELIN piano

970 925 9042 www.aspenmusicfestival.com *Early Bird Special on sale in the Fall through November 1, 2018.

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ABRIDGED CALENDAR 2018 ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL SEASON JUNE 28–AUGUST 19

The AMFS offers up to fifteen events a day—many free!—including concerts, operas, lectures, family events, public master classes, guided tours, and more. For a full listing of events, visit www.aspenmusicfestival.com, or pick up a weekly printed schedule available at hotels and visitor centers around Aspen.

Georgia on my Mind: A Tribute to Ray Charles Benedict Music Tent 8:30, $375 with on-site dinner, $90, $60 Presented in association with Jazz Aspen Snowmass SUNDAY, JULY 1

Aspen Festival Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 4 pm, $85 Robert Spano conductor, Jonathan Biss piano Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, op. 15 — SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 7 in C major, op. 60, “Leningrad”

Violinist Gil Shaham

THURSDAY, JUNE 28

A Recital by the Jupiter String Quartet Harris Concert Hall 7 pm, $55 Featuring works by Schumann, Kati Agócs, and Beethoven. FRIDAY, JUNE 29

Aspen Chamber Symphony Benedict Music Tent 6 pm, $82 Hugh Wolff conductor, Conrad Tao piano BERNSTEIN: Three Dance Episodes from On the Town

SCHUMANN: Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 54 — Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor, op. 67 SATURDAY, JUNE 30

Opera Scenes Master Class Wheeler Opera House 10 am, $40 Edward Berkeley director Chamber Music Harris Concert Hall 4:30 pm, $45

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Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 4 pm, free Featuring works by Bernstein and Brahms. A Recital by Susanna Phillips soprano Harris Concert Hall 7:30 am, $60 Myra Huang piano Featuring works by Barber, Schumann, Wolf, and Libby Larson WEDNESDAY, JULY 4

Fourth of July Concert Benedict Music Tent 4 pm, free The annual free Fourth of July celebration brings the AMFS band to the Tent stage with stirring patriotic favorites.

MONDAY, JULY 2

THURSDAY, JULY 5

Guided Tour of the Bucksbaum Campus Bucksbaum Campus 10:15 am, free

Piano Master Class Harris Concert Hall 10 am, $25 Yoheved Kaplinsky

Chamber Music Harris Concert Hall 6 pm, $45 Chamber music gems played by the AMFS’s brilliant artist-faculty.

Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 6 pm, $25 Hugh Wolff conductor, Aubree Oliverson violin Featuring works by Debussy, Prokofiev, and Brahms.

A Recital by the Escher String Quartet Harris Concert Hall 8 pm, $55 Featuring works by Schubert, Ravel, and Schoenberg. TUESDAY, JULY 3

Harris Concert Hall Master Class Harris Concert Hall 1 pm, $25 Richard Aaron cello

A Recital by the JCT Trio Harris Concert Hall 8:30 pm, $60 Stefan Jackiw violin, Jay Campbell cello, Conrad Tao piano Featuring works by Christopher Trapani, Ives, and Ravel. FRIDAY, JULY 6

Aspen Chamber Symphony Benedict Music Tent

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Chamber music gems played by the AMFS’s brilliant artist-faculty.

10 am, $82 Nicholas McGegan conductor, Ray Chen violin MOZART: Symphony No. 31 in D major, K. 219 — IBERT: Hommage à Mozart BIZET: Symphony No. 1 in C major SATURDAY, JULY 7

Opera Scenes Master Class Wheeler Opera House 10 am, $40 Edward Berkeley director, Aspen Opera Center artist-faculty Music on the Mountain Top of Aspen Mountain (gondola ticket or hike required) 1 pm, free Chamber Music Harris Concert Hall 4:30 pm, $45 Chamber music gems played by the AMFS’s brilliant artist-faculty. A Recital by Arnaud Sussmann violin, Paul Neubauer viola, David Finckel cello, and Wu Han piano Harris Concert Hall 8 pm, $65 Featuring the works of Beethoven and Brahms. SUNDAY, JULY 8

Aspen Festival Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 4 pm, $85 David Robertson conductor, Stefan Jackiw violin, Joaquin Valdepeñas clarinet, Per Hannevold bassoon ANDREW NORMAN: Play: Level 1 KORNGOLD: Violin Concerto in D major, op. 35 — R. STRAUSS: Duet-Concertino RAVEL: La valse An Evening of Organ Works Aspen Community Church 7 pm, free Gail Archer organ Presented in association with the Aspen Community Church MONDAY, JULY 9

Gotta Move!

Meadows Hospitality Tent 10:30 am, free Chamber Music Benedict Music Tent 6 pm, $45 Chamber music gems played by the AMFS’s brilliant artist-faculty.

Featuring the late Beethoven opuses. THURSDAY, JULY 12

Tunes and Tales Pitkin County Library 10:30 am, free, for ages 9 and under with an adult

Finckel-Wu Han Chamber Music Studio Recital Harris Concert Hall 8 pm, free

Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia Wheeler Opera House 7 pm, $75/$25 Christopher Allen conductor, Edward Berkeley director

TUESDAY, JULY 10

A Baroque Evening with Nicholas McGegan Harris Concert Hall 8 pm, $55 Nicholas McGegan conductor, Simone Porter violin Featuring works by Rameau, Leclair, Vivaldi, and Telemann.

Harris Concert Hall Master Class Harris Concert Hall 1 pm, $25 Masao Kawasaki violin Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 4 pm, free Featuring works by Eric Nathan, Mozart, and Sibelius. Music with a View Aspen Art Museum 6 pm, free Special Event: A Recital by Daniil Trifonov piano Harris Concert Hall 7:30 pm, $75 Featuring works by Mompou, Schumann, Grieg, Barber, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Chopin. WEDNESDAY, JULY 11

Piano Master Class Harris Concert Hall 10 am, $25 Arie Vardi High Notes Paepcke Auditorium 12 pm, free Speakers: Alan Fletcher, Daniil Trifonov, and Stephen Hartke Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 6 pm, $25 Ludovic Morlot conductor, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet piano Featuring works by Debussy, Ravel, and Prokofiev. Special Event: A Recital by the Emerson String Quartet Harris Concert Hall 8:30 pm, $75

8 pm, $55 Featuring works by Steve Reich, Stravinsky, J.S. Bach/Liszt, Ravel, and Paul Schoenfield SUNDAY, JULY 15

Aspen Festival Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 4 pm, $85 Ludovic Morlot conductor, Daniil Trifonov piano, Voices of Aspen Opera Center, Sun Mi Shin soprano, Gloria Palermo mezzo-soprano DEBUSSY: La demoiselle élue (The Blessed Damozel) DANIIL TRIFONOV: Piano Concerto in E-flat minor — MUSORGSKY/RAVEL: Pictures at an Exhibition MONDAY, JULY 16

FRIDAY, JULY 13

Guided Tour of the Bucksbaum Campus Bucksbaum Campus 10:15 am, free

Aspen Chamber Symphony Benedict Music Tent 6 pm, $82 Robert Spano conductor, JeanYves Thibaudet piano BERNSTEIN: Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety, after W.H. Auden — BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, op. 55, “Eroica”

Chamber Music Harris Concert Hall 6 pm, $45 Chamber music gems played by the AMFS’s brilliant artist-faculty. Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia Wheeler Opera House Christopher Allen conductor, Edward Berkeley director Opera Benefit Gala: 5 pm, $1000 Opera Only: 8 pm, $75/$25 For more information and to purchase Gala tickets, call Darian Oliva at 970 205 5063.

SATURDAY, JULY 14

Opera Scenes Master Class Wheeler Opera House 10 am, $40 Edward Berkeley director, Aspen Opera Center artist-faculty

TUESDAY, JULY 17

Music on the Mountain Top of Aspen Mountain (gondola ticket or hike required) 1 pm, free Chamber Music Harris Concert Hall 4:30 pm, $45 Chamber music gems played by the AMFS’s brilliant artist-faculty Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia Wheeler Opera House 7 pm, $75/$25 Christopher Allen conductor, Edward Berkeley director A Recital by Orli Shaham piano Harris Concert Hall

Harris Concert Hall Master Class Harris Concert Hall 1 pm, $25 Lawrence Power viola Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 4 pm, free Featuring works by Debussy and Beethoven. Music with a View Aspen Art Museum 6 pm, free A Recital by Daniel Hope violin Harris Concert Hall

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7:30 pm, $60 Featuring works by Shostakovich/Barshai, Satie/ Debussy, and Alan Fletcher WEDNESDAY, JULY 18

Piano Master Class Harris Concert Hall 10 am, $25 Hung-Kuan Chen High Notes Christ Episcopal Church 12 pm, free Speakers: Alan Fletcher, Alexander Shelley, and Lawrence Power Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 6 pm, $25 Federico Cortese conductor, Jessica Rivera soprano Featuring works by Gabriela Lena Frank, Stravinsky, and Saint-Saëns. A Recital by Augustin Hadelich violin Harris Concert Hall 8:30 pm, $60 David Robertson conductor, Conor Hanick piano Featuring works by Francisco Coll, Stephen Hartke, Takemitsu, and Ligeti. THURSDAY, JULY 19

Tunes and Tales Pitkin County Library 10:30 am, free A Recital by the American Brass Quintet Harris Concert Hall 8 pm, $55 Program to include works by Holborne, Dan Coleman, Philip Lasser, John Zorn, and David Sampson. FRIDAY, JULY 20

Aspen Chamber Symphony Benedict Music Tent 6 pm, $82 Alexander Shelley conductor, Lawrence Power viola BARTÓK: Romanian Folk Dances, BB 76 ESA-PEKKA SALONEN: Pentatonic Étude BARTÓK: Viola Concerto, BB 128 —

SCHUMANN: Symphony No. 2 in C major, op. 61 SATURDAY, JULY 21

Opera Scenes Master Class Wheeler Opera House 10 am, $40 Edward Berkeley director, Aspen Opera Center artist-faculty Music on the Mountain Top of Aspen Mountain (gondola ticket or hike required) 1 pm, free Chamber Music Harris Concert Hall 4:30 pm, $45 Chamber music gems played by the AMFS’s brilliant artist-faculty. A Recital by James Ehnes violin Harris Concert Hall 8 pm, $65 Andrew Armstrong piano Featuring several Beethoven sonatas. SUNDAY, JULY 22

Aspen Festival Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 4 pm, $85 Christian Arming conductor, Augustin Hadelich violin, Joshua Roman cello ANDERS HILLBORG: Homage to Stravinsky (US Premiere) MENDELSSOHN: Violin Concerto in E minor, op. 64 — R. STRAUSS: Don Quixote, Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character, op. 35 MONDAY, JULY 23

Guided Tour of the Bucksbaum Campus Bucksbaum Campus 10:15 pm, free

TUESDAY, JULY 24

Tunes and Tales Basalt Regional Library 10:30 am, free Harris Concert Hall Master Class Harris Concert Hall 1 pm, $25 Robert Lipsett violin Music with a View Aspen Art Museum 6 pm, free A Recital by the Pacifica Quartet Harris Concert Hall 7:30 pm, $55 David Coucheron violin, Inon Barnatan piano Featuring works by Beethoven, Bartók, and Chausson. WEDNESDAY, JULY 25

Piano Master Class Harris Concert Hall 10 am, $25 Inon Barnatan High Notes Paepcke Auditorium 12 pm, free Speakers: Alan Fletcher, Inon Barnatan, Golda Schultz Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 6 pm, $25 Kerem Hasan conductor Featuring works by Stravinsky and Shostakovich. A Recital by the Z.E.N. Trio Harris Concert Hall 8:30 pm, $55 Esther Yoo violin, Narek Hakhnazaryan cello, Zhang Zui piano Featuring works by Haydn, Mendelssohn, and Dvořák. THURSDAY, JULY 26

Gotta Move! Meadows Hospitality Tent 10:30 am, free

Tunes and Tales Pitkin County Library 10:30 am, free

Chamber Music Harris Concert Hall 6 pm, $45 Chamber music gems played by the AMFS’s brilliant artist-faculty.

The Science of Music: Concert Hall Acoustics Aspen Community Church 5 pm, $25 Speakers: Alan Fletcher, Larry Kirkegaard, Carl Giegold, Harry Teague

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A Recital by Behzod Abduraimov piano Harris Concert Hall 8 pm, $55 Featuring works by Wagner, Liszt, and Prokofiev. FRIDAY, JULY 27

Aspen Chamber Symphony Benedict Music Tent 6 pm, $82 Vasily Petrenko conductor, Golda Schultz soprano, Inon Barnatan piano CANTELOUBE: Selected songs from Chants d’Auvergne BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, op. 37 — MOZART: Ch’io mi scordi di te … Non temer, amato bene, K. 505 BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 7 in A major, op. 92 SATURDAY, JULY 28

Opera Scenes Master Class Wheeler Opera House 10 am, $40 Jane Glover conductor, Edward Berkeley director, Aspen Opera Center artist-faculty Music on the Mountain Top of Aspen Mountain (gondola ticket or hike required) 1 pm, free Chamber Music Harris Concert Hall 4:30 pm, $45 Chamber music gems played by the AMFS’s brilliant artist-faculty. A Recital by Robert McDuffie violin Harris Concert Hall 8 pm, $65 Featuring works by Prokofiev, D’indy, and Philip Glass. SUNDAY, JULY 29

Aspen Festival Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 4 pm, $85 Robert Spano conductor, Behzod Abduraimov piano SEBASTIAN FAGERLUND: Isola CHRISTOPHER THEOFANIDIS: Symphony No. 1 —

TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, op. 23 MONDAY, JULY 30

Guided Tour of the Bucksbaum Campus Bucksbaum Campus 10:15 am, free Chamber Music Harris Concert Hall 6 pm, $45 Chamber music gems played by the AMFS’s brilliant artist-faculty. Special Event: Walt Disney Animation Studios: “A Decade in Concert” Benedict Music Tent 8 pm, $75/$50/$25 The AMFS presents the world premiere of a new Disney presentation! Experience the most iconic musical moments from your favorite Walt Disney Animation Studios films released over the last decade. This melodic journey explores Disney Animation’s latest stories, including Frozen, Moana, Tangled, and more, through unforgettable film clips and scores performed live by a symphony orchestra. Conducted by Richard Kaufman. TUESDAY, JULY 31

Tunes and Tales Basalt Regional Library 10:30 am, free Harris Concert Hall Master Class Harris Concert Hall 1 pm, $25 Midori violin Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 4 pm, free Featuring works by Stravinsky and Ravel. Music with a View Aspen Art Museum 6 pm, free A Recital by Alisa Weilerstein cello Harris Concert Hall 7:30 pm, $65 A recital of six Bach suites.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1

Piano Master Class Harris Concert Hall 10 am, $25 Anton Nel High Notes Paepcke Auditorium 12 pm, free Speakers: Alan Fletcher, Jamie Barton, Richard Smagur Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 6 pm, $25 Robert Spano conductor, Garrick Ohlsson piano Featuring works by Mozart and Holst. A Recital by American String Quartet Harris Concert Hall 8:30 pm, $65 James Dunham viola, Michael Mermagen cello Featuring works by Debussy, Shostakovich, and Brahms. THURSDAY, AUGUST 2

Tunes and Tales Pitkin County Library 10:30 am, free The Science of Music: Music and Memory Aspen Community Church 5 pm, $25 Speakers: Alan Fletcher, Bruce Adolphe, Antonio Damasio What a Movie!: Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti (concert performance) Harris Concert Hall 8 pm, $50 Scott Terrell conductor, Aspen Opera Center singers FRIDAY, AUGUST 3

Aspen Chamber Symphony Benedict Music Tent 6 pm, $82 Jane Glover conductor, Alisa Weilerstein cello TCHAIKOVSKY/STRAVINSKY: Bluebird Pas-de-deux from The Sleeping Beauty TCHAIKOVSKY: Variations on a Rococo Theme, op. 33 — HAYDN: Symphony No. 85 in B-flat, Hob. I/85, “The Queen”

TCHAIKOVSKY: Suite No. 4 in G major, op. 61, “Mozartiana”

Jonathan Haas conductor, Nadine Asin flute

SATURDAY, AUGUST 4

TUESDAY, AUGUST 7

Opera Scenes Master Class Wheeler Opera House 10 am, $40 Federico Cortese director, Edward Berkeley director, Aspen Opera Center artist-faculty

Tunes and Tales Basalt Regional Library 10:30 am, free Harris Concert Hall Master Class Harris Concert Hall 1 pm, $25 Robert McDuffie violin

Music on the Mountain Top of Aspen Mountain (gondola ticket or hike required) 1 pm, free

Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 4 pm, free Featuring works by Schoenberg and Tchaikovsky.

Chamber Music Harris Concert Hall 4:30 pm, $45 Chamber music gems played by the AMFS’s brilliant artist-faculty.

Music with a View Aspen Art Museum 6 pm, free

A Recital by Gil Shaham violin and Robert Spano piano Harris Concert Hall 8 pm, $65 Featuring works by Bach, Debussy, and Brahms.

A Recital by Hung-Kuan Chen piano Harris Concert Hall 7:30 pm, $55 Featuring works by Brahms and Beethoven.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 5

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8

Aspen Festival Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 4 pm, $90 Patrick Summers conductor, Midori violin, Jamie Barton alto, Richard Smagur tenor BERNSTEIN: Serenade, after Plato’s Symposium — MAHLER: Das Lied von der Erde

Piano Master Class Harris Concert Hall 10 am, $25 Fabio Bidini

MONDAY, AUGUST 6

Guided Tour of the Bucksbaum Campus Bucksbaum Campus 10:15 am, free Gotta Move! Meadows Hospitality Tent 10:30 am, free Season Benefit: A Parisian Feast of Music Hurst Hall, Bucksbaum Campus 6 pm For more information and to purchase tickets, call Darian Oliva at 970 205 5063. Percussion Ensemble Harris Concert Hall 6 pm, $25

High Notes Paepcke Auditorium 12 pm, free Speakers: Alan Fletcher, Joyce Yang Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 6 pm, $25 Jun Märkl conductor, Simon Trpčeski piano Featuring works by Falla, Rachmaninoff, and Ravel. A Recital by Misha Dichter piano and Cipa Dichter piano Harris Concert Hall 8:30 pm, $60 Featuring works by Schubert, Mozart/Grieg, Copland/ Bernstein, and Ravel. THURSDAY, AUGUST 9

Tunes and Tales Pitkin County Library 10:30 pm, free

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The Science of Music: Percussion Instruments Aspen Community Church 5 pm, $25 Speakers: Alan Fletcher, Cynthia Yeh A Recital by Sharon Isbin guitar, and Isabel Leonard mezzo-soprano Harris Concert Hall 8 pm, $65 Featuring works by Tárrega, García Lorca, Rodrigo, Montsalvatge, Albéniz, Segovia, Llobet, and Pujol. FRIDAY, AUGUST 10

Aspen Chamber Symphony Benedict Music Tent 6 pm, $82 Johannes Debus conductor, Ben Bliss tenor, Sarah Chang violin BRITTEN: Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, op. 31 STRAVINSKY: Violin Concerto in D major — R. STRAUSS: Le bourgeois gentilhomme, op. 60 Special Event: An Evening with Joyce Yang piano and Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Aspen District Theater 8 pm, $36-94 Joyce Yang piano, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Tom Mossbrucker ASFB artistic director Note: Tickets on sale through Aspen Show Tix SATURDAY, AUGUST 11

Special Event: An Evening with Joyce Yang piano and Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Aspen District Theater 8 pm, $36-94 Joyce Yang piano, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Tom Mossbrucker ASFB artistic director Note: Tickets on sale through Aspen Show Tix

George Manahan conductor, Edward Berkeley director

SUNDAY, AUGUST 12

Piano Master Class Harris Concert Hall 10 am, $25 Julian Martin

Aspen Festival Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 4 pm, $85 Jun Märkl conductor, Vladimir Feltsman piano GRIEG: Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, op. 46 Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 16 — RAVEL: Un barque sur l’océan DEBUSSY: La mer MONDAY, AUGUST 13

Guided Tour of the Bucksbaum Campus Bucksbaum Campus 10:15 am, free Chamber Music Harris Concert Hall 6 pm, $45 Chamber music gems played by the AMFS’s brilliant artist-faculty. TUESDAY, AUGUST 14

Tunes and Tales Basalt Regional Library 10:30 am, free Harris Concert Hall Master Class Harris Concert Hall 1 pm, $25 Nancy Allen harp Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 4 pm, free Featuring works by Mozart and Mahler. Music with a View Aspen Art Museum 6 pm, free Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann Wheeler Opera House 7 pm, $50/$25

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A Recital by Lise de la Salle piano Harris Concert Hall 7:30 pm, $55 Featuring works by Mozart, Fauré, and Prokofiev. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15

High Notes Paepcke Auditorium 12 pm, free Speakers: Alan Fletcher, Patrick Dupré Quigley, and Lise de la Salle Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 6 pm, $25 Patrick Summers conductor Featuring works by Chopin, Krists Auznieks, and Gershwin. Special Event: A Recital by Sarah Chang violin Harris Concert Hall 8:30 pm, $75 William Kunhardt conductor, Katherine Woo violin Featuring works by Tchaikovsky, Wagner, and J.S. Bach. THURSDAY, AUGUST 16

Family Concert Harris Concert Hall 5 pm, free SAINT-SAËNS: The Carnival of the Animals Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann Wheeler Opera House 7 pm, $50/$25 George Manahan conductor, Edward Berkeley director Jonathan Biss Plays Beethoven Sonatas VI Harris Concert Hall 8 pm, $65 FRIDAY, AUGUST 17

Aspen Chamber Symphony Benedict Music Tent 6 pm, $87 Xian Zhang conductor, Lise de la Salle piano, Seraphic Fire

RAVEL: Piano Concerto in G major — MOZART: Requiem in D minor, K. 626 SATURDAY, AUGUST 18

Opera Scenes Master Class Wheeler Opera House 10 am, $40 Edward Berkeley director, Aspen Opera Center artist-faculty Chamber Music Harris Concert Hall 4:30 pm, $45 Chamber music gems played by the AMFS’s brilliant artist-faculty. Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann Wheeler Opera House 7 pm, $50/$25 George Manahan conductor, Edward Berkeley director Jonathan Biss Plays Beethoven Sonatas VII Harris Concert Hall 8 pm, $65 SUNDAY, AUGUST 19

Aspen Festival Orchestra Benedict Music Tent 4 pm, $90 Robert Spano conductor, Tamara Wilson soprano, Ryan McKinny bass-baritone WAGNER: Selected scenes from Die Walküre — BERLIOZ: Symphonie fantastique, op. 14 MONDAY, AUGUST 20

This is Seraphic Fire Harris Concert Hall 7:30 pm, $25 Seraphic Fire, Patrick Dupré Quigley conductor WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22

A Recital by Seraphic Fire and Seraphic Fire Professional Choral Institute Singers Harris Concert Hall 7:30 pm, $25 Seraphic Fire, Seraphic Fire Professional Choral Institute Singers, Patrick Dupré Quigley conductor

FACULTY FOCUS DEFINING SUCCESS

It’s easy to sit in an audience, watch dazzling guest artists perform on stage, and call it success. It might be true, but it’s not the whole story. “Success” means something different to everyone who strives for it, and success in music reaches far beyond the stage. By Christina Thomsen

AMFS artist-faculty member Masao Kawasaki works with a student during a master class in Harris Concert Hall.

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“Individuals define success for themselves,” says Raymond Mase, Aspen Music Festival and School artist-faculty member.

What does it mean to have a "successful" life in music? It’s a question grappled with by each of the thousands of music students that graduate each year and face the daunting odds of landing a full-time orchestral job or career as a touring soloist. But are those the only paths to a fulfilling life in music? Composer (and AMFS President and CEO) Alan Fletcher says that rather than defining success as a certain career achievement or award, instead “success is in the process of working at music.” For Fletcher, that means working with music every day. Whether it’s planning an AMFS season, hiring a teacher, listening to someone’s rehearsal, or writing music, “all of those things, to me, are meaningful engagement every single day.” Longtime AMFS artist-faculty member Masao Kawasaki teaches violin and viola to students at the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, The Juilliard School, and the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. Says Kawasaki, “In my experience,

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everybody has a different goal and I don’t see one as more successful than the others.” Not only do people have different goals for success, but “Individuals define success for themselves,” says Raymond Mase, AMFS artist-faculty member, principal trumpeter of the New York City Ballet Orchestra, and chair of the Brass Department at The Juilliard School. He elaborates, “For some, it’s artistic freedom and creativity. For some, it’s more fame and fortune. For some, it’s certainly a combination of a lot of different things.” Every music student knows that there are only a small number of spots available each year for orchestra positions. Not every student who wants to can tour the world as a soloist or chamber musician. When it comes to his students, Mase says he wants them to be prepared. “I want them to dream. I don’t want to tell an eighteen-year-old student that they’re not going to achieve what they’re setting out to do. At the same

time, I think they need to know the realities of the field, the difficulties that they might encounter.” Mase says he’s seen plenty of people who thought they knew exactly what they wanted to pursue and exactly what it would be, but often those goals were based on what others called the right path to success. “I find it’s really easy for my students to get caught up in seeing how others have defined success. They need to take a careful look at what’s going to be important to them down the road,” he says. This is true for Mase who knew he wanted to play the trumpet professionally after high school but wasn’t focused on a particular genre or career. “No one was forcing me to define what I wanted at that point. I think that was a good thing for me when I got to college.” Mase says that the freedom of not being tied to a single idea of success is what helped him follow his instincts and grab the opportunities that best suited his own connection to music and goals in life. “What I wanted

ALEX IRVIN

AMFS artist-faculty member Ray Mase (left) with a student.

to do with my life was just different than what other people wanted to do, but I’d better go after what I wanted to go after, or I was never going to have any happiness.” One of those opportunities led to performing worldwide as a member of the American Brass Quintet from 1973 to 2013, premiering new brass works and contributing new brass works to the ABQ library. “Success comes in many different forms because we all have different things we enjoy,” echoes Kawasaki. Some of his students go for a career in solo performance, others want to be in ensembles like orchestra or chamber music. Some students enjoy teaching or publishing music, or at some point they start to think about music administration and arts management where they can help musicians in a different way. Kawasaki says his job is to guide his students to the starting line. He wants them to “develop their skill and noise together so when the time comes, any direction they go, they can choose.” He believes that by giving his students the

right foundation, they will have more options and can follow their interests. Fletcher knows very well the diverse—and often unexpected—paths music can take you. His former students include full-time composers, the artistic administrator of a major symphony, a respected Drum Corps director, a world-famous a cappella director, a professional skydiving instructor, and a high-tech designer for Apple. “At a certain point for every student, I say, ‘Is this really what you want to be doing?’” Fletcher explains that often, students have a preconceived notion of what great music is or what genres and traditions are important. They have a view of what music should be which may not line up with their individual passions. His students are surprised when Fletcher tells them, “You must write the music you want to write. Let’s work on that, that which you love.” The skills learned through music education extend beyond the technical aspects of playing an instrument or composing a piece. Studying music gives students the skills of discipline,

focus, the ability to work alone and in groups, and the ability to listen. Most of all, Fletcher says, students learn self-motivation. In music, “No one will make it possible for you to write music except yourself and life will pull you away from it in a million directions. Only you can be responsible for sticking to it.” Self-motivation only comes from wanting something enough to work for it every day, despite the obstacles. The ideas of hard work and determination, taught through music, are valued in any field students may find themselves. “There are people with wonderful talent and natural ability,” says Mase, “but everybody pays their dues, everyone works hard to get where they are. There are no shortcuts.” Mase hopes that he is teaching his students more than just the correct techniques, “I know I have a specific job to teach music and the trumpet, but I’d like to think it goes deeper,” he says. “It means a lot to me when I see former students and they say, ‘What I learned from you meant a lot and really helped me in all walks of life.’”

ALEX IRVIN

Alan Fletcher, AMFS president and CEO (third from right), listens intently to a new work by a student composer with Robert Spano, AMFS music director (second from right).

IMPROMPTU SUMMER 2018

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT Each year, more than six hundred elite young musicians make their way to Aspen for an unparalleled summer of music education and performance. Get to know the multi-talented violinist Katherine Woo, one of this season’s exceptional talents, before seeing her step into the spotlight in Aspen this summer.

When Katherine Woo steps on stage this summer, it will be a return for her— on several levels. This is the nineteenyear-old violinist’s fifth summer at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Last year, as the winner of the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) Violin Competition, she earned the opportunity to perform as a soloist with the Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra. This summer she’s been invited to join AMFS alumna and star violinist Sarah Chang in a performance of Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D minor on August 15 in Harris Concert Hall. The summer also marks a return, of sorts, to music for Woo. She recently completed her sophomore year at the Columbia-Juilliard Program, where she has been double majoring in pre-med at Columbia University and music at the Juilliard School. After two years of juggling Neuroscience and Behavior with practice and lessons (and twenty-minute train rides in between), Woo found herself at a fork in the road. Down one path was medicine, a solid career and secure future. Down the other was music—and her passion. This wasn’t the first time Woo has had to make a musical choice. She began studying piano with her mother, who is a pianist, at age six, and a year later began playing the violin. Woo studied both instruments until her

IMPROMPTU SUMMER 2018

sophomore year at Riverside High School in Greer, South Carolina, when she chose to focus on the violin. That decision coincided with the realization that she needed more advanced instruction. She auditioned for Juilliard’s Pre-College program, a weekly, all-day Saturday program in New York City. “When I was little, going to Juilliard was always my dream,” she says. She auditioned for Masao Kawasaki (her teacher at Juilliard and one of her teachers at AMFS). She was accepted and starting sophomore year, Woo and her father, an IT programmer analyst, commuted by bus every weekend. “We left every Friday afternoon right after school and arrived in New York early Saturday morning, stayed for classes all day, then left New York Saturday night and got back Sunday morning,” she says. “We did that every weekend until the end of my senior year.” On the bus rides, she did school work. “Fortunately, I don’t get car sick!” she says with a laugh. That busy schedule certainly prepared her for the rigors of a double major, but Woo says as she looked ahead to the typical summer research internship for a rising third-year premed student, she asked herself, “Do I really want to give up music for the rest of my life? Do I really want to go to med school and become a doctor?”

Reflecting on her first two years of college, she realized something was missing. “Freshman year, I was practicing about once a week. If I had my lessons on Friday, I would finish my homework Thursday night, then go to a practice room—literally at 1 am—and practice for an hour or two. Sophomore year, when I got really, really busy, sometimes I canceled my lessons. “It basically wasn't sustainable. I had to choose either music or academics and go with it." And when it came down to it, the choice wasn't hard. “I realized that I missed music a lot more than I thought I would.” She adds, “and if I was feeling this way already, [it was better now] than later, after I finish med school and I’m in a bunch of debt! That’s when I decided.” This summer she’ll have to arrive in Aspen with some homework completed—relearning the Bach Concerto for Two Violins which she will play with Chang. There’s a little serendipity about returning to a work she learned as a young Suzuki student, this time with Chang, who was herself a student at the AMFS, starting at age six. And is she excited? Well, when Asadour Santourian, AMFS’s artistic advisor and vice president for artistic administration, invited her to play with Chang, Woo says, “Honestly? I was screaming.”

AUBREE DALLAS

By Kristin Cleveland

DON’T MISS SPECTACULAR

OPERA

THIS SUMMER!

FULLY STAGED OPERAS

CONCERT PERFORMANCE

Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia

What a Movie!: Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti*

JULY 12, 14, 16 | WHEELER OPERA HOUSE One of the world’s most popular comic operas, full of disguises and clever misdirection, this Rossini masterpiece boasts some of opera’s most recognizable characters.

Offenbach’s Les contes de’Hoffmann*

AUGUST 2 | HARRIS CONCERT HALL Aspen Opera Center singers serve up the jazzy tunes of Bernstein’s one-act opera about 1950s domestic turmoil. Paired with Charlie Chaplin silent films. Concert performance.

ELLE LOGAN

AUGUST 14, 16, 18 | WHEELER OPERA HOUSE An eccentric writer’s fanciful stories of failed love take center stage in this darkly comedic opera fantastique. Offenbach’s journey through lost love creates a combination of emotional depth and musical brilliance. ABOVE THE ASPEN OPERA CENTER’S 2017 PRODUCTION OF MOZART’S LA CLEMENZA DI TITO.

*Open to passholders

For more information, see the abridged calendar on page 30, or visit www.aspenmusicfestival.com.

IMPROMPTU SUMMER 2018

ALEX IRVIN

Impromptu Magazine Summer 2018

Articles inside

EDWARD BERKELEY: Aspen Opera Center’s Star Maker