Four world-class soloists join forces for adventurous recital

Four world-class soloists join forces for adventurous recital

Jessica Cabe, Festival Focus Writer

On Thursday, July 25, four Aspen favorites will come together on one intimate stage for an unusual program exploring transformations and transfiguration. ViolinistPhilippe Quint, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, pianist Inon Barnatan,and percussionist Colin Currie will perform works by Beethoven, Shostakovich, and Rolf Wallin at 8 pm in Harris Concert Hall.

“It’s really an unusual program, and they’re all four among the greatest virtuosos on their individual instruments,”says Alan Fletcher, president and CEO of the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS). “I think it’s going to be a really wonderful combination.”

The program begins with Beethoven’s “Ghost” Piano Trio, a piece completed while the composer was working on an opera based on Macbeth, followed by Rolf Wallin’s Realismos Mágicos. This work for solo marimba is inspired by the poetic titles of eleven short stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

The second half of the program is a transcription of Shostakovich’s 15th Symphony, written for violin, cello, piano,and three percussionists. On this piece, AMFS artist faculty members Jonathan Haas and Douglas Howard will join Currie.

“This is Shostakovich’s most enigmatic and haunting work, in which he looks back on his own life, but also many other composers’works,” Barnatan says. In the piece, Shostakovich quotes his own music, as well as that of Rossini, Wagner, Rachmaninoff, Liszt, and more. “A good transcription doesn’t just place the music on a different instrument, but it finds the essence of the music, and that’s what this transcription does.”

Barnatan said the four musicians came together over a mutual respect and admiration for one another.

“Alisa and I have been playing together for many years,” he says. “This project started with us wanting to do a trio program. Then the idea of doing this Shostakovich arrangement came up—Alisa was the one who knew about it, and she suggested it. I then suggested doing a program around transformations and transfigurations.”

They have toured Europe and the United States with this concept, and Barnatan says they are all excited to return to take the Aspen audience on this journey.

“Aspen is magical,” Barnatan says. “It’s a combination of the best qualities that one could want from a festival—the incredible music making, the energy that comes from the young musicians, and, of course, this magical and bewitching place that it’s all in. It’s this combination that is very difficult to beat.”

Percussionist Colin Currie joins Philippe Quint violin, Inon Barnatan piano, and Alisa Weilerstein cello for a recital in Harris Concert Hall on July 25.