Aspen Music Festival and School Festival Focus - Week One

FESTIVALFOCUS YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ASPEN TIMES

MONDAY, JUNE 27, 2022

VOL 32, NO. 1

2022 Festival Embraces New Theme, ‘Tapestries’ LAURA E. SMITH

Vice President for Marketing and Communications

The Aspen Music Festival and School grounds are abuzz with activity as hundreds of artist-faculty, staff, and music students arrive from all over the world to prepare for Thursday’s opening of the 2022 season.

“We are back,” says AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher, “really back.” Despite some adjustments, the Festival will be as busy as ever with four orchestras; a full complement of recitals back in Harris Hall; a fully developed Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS program; a grand musical theater collaboration with Theatre Aspen; elite programs in composition, guitar, choral singing, and contemporary music; and even a return of the popular Science of Music lectures presented with the Aspen Science Center.

All in all, there will be hundreds of events with nearly 1,000 musicians and professionals working behind the scenes to make it all happen.

The 2022 season theme is “Tapestries,” with the thought-provoking catchphrase of “What We Talk About When We Talk About Ourselves.”

“It’s about how when one sits down to create a piece of art, it is necessarily going to reveal who we are and who we want to be,” says Fletcher. He points out that this season there aren’t specific theme-related works, but rather every single work and every performance will reflect the theme’s essential idea. “Even when performing the works of

ELLE LOGAN

After two years of adjusted performances due to safety restrictions, audiences in the Benedict Music Tent will once again see full ensembles in 2022.

others, musicians are taught to ‘make it their own.’ Every moment asks each player to reveal who they are as well.”

The theme fits with the Festival’s ongoing initiative to shine a light on underrepresented voices in classical music. “We are sharing new or less-known voices from every century of classical music,” says Fletcher. At

the same time, he points out, the Festival is showcasing a number of important fresh young performers—something that has been a hallmark of the AMFS for decades. This is alongside beloved familiar performers like Sharon Isbin, Alisa Weilerstein, Vladimir Feltsman, and many more.

Emerging talent can also be found in the

Festival’s remarkable student body including in the now fully launched Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS (AOTVA) program.

AOTVA began last year with 15 students and now comes into its full scope with 43 students participating in two full productions,

See Expansions, Festival Focus page 3

Whitaker, Alsop Return to Aspen to Play Varied Set PIPER STARNES

Festival Focus Writer

After last summer’s well-received Aspen Music Festival debut, rising jazz piano sensation Matthew Whitaker brings two sides of his exuberant artistry to the Benedict Music Tent stage for the season’s opening weekend. On Friday, Whitaker joins AMFS alumna Marin Alsop and the Aspen Chamber Symphony in George Gershwin’s much-loved Rhapsody in Blue, while Saturday evening brings the Matthew Whitaker Quintet to the stage to perform original compositions from its latest album.

The twenty-one-year-old Whitaker already has an extensive summer travel schedule lined up, with his Aspen performances marking the twelfth of seventeen stops across the United States and Europe. While last season Whitaker impressed in a solo performance, this weekend he intends to show audiences more of his range, from classical to jazz. Particularly special is that this will be his first time playing Rhapsody in Blue with an orchestra. “I’m really excited. It’s going to be a good learning

CARLIN MA

Matthew Whitaker will perform July 1 with conductor Marin Alsop.

experience for me,” says Whitaker.

AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher says of Whitaker, “We introduced Matthew last year and he was hugely well received.

An interesting thing was that his performance was really equally impressive to both the music students and the audience, and

that doesn’t all always happen. There is something about his work, which mixes a classical piano background with a really profound jazz artistry, that made us think he’d be perfect for Rhapsody in Blue, which sits right at that crossroads.”

Whitaker, who was born blind due to retinopathy of prematurity, learns new music by ear and by feel. Playing the keys since age three, he has become a muscle memory expert and master navigator, aiding his performance of advanced works such as Rhapsody in Blue. AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration Patrick Chamberlain says Gershwin’s work “is one of those pieces that really rewards interpretive freedom.

I could imagine Matthew throwing some improvisatory elements into his cadenzas.”

Rhapsody in Blue’s melodies playfully strut and pounce about both traditional classical and jazz-influenced elements to produce a distinctively American musical blend. Conductor

See Whitaker and Alsop, Festival Focus page 3

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FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

MONDAY, JUNE 27, 2022

Supplement to The Aspen Times

A Musical Romance for Opening Sunday DON’T MISS

LAURA E. SMITH

Vice President for Marketing and Communications

TIMOTHY WHITE

THE ANNUAL FOURTH OF JULY CONCERT! COURTESY PHOTO

On July 3, the leading star soprano of our time, Renée Fleming, takes the stage with acclaimed baritone Rod Gilfry for the Opening Sunday concert of the Aspen Music Festival and School’s 2022 season. These two consummate artists, at the top of their artistic powers, will perform The Brightness of Light, a work written for Fleming by Pulitzer Prize winner Kevin Puts, which sets to music the letters of artist Georgia O’Keeffe and her mentor and husband, Alfred Stieglitz.

When first commissioned in 2015 to write a work for Fleming, Puts knew he wanted to focus on an iconic American woman. “I happened on a quote by Georgia O’Keeffe: ‘My first memory is of the brightness of light, light all around,’” he has said of the work’s inspiration, “I could imagine this line sung right at the start.”

While most audience members will not have heard it, AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher says, “It’s an exceptional work for the voice,” and a worthy experiment for those who seek depth and quality in classical music. He continues, “Kevin knows Renée so well, knows her voice so well. The piece is just perfect for her voice.”

A 2019 review describes the work as telling of “the meeting of two passionate, artistic people, where love and art are entwined.” The reviewer noted that “a key to the piece is the back-and-forth nature of the O’Keeffe-Stieglitz correspondence, and it gave Brightness both a dramatic and musical power. At the piece’s end, walking out . . . I heard

Rod Gilfry and Renée Fleming will perform Sunday, July 3.

people say, ‘I loved it.’ It is truly rare to hear that for a lot of new compositions.”

According to Fletcher, “An artist at Renée’s level and position in her career can do anything. So the fact she chooses to offer us this says something important about [the work].”

Also on the program, AMFS Music Director Robert Spano leads the orchestra in selections from Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet. Inspired by Shakespeare’s eponymous play of the ages, it offers a kaleidoscope of lenses on the AMFS’s 2022 season theme of identity and revelation of self. It also represents Prokofiev grandly stepping forth in the tradition of great Russian music. There are gorgeous melodies and lush orchestration, including even a prominent part for tenor saxophone, which “adds a fabulous tinge of color to the orchestra,” says Patrick Chamberlain, AMFS vice president for artistic administration.

The Independence Day celebration brings the AMFS band to the Tent stage with stirring patriotic favorites.

Join us for this beloved Festival tradition.

Benedict Music Tent | 4 PM | FREE

“This is music meant to be danced; these are tunes you’ll be humming,” Chamberlain says. “Maybe the five most beautiful minutes of music of the twentieth century is the balcony scene, it is such tender, aching music.” To learn more about the program, join Chamberlain at the free pre-concert lecture in Harris Hall at 3 pm.

WELCOME BACK, AMFS STUDENTS AND ARTIST-FACULTY!

Supplement to The Aspen Times

FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

MONDAY, JUNE 27, 2022

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Opera Program, Full-Sized Orchestra Highlight Program Expansions Continued from Festival Focus page 1 four free song showcases, and the popular Saturday morning public opera coaching classes, now called Opera Encounters. Each Saturday features a different guest opera luminary coaching students in the various aspects of vocal performance, from standard opera repertoire, to art song, musical theater, and more.

Another expansion this summer is a free community Mariachi concert on Wednesday, June 27. The Denver-based group Mariachi Sol de mi Tierra performs at the Benedict Music Tent with local music students and dancers from

Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Folklórico. Says Fletcher, “The Mariachi tradition uses classical techniques to create its own unique voice. This suits our theme and also lets the many children studying in our year-round school programs see how many directions one can go with the instruments they are learning.”

Asked what he feels looking forward to a full Festival once again, Fletcher says, “There is so much, but what really comes to mind is hearing a full Sunday orchestra again.” He adds, “we haven’t heard that in three years.”

To put an exclamation point on it, this year’s Final Sunday concert on August 21 will feature Berlioz’s Requiem, the largest work ever written for symphony orchestra. “I’ve wanted to do this since I came here 16 years ago,” says Fletcher. “It has 12 bassoons, where a normal symphony has 2, eight harps, triple brass, with some in a ring around the Tent, two full choruses,” he says. “With the forces required, most professional orchestras can afford to do it perhaps every 30 years. One can admire or even love a recording of it, but nothing is like being in the tumultuous midst of the live sound.”

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FREE LIVESTREAMS RETURN STAFF REPORT

This summer, the Aspen Music Festival and School will once again present a series of free livestreams of select concerts. Broadcast in real time from the Benedict Music Tent, the livestreams will be available to view on the AMFS Virtual Stage: aspenmusicfestival.com/virtual-stage.

What started as pre-recorded virtual events in 2020 developed into last year’s livestreams—marking the first time the AMFS broadcast real-time events from the iconic Tent venue.

“The response to those 2021 livestreams was great,” says AMFS VP for Marketing and Communications, Laura Smith.

“We had people tune in from all over the world who had been students here in past decades, former audience members who can no longer come to Aspen, musicians’ families, artist fans . . . there was a lot of joy generated by those broadcasts.”

Last winter the AMFS continued offering free virtual music with the debut of its Aspen Armchair Concerts—a series of online recitals by artists with deep Aspen roots, which covered a variety of genres, from all-Beethoven piano sonatas to a solo saxophone evening. “Again, we had such a nice response from people who enjoyed connecting with these artists in these intimate presentations. Through these concerts, they were reconnecting with their Aspen experience; we got so many letters of deep appreciation,” says Smith.

2022 Livestream Schedule: Aspen Chamber Symphony July 1, 5:30 pm MT The rising young jazz pianist Matthew Whitaker joins celebrated Aspen alumna and renowned conductor Alsop for the Aspen Chamber Symphony’s first concert of the season. Program includes Barber’s First Symphony and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra July 11, 4 pm MT This year’s Piano Competition Winner will perform Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor. Also on the program, Brahms’s Second Symphony.

Aspen Chamber Symphony July 15, 5:30 pm MT Acclaimed by the Baltimore Sun as “one of the biggest pianistic talents to have emerged in this country in the last

25 years,” pianist Terrence Wilson makes his Aspen debut in Liszt’s uber-virtuosic First Piano Concerto led by AMFS Music Director Robert Spano.

Aspen Festival Orchestra July 24, 4 pm MT In her Aspen debut, outstanding violinist Diana Adamyan takes on Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto in D minor. Conductor Lionel Bringuier leads the AFO in three works by Ravel.

Aspen Festival Orchestra July 31, 4 pm MT Hear the extraordinary Augustin Hadelich perform the Violin Concerto by Sibelius. Music Director Robert Spano leads Mahler’s First Symphony.

Aspen Chamber Symphony August 5, 5:30 pm MT British pianist Paul Lewis plays Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. Aspen alumnus Kerem Hasan leads a program that also includes violinist Fiona Shea performing Bruch’s First Violin Concerto.

Aspen Festival Orchestra August 14, 4 pm MT AMFS alumna and pianist extraordinaire Joyce Yang returns to Aspen for a performance of pianistic pyrotechnics in Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto.

Mozart’s Don Giovanni August 18, 7:30 pm MT Acclaimed Mozartian and conductor Jane Glover leads the magnificent singers of the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS program in Mozart’s provocative work.

Aspen Festival Orchestra August 21, 4pm MT AMFS Music Director leads the AFO and special guests in Berlioz’s Requiem—a season finale that offers a monumental, rarely performed work designed for a 188-piece orchestra a 210-member chorus.

Whitaker, Alsop to Perform Together Continued from Festival Focus page 1

and AMFS alumna Marin Alsop is not only a celebrated champion of American music, but, of local note, is the Aspen Institute’s 2022 Harman/Eisner Artist in Residence. Chamberlain says, “She’s really one of our great conductors of American music and one of our great American conductors, period.” He continues, “the opportunity for a really seasoned conductor and young artist coming together on this iconic work is something I’m particularly excited to see.”

Audiences can enjoy the July 1 performance on the Benedict Music Tent stage, as well as the AMFS Virtual Stage. The concert will be GRANT LEIGHTON the first of this season’s many Marin Alsop, an AMFS alumna, livestreamed performances, will conduct the Aspen available to view on the Festi- Chamber Symphony on July 1. val website.

Following Whitaker’s appearance with the Aspen Chamber Symphony, he switches gears on Saturday, inviting bandmates Marcos Robinson, Karim Hutton, Raphael Torn, and Johnny Steele to the Tent stage for a performance by the Matthew Whitaker Quintet. “As far as my set is concerned, it’s going to be a lot of things—originals, different arrangements, and in all styles of music. It’s going to be a lot of songs from my albums as well, all three of them. But I don’t want to say too much!”

Whitaker says.

Chamberlain notes these two programs give Aspen audiences a chance to see the different facets of Whitaker’s personal musicality. “That’s one of the things I love about Aspen,” he says, “that we offer multiple opportunities to engage with specific artists. As listeners we can really get to know who these artists are and what makes them special in a way that’s unique among performing arts festivals.”

When it comes to performing, Whitaker simply lets the music flow from his heart to his hands. As an artist, he believes there is a deep and direct connection between a person’s art and the expression of their true self. With much in store for his two expressive evenings of music, Whitaker says, “I can’t wait to perform. I’m ready.”

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MONDAY, JUNE 27, 2022

FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

Supplement to The Aspen Times