Festival Focus Week 2

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MONDAY, JULY 5, 2021

VOL 31, NO. 2

McGegan leads Bullock and Waarts, Friday SHANNON ASHER

Festival Focus Writer

Longtime guest conductor at the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) and one of the world’s leading Baroque specialists, Nicholas McGegan, returns to Aspen for his signature energetic performances on July 9 with classical singer Julia Bullock and violinist Stephen Waarts and on July 14 leading an evening of Brandenburg Concertos.

McGegan first came to Aspen in 1999 (the last year the Bayer-Benedict Tent was in use) and has been coming back to teach and conduct ever since. “It’s the most exciting thing that the Festival is going to happen this year,” McGegan says. “Having had a year off when it didn’t happen last year, I felt as if there was something wrong with my year. Aspen is always one of the highlights in my musical year.”

Beyond the performance aspect, McGegan looks forward to meeting the new crop of conducting students at the AMFS. “I’m there to teach effectively but I find that teachers also learn just as much.”

A native of Great Britain who studied at Cambridge and Oxford, McGegan served as music director of San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale, completing his tenure with the 2019–20 season. “I was supposed to be doing all sorts of things for the last 14 months, but that hasn’t happened,” McGegan conveys. “I have to say I’ve been pretty lucky. I feel immensely fortunate to have been able to make as much music as I have during this pandemic year.”

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Conductor Nicholas McGegan returns to the Benedict Music Tent on July 9 after a pandemic-induced hiatus of more than a year. He also leads a special Baroque evening on July 14 featuring AMFS artist-faculty, students, and guest artists performing J. S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 1, 2, 4, and 5.

The July 9 performance will consist of mostly eighteenth-century programming.

Starting things off is an overture by a Mozart contemporary, the pioneering black composer Joseph Bologne, whose charming chamber opera, L’amant anonyme, was recently performed by the Los Angeles Opera.

(See more about Bologne in “DeLay Prize Winner” story, page 2.)

Honored by Musical America as a 2021 “Artist of the Year: Agent of Change,” classical singer Julia Bullock will transport audiences to India in Delage’s song cycle Quatre poèmes hindous, inspired by the

composer’s travels. “I’m dying to meet Julia,” McGegan confesses.

“She’s a brilliant woman,” says Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor. “Julia has not chosen a traditional path to her career.

See Bullock, Festival Focus page 3

Piccinini pays homage to ‘Uncommon Women’ theme SHANNON ASHER

Festival Focus Writer

On Wednesday, July 7, virtuoso flutist Marina Piccinini will return to the stage for the first time since the pandemic began.

“I’m really looking forward to being in Aspen and making music with other people and for other people without computer screens,” Piccinini said during a recent phone interview from her home in Switzerland. “That’ll be really wonderful.”

Piccinini spent the lockdown time at her family cabin in the Swiss Alps with her husband, Andreas Haefliger, and their daughter. “It doesn’t sound like much, but for two traveling musicians, being together for that long is a gift that you can’t even begin to describe. My husband and I have been married for 30 years and we have never spent as much time together in the 30 years combined as we have in this last year.”

Piccinini continues, “We had nature, we had nurture, and we had each other. We had our instruments, we had inspiration,

Flutist Marina Piccinini presents a recital with the Pacifica Quartet and AMFS artist-faculty friends July 7.

and we were safe. We were very lucky in that way.”

Though all Piccinini’s concerts this past year were canceled, her teaching at the Peabody Institute continued. “My students at Peabody are, for me, a central part of my life and I don’t feel

that my involvement with them has an expiration date,” Piccinini says. “It’s really about our connectivity from the first to the last. I hope that, to the end of my life, to the end of their lives, we will always be connected. In that way, we are really a very strong family.”

With her debut concert in 2009, this will be Piccinini’s fourth time performing with the Aspen Music Festival and School. “I think the Festival represents very high quality, high standard, and a wonderful global artistry,” Piccinini notes. “All the people who are at the Festival are experts in their own fields. They all come together and make music together in this very beautiful environment. It is just very uplifting and inspiring to be in this kind of atmosphere. Every time I am asked to play and perform with other people who are there—other guests, other faculty—I know it’s going to be just an incredible and fabulous

See Piccinini, Festival Focus page 3

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DeLay Prize–Winning Violinist Performs Monday recording work during this time, but I miss the energy of a live audience.”

Returning for her fifth summer at the Aspen Music Festival As the winner of the AMFS’s prestigious Dorothy DeLay and School, violinist and 2019 Dorothy DeLay Prize Winner Prize, Kastner has the opportunity to play a work on the stage Gallia Kastner will perform with the Aspen Conducting of the Benedict Music Tent with the ACA Orchestra. She Academy (ACA) Orchestra on Monday, July 5. This will be chose to perform Joseph Bologne’s Violin Concerto No 9. in Kastner’s first live performance since February of 2020.

G major, op. 8. “This is a charming work that has joy, nostalgia, “Aspen is my second home,” Kastner explains. “The mo- and cheerfulness,” Kastner says. “This piece has meant so ment I set foot in Aspen every year, I feel comforted by the much to me in the past year, as it’s given me strong motivamountains and by all my friends I get to see again or meet for tion to continue working throughout the pandemic.” the first time. I get to work with my teacher, Robert Lipsett, AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration and Arand play in an incredible orchestra all summer. Aspen has tistic Advisor Asadour Santourian notes, “Joseph Bologne, given me so much in the past few years. It Chevalier de Saint-Georges, is a black is all I could ever ask for.” eighteenth-century composer, a contemKastner started playing the violin when porary of Mozart’s. In fact, he actually was “Music is my safe she was four years old after a failed atslightly older. He was a colorful charactempt at tennis lessons. Her grandfather in place. . . . The violin ter—a great fencer, he even fought in wars.

Indonesia suggested to Kastner’s mother He was the concertmaster of the Royal that she sign her up for violin lessons. “LitOrchestra in France. He was a wonderful is my voice.” tle did she know that I was going to stay up composer and a great violinist as well. He all night practicing violin to the point where was certainly prolific, and just between Gallia Kastner you and me, Mozart stole the idea of the she had to force me to put it away for the 2019 Dorothy DeLay Prize Winner multiple instrument concerto from him.” night,” Kastner says.

AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher Kastner spent her pandemic year completing her master’s degree on Zoom at the Colburn predicts grand things for Kastner and her career. “Every sumSchool. “While I was devastated that I couldn’t be there to mer we have standout violinists, that’s never failed, but Gallia have lessons, academic classes, and perform music with my is in the Simone Porter, Will Hagen, Joyce Yang, Conrad Tao incredible colleagues, knowing that I was headed to Aspen category,” he notes, citing Aspen alumni who are rising stars in the summer kept me motivated.” Kastner conveys. “I am in the field. “You know instantly when you hear her play what most excited to see an audience again. I was able to do some kind of career she is going to have. When these artists were SHANNON ASHER

Festival Focus Writer

Gallia Kastner, 2019 Dorothy DeLay Prize Winner.

ELLE LOGAN

students you thought, not only will they have truly important careers but they are simply such fabulous people and people you want to be with. They’re so magnetic and positive and Gallia was like that from her first summer. I predict she will be one of the great ones.”

Kastner admits that music is the one part of her life she can always depend on. “Music is my safe place,” Kastner says. “It has given me comfort, motivation, and consistency in my life.

If there is one thing that has repeatedly kept me on my feet, it’s the violin. The violin is my voice.”

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PICCININI AND FRIENDS Continued from Festival Focus page 1 experience. I think the draw is really just the amazing quality that it has.”

Piccinini has constructed an evening of music about which she is passionate, performed with musicians she adores. Her recital on Wednesday will honor the 2020 season themes of Beethoven and “women of note.” “I’m beginning the concert with Sofia Gubaidulina who’s one of my heroes,” Piccinini confesses. “She’s a Russian composer who is still alive and quite elderly. I think she’s one of the strongest, most unique voices we have in music.”

After playing two short pieces of Gubaidulina, Piccinini will play the Amy Beach Quintet with the Pacifica Quartet. “This is a beautiful, gorgeous piece for flute and string quartet. Beach (who lived from 1867-1944) was a woman who was so ahead of her time.”

Piccinini continues about Beach, “I sometimes stop and think about what would have happened if a personality like that were here now and how much we owe somebody like that for the small little dents they made throughout history. She really had this amazing gift and was an incredible composer. She was also a pianist at a time when that was just not even possible.

I am so happy to bring this American composer to Aspen.

She’s written this beautiful piece and was such a trailblazer for

The Pacifica Quartet joins Marina Piccinini in recital July 7, and follow with their own recital July 8.

American music and for women in music.” Wednesday’s recital will end with a very uplifting piece—Beethoven’s “Serenade” in D major, op. 25.

Piccinini is excited to be performing chamber music with some of Aspen’s longtime artist-faculty members (most of whom she has worked with before). “I’m playing with Anton Nel, who’s a dear old friend of mine,” Piccinini says. “I haven’t

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AMFS Artist-Faculty Celebrate 25th Season SHANNON ASHER

Festival Focus Writer

Longtime AMFS artist-faculty members come back together in Aspen this year after a year away, performing in the orchestras as well as in a series of Saturday chamber music concerts featuring a rich variety of hand-picked chamber works.

The first, this Saturday, July 10 at 2 pm in Harris Concert Hall, will feature ten artist-faculty joining forces for a program comprising Dvořák’s Piano Quintet in A major and Coleridge-Taylor’s Clarinet Quintet in F-sharp minor.

Dvořák’s Piano Quintet is a paragon of the chamber music repertoire, melding the composer’s expressive lyricism with original melodies based on Czech folk music.

Veteran artist-faculty member and pianist Anton Nel claims it is one of the most beloved works in all the chamber music repertoire. “The work is beautifully balanced for all five players and is filled with beauty, excitement, charm, and folk idiom,” he says.

Nel initially came to Aspen as a guest artist in 1988 and joined the artist-faculty in 1997. “To me, Aspen is just one of the greatest music festivals in the world,” Nel says. “I have been given some fantastic AMFS artist-faculty member performance opportunities Anton Nel. here and some of my most important musical partnerships have been formed here.”

Nel continues, “I also love the educational component, where students and faculty play side-by-side in the orchestras. There are things that give me goosebumps year after year: driving over Independence Pass for the first time, the first sighting of the Music Tent, the opening fanfare at the convocation,

played with him in years, but I just love him. I can’t believe I get to play with him again.”

Aspen artist-faculty member and Chicago Symphony concertmaster Robert Chen, whom Piccinini befriended at the Marlboro Festival will be joining the recital along with the Pacifica Quartet. “I know them, but I’ve never performed with them, so I’m really excited to be able to play with them for the first time.”

Despite the obvious pandemic setbacks, Piccinini has kept busy with various special projects. AMFS artist-faculty member and composer-in-residence Chris Theofanidis is in the process of writing a concerto for Piccinini. “It was a secret, but I think it’s no longer such a secret” Piccinini reveals. “We’re going to be premiering it next year at Grant Park. I will be playing it with several orchestras, but the first concert will be one year from now in Chicago. He and I are very old friends and we have always wanted to collaborate somehow.”

Piccinini continues, “I have a lot of recordings, and a lot of new commissions in the works. It’s a tricky time moving ahead because everybody is in disarray and so the seasons are kind of scattered and unorganized right now, but it’ll get there. We’ll get there.”

and so on. It’s a very special place that I’ve missed very much.

I’m so thrilled to be playing in front of audiences again.” The AMFS will bring 263 students this summer to study and play with the 101-plus artist-faculty members.

Nel will share the stage this weekend with his distinguished colleagues violinist Bing Wang, violinist Espen Lilleslåtten, violist James Dunham, and cellist Desmond Hoebig.

“It will be my first time working with Bing Wang. She is a violinist I so admire, and we’ve been trying to play together for years so this will be a special treat,” says Nel. Nel and Dunham first met when they were both teachAMFS artist-faculty member ing at the Eastman School of James Dunham.

Music and Dunham was in the Cleveland Quartet. “For the past, I don’t know, 20-plus summers, we’ve played together in Aspen at least once a summer, often twice,” Dunham says.

Now celebrating his 25th season here, Dunham explains that it’s just hard to stay away from Aspen. “What’s not to love?”

Dunham asks. “My colleagues are awesome. The students we get to meet and work with are just terrific. I love that I get to perform and do so much chamber music and be in such a beautiful place. It’s just a combination of all these things.”

Dunham continues, “Obviously we miss each other, our friends, and our colleagues. We love to be together, we love to play together, and we love to play for the audience. What just came home to us again, is how important the audience is for our performance. We love to perform for them. They are part of the performance, and they actually inspire us by their presence.”

BULLOCK:

Continued from McGegan Leads page 1 By that I mean neither winning competitions or auditioning at major houses and being in featured roles. She has chosen her own path. She is very much now in demand worldwide.

Her ability to bring in, as you can see from her own program, such an eclectic mix of composers and periods is incredible. They’re thematically arranged, and they tell a story.”

“I’m very much looking forward to working with Stephen [Waarts] as well,” McGegan adds. “It’s wonderful to meet these new up-andcoming young soloists each year like Stephen. We’re doing a piece that I know very ALLISON MICHAEL ORENSTEIN well. I’ve recorded it twice Classical singer Julia Bullock and it’s just lovely.” Waarts performs July 9 and 13. will be taking on Mozart’s elegant and enchanting Third Violin Concerto.

In addition to his performance on Friday, be sure not to miss McGegan in a Baroque evening on July 14. Here, he takes on four of Bach’s beloved Brandenburg Concertos, which the composer dedicated to the Margrave of Brandenburg and brother to the King of Prussia.

Performing these gems is an ensemble of hand-picked stellar talents including Simone Porter and Stephen Waarts on violin; Nadine Asin and Alejandro Lombo on flute; Rachel Ahn, Rachel Domingue, and Elaine Douvas on oboe; Erik Ralske and Tanner West on horn; Jacob Dassa on harpsichord; and Stuart Stephenson on trumpet.

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MONDAY, JULY 5, 2021

FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

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