Supplement to The Aspen Times
FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE
MONDAY, JULY 5, 2021
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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.
