Conductor James Conlon’s Much-Anticipated Return

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ASPEN TIMES

Conductor James Conlon’s Much-Anticipated Return

LAURA E. SMITH

Vice President for Marketing and Communications

Conductor and AMFS alumnus James Conlon

Sunday, July 18, sees the return to Aspen of conductor James Conlon, a longtime favorite presence, Aspen alumnus, music director of the Los Angeles Opera, and world-famous conductor and music advocate. He will lead a program of brilliant works he hand chose, anchored by William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony and Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto played by soloist Yefim Bronfman.

It is a much-anticipated reunion—Conlon’s Aspen roots run deep. “The year 2024 will mark 50 years from my first year conducting in Aspen as an adult,” he says. He came to Aspen in 1968 as a young conducting student. “It was my first trip away from home,” he remembers, “and basically where I first really conducted.” His experience here led to enrolling at The Juilliard School, to early conducting engagements in Europe, and then on to a legendary career on both sides of the pond.

Asked about programming the lesser-known Dawson work, Conlon is direct, “It came about because of the increasing consciousness of the last year and the murder of George Floyd,” he says.

Conlon has long been passionate about advocating for silenced voices, including those of Jewish composers oppressed or erased by the Nazis. His longtime work in that area helped lead to the establishment of the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices at the Colburn School.

Citing the recent national wake-up call around racism, he says he immediately began looking for new works to bring to light by composers sidelined or diminished because of racism.

“It’s an amazing work,” he explains of the Dawson, which was premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1934. “It’s accessible, melodic, rhythmic, emotionally touching, and very exciting.” AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration and Artistic Advisor Asadour Santourian agrees. “It’s a magnificently conceived work,” he notes. “Dawson uses three spirituals as schematic material, which he synthesizes, brilliantly crafted.”

Says Conlon, “I think audiences will not only enjoy the work, they will want to know ‘where has this been and why have I never heard it,’ which of course, really is the big question.”

Opening the concert is a work by Alvin Singleton, a composer Conlon has known personally since the 1960s. From Brooklyn, and steeped in the jazz worlds of Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker, Singleton also holds impeccable traditional classical credentials including a degree from Yale, a Fulbright Scholarship, and a long period of studying and working in Europe.

Singleton’s works are known for touching his own deep truth, and for a certain amount of flair. The work on the July 18 program, 56 Blows (quis Custodiet Custodes?), references the Rodney King beating of 1991. Conlon points out that the Latin translates to “who watches the watchers?”—a perennial question and one especially powerful at this moment.

Of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, Conlon notes the undeniability of all of Beethoven’s works. “I do love it,” he says of the concerto. “And I go back a very long way with Fima [Bronfman] and it’s always an honor and a pleasure to collaborate with him.”

Conlon equally loves collaborating with Aspen’s music students who play in the Aspen Festival Orchestra alongside their preeminent teachers who are leading orchestral players in the world. Notes Alan Fletcher, AMFS President and CEO, “James is ideal for our students because he’s super demanding at a world level, yet he understands how to work with people who are playing a piece for the first time. He can conduct the Berlin Philharmonic, and also conduct our students.” Notes Conlon, “I love working with young people. It’s a great time of life. They are fresh, they are open, they are enthusiastic.”

Bronfman: Beethoven and Beyond

In addition to his performance of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with James Conlon and the Aspen Festival Orchestra on Sunday, July 18, pianist Yefim Bronfman presents a recital on July 20. The program in the Benedict Music Tent will feature Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 11 in B-flat major, as well as Ustvolskaya’s Piano Sonata No. 4, and concludes with Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 3.

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