Festival Focus Week 4

FESTIVALFOCUS YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

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MONDAY, JULY 19, 2021

VOL 31, NO. 4

“Unstoppable Talents” Reunite for Ravel JESSICA MOORE

Director of Marketing

For evidence of how a summer at the Aspen Music Festival and School can help launch a career, one need look no further than pianist Tengku Irfan and conductor Gemma New. Both Aspen alumni, their talents are propelling them to new heights around the globe. This Friday, July 23, the two will reunite for the first time since they were students in Aspen for a performance of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major with the Aspen Chamber Symphony.

Although only 22 years old, the Malaysian-born Tengku (his surname) is no stranger to Aspen. The young phenom spent four summers as an AMFS student beginning at age 13, becoming the pianist for the prestigious Aspen Contemporary Ensemble at age 14. “It’s an unstoppable talent,” says Asadour Santourian, AMFS’s vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor. “To say that there’s nothing he can’t do is almost fatuous,” he continues, “but if there were pianists, and there are, who have demonstrated rather early in their lives that they have this visionary skill about communicating music, Irfan is one such person.”

For his part, Tengku is honored to be returning to Aspen as an invited performer, although he says “even if I’m invited as an artist, I still feel like a student at heart. I can’t help it because, being a musician, I always feel there’s something more to learn.”

The Ravel Piano Concerto is not a new work for Irfan, but he looks forward to the interaction on stage with the orchestra.

“What’s fun about the Ravel is that both the piano and the orchestra are equally important, like partners,” he explains.

“Ravel writes for the orchestra very intricately and uses unique techniques that are musically convincing. There’s this moment where the piano starts playing very fast and the clarinet jumps in and shrieks. That’s one of the very exciting moments of the piece,” says Irfan.

New echoes this sentiment, calling Ravel “the most inspiring

ARTIST DINNER

with David Halen violin and Nancy Allen harp

MONDAY, JULY 26 | 6:30 PM This summer, we welcome you to our beloved “home” for intimate evenings of conversation and music.

Join us in Harris Concert Hall for a cocktail reception, private concert, and catered dinner with David Halen, concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony, and Nancy Allen, principal harp of the New York Philharmonic.

Individual tickets are $500 and proceeds benefit the AMFS. To purchase, contact Chloe McIntosh at cmcintosh@aspenmusic.org or 970 205 5066.

Tengku Irfan performs in the Benedict Music Tent with the Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra in 2016 (left). Gemma New conducts the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra in 2013 (right).

composer because he has a way of knowing everyone’s colors in the orchestra.” Citing the composer’s use of the entire spectrum of orchestral sounds, New marvels at “the way that the orchestra becomes alive with a rain forest of birds and creatures, forest trees rustling, the sun shining, and then the bubbling mud at the bottom. You have such a whole world of color from Ravel.”

For the concert-going audience, New encourages their imaginations to run wild, saying there are “a kaleidoscope of styles in this piece. We have his Basque roots, then you also hear a transparency and a structure of Mozart or Saint-Saëns, and then you hear jazz and it’s raunchy and sensual at times.”

An accomplished artist that Santourian calls, “another Aspen Conducting Academy (ACA) success story in a very short time,” the New Zealand-born New is music director of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra in Canada and principal

guest conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. While the past year grounded many artists, New made notable debuts with the Seattle Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, and Basque National Orchestra in Spain.

With all of that jet-setting, New looks forward to her professional debut at the AMFS—her first Aspen performance since 2013 when she was an ACA fellow. “Aspen is such a beautiful setting, and an artist cannot feel anything but inspired being surrounded by the mountains, the fresh air, and the nature,” she says. New recalls feeling like a “sponge, soaking it all in” while a student, “and then, over the years after Aspen, I’ve been able to release those little pearls of wisdom and realize them in my own career.”

In addition to the Ravel, New will be conducting Canadian

See New and Moussa, Festival Focus page 3

Free Composition Program Readings SHANNON ASHER

Festival Focus Writer

Composition Program Readings are a regular part of the Aspen Music Festival and School experience, providing the public with a rare opportunity to be in the room when a musical work is performed for the very first time.

These free events take place at 1 pm, Tuesday, July 20, and Saturday, July 24, in the Benedict Music Tent. Tickets are free and can be reserved ahead of time or obtained at the event.

This year, ten composers are enrolled in the AMFS’s Susan and Ford Schumann Center for

CARLIN MA

Composition students sit side by side with Alan Fletcher, AMFS president and CEO, and Robert Spano, music director—both composers themselves—as their newly composed works are performed in 2019.

Composition Studies. They are either currently in a graduate program or have recently graduated. At this Saturday’s reading, the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra will perform one new work each by several of the student composers who, following the performances, will receive live feedback from an august group of composers: composer and AMFS music director Robert Spano, composer and AMFS president and CEO Alan Fletcher, and AMFS composition artist-faculty and composers-in-residence

See Composers, Festival Focus page 3

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MONDAY, JULY 19, 2021

FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

Supplement to The Aspen Times

Escher String Quartet Play Price, Beethoven Austrian composers.”

SHANNON ASHER Festival Focus Writer

The acclaimed Escher String Quartet will return to the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) stage for a recital on Thursday evening. “Returning to live music will probably be similar to what a bear feels like after coming out of hibernation,” quartet co-founding member and violist Pierre Lapointe said in a recent interview. “I crave concert opportunities more than before and thankfully my summer season will fulfill this unusually large musical appetite.” The other quartet members are violinists Adam Barnett-Hart and Brendan Speltz and cellist Brook Speltz.

Lapointe continues, “I am also very much looking forward to reconnecting with audiences as the three main people that I have seen during our pandemic were not my quartet colleagues, but my wife and two children. Retrospectively, one major positive outcome from COVID-19 has been for me to spend quality time with my family.”

Taking inspiration from the Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher’s interplay of individual components to form a whole, the Escher String Quartet was formed in 2005, and in 2013 won the Avery Fisher Career Grant. They’ve been championed by the Emerson String Quartet and hailed by Gramophone for their “sheer finesse.”

The program begins with Bartók’s Third String Quartet (1927) followed by Price’s Second String Quartet (1935).

Written at about the same time, these two works share similarities in the way they were composed even though they

The last quartet on the program is Beethoven’s String Quartet in F major, op. 135. “Its longing, solemn, and revelatory third movement might allow us, I hope, to finally come to peace with the fact that so many lives and opportunities were lost during the pandemic,” says Lapointe. “Hopefully our playing that day will allow such a healing process to take place in the hearts of our audience.”

As regular performers and artist-faculty at the AMFS, the quartet members and Lapointe love coming back to Aspen year after year. “The natural setting is beautiful, and no one can argue with that,” Lapointe expresses. “Also, the Center for Advanced Quartet Studies is well run and attracts great ensembles. It is a delight to listen to and advise these younger musicians every year we have had the chance to be The Escher String Quartet, whose members serve as artistfaculty for the AMFS’s Center for Advanced Quartet Studies, presents a July 22 recital with works by Bartók, Price, and Beethoven.

sound quite different. Lapointe explains: “The main element bringing them together is that Bartók and [Florence] Price consciously use folk and dance elements encountered in traditional music from their own respective ethnic groups— Bartók being Hungarian and Price being African-American— in order to infuse different flavors and at the same time strengthen, test, and expand the string quartet genre without sacrificing its essence established long ago by German and

here. The concentration of great musicians and great events in one place summer after summer is especially stimulating and invites a sentiment of always being in the right place at the right time.”

Since 2015, Lapointe has taught chamber music at the Southern Methodist University of Dallas and is presently one of its adjunct professors. Generally, Lapointe likes to help students find freedom in their playing, rather telling them what they should or should not do. “I love encouraging the young musicians I hear to showcase their individuality through the prescribed music they are performing, and I like it even more when I see how happy it makes them to do so.”

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FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

MONDAY, JULY 19, 2021

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COMPOSERS: A ‘world stage’ to learn Continued from Festival Focus page 1

Stephen Hartke and Christopher Theofanidis. The audience a recording, which will be invaluable to them going forward.” has the opportunity to hear not only the music, but also the Some of them will then revise those works for another sescritique and conversation between the young composers sion on August 14. and their mentor teachers.

Theofanidis, who works closely with the students, notes For the orchestral works written by the student composers, that the program is intensive. “Aspen is an immersive envithe AMFS has two working reading sessions, which both take ronment,” he says. “There are so many concerts, rehearsals, place this week (1 pm, July 20 and 24). The composers work master classes, and administrative wisdom floating around ahead of time with the conducting fellows and the Aspen that the students here are literally soaking in knowledge from Conducting Academy Orchestra to realize and understand all directions.” their pieces.

“The fellows are Each composer treated as adults, not gets time for the just students, and for reading of their some, this is a real entry work—about 30 mininto the professional utes each—enough world,” Theofanidis time to play the work explains. “The people through, address any they come across here problematic spots, will be connected and then a play the to them throughout work a second time. their lives, and this “It is a real learning is their first chance experience. Writing a at a ‘world stage’ to work for many players learn how to navigate is daunting, and for their futures.” some, it is their first As a teacher, experience doing Theofanidis feels that CARLIN MA so,” Theofanidis says. his job is to “awaken Christopher Theofanidis (center), AMFS composer-in-residence, with fellow “The composer will composers Alan Fletcher (left) and Robert Spano (right), and students of the the ‘first loves’ that also come away with Schumann Center for Composition Studies. other artists have, and

to help them understand why those “Everything is things are valuable in their own voices, peeled back to just and how to integrate music, nature, and them.”

Like many musicollaboration, and cians returning to live that is what . . . we music, Theofanidis all long for as expressed his frustrations with Zoom musicians . . . .” teaching and meetings, but he also gave Christopher Theofanidis credit to everyone AMFS Composer-in-Residence who did what they could to make the best of it. “Returning to live music seems like going from watching TV directly into nature again,” Theofanidis says. “It has a soul. I have been so moved by the few concerts I have already seen and am breathing it all in with relish. It is like being reborn from black and white into technicolor.”

As a returning faculty member at AMFS, Theofanidis looks forward to his summers in Aspen. “Everything is peeled back to just music, nature, and collaboration, and that is what I think we all long for as musicians in our day-to-day lives,” Theofanidis says. “It is a nurturing environment, and one that feeds the soul at every level. Everyone is here for that reason—to remember our priorities in life.”

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JULY 1 – AUGUST 22: Daily, 12 pm – start of the day’s final concert

Bringing New Composers to Light JESSICA MOORE

Director of Marketing

Programming an entire summer’s worth of music is a balancing act, including not only curating works from the core repertoire, but also bringing to light lesser-known works by composers overlooked by history, or contemporary composers emerging as voices of a new generation.

Assistant Manager for Artistic Administration Sam Paris is deeply involved in this process with Vice President for Artistic Administration and Artistic Advisor Asadour Santourian and offered a glimpse into the wildly interesting world of programming the 2021 Festival with a specific look at Canadian composer Samy Moussa, whose work Polarlicht: Étude No. 2 for Orchestra is featured on the July 23 Aspen Chamber Symphony program with conductor Gemma New. “The programming team spends countless hours looking through repertoire from past seasons, scouring scores.

Sometimes people end up coming to your attention via the musicians who come to Aspen,” Paris explains. “Samy Moussa did not pop up in any of our research. However, when we asked Gemma New to suggest an overture-type work to fit in with the evening she was conducting, she mentioned Moussa’s Polarlicht. Gemma is a huge advocate of his music.”

The artistic team took a listen and agreed that it was a very interesting work. “Moussa is a new composer to us, and Gemma thought that this was the perfect piece for that program,” Paris notes. “Atmospherically, it goes very well with the Beethoven and coloristically it goes very well with the Ravel. When we heard it, we were blown away, and we said, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’”

Based in Germany, Canadian composer and conductor Samy Moussa is artist-in-residence of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and also works closely with the Montréal and Québec symphonies. His works have been commissioned and performed all over the world, from Dallas to Brussels.

When asked about Moussa, New says, “he’s very thoughtful,

thorough, and a very intense human being. When you have a contemporary piece that has the details and the thoughtfulness that goes into every effect, it makes it a powerful impact for those listening. He really packs a punch in this piece.”

Of her vision for how Moussa’s work fit into the evening’s program, New explains, “I’ve always wanted to do his music and this seems like the perfect opportunity because it all worked so well together. I think everyone is going to be captivated by the narrative that it presents.”

NEW AND MOUSSA:

Continued from ‘Unstoppable’ page 1

composer Samy Moussa’s Polarlicht: Étude No. 2 for Orchestra—a work that New proposed for the program because she found its spooky, dramatic orchestral colors not only an appropriate nod to Ravel, but also a fitting counterpoint to Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, which closes the program. “The theme of light and dark, the idea that his piece with that dark intensity and creeping nature will then be a wonderful link to the introduction to the Beethoven,” are all reasons New considered Moussa’s work a “great dramatic opener.”

While sometimes overlooked in comparison to his other symphonies, Beethoven’s Fourth presents some unexpected twists and turns.

The long, mysterious introduction in minor “gives us quite a bit of darkness and uncertainty, and then boom, we’re out in the light,” Montréal-born composer and conductor Samy Moussa’s Polarlicht: Étude No. 2 for explains New. “It’s such a striking Orchestra opens the Aspen Chamber Symphony’s performance this Friday. An artist-instart to a symphony.” From beautiresidence with the Toronto Symphony, Moussa won the Classical Composition of the Year ful, almost operatic melodies in the award for his Violin Concerto Adrano at the 2021 Juno Awards in Canada. second movement, to folks tunes Be among the first in Aspen to hear Moussa’s work this Friday, and a Haydn-inspired fourth movement, New suspects that July 23 at 5:30 pm when New conducts the Aspen Chamber audiences will “have that jovial nature and that energy to Symphony. The concert will also be streamed free, live from walk off and skip away to dinner in Aspen.” the Benedict Music Tent. More at aspenmusicfestival.com/ virtual-stage.