Yang, Cox Breathe Music into Motion

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ASPEN TIMES MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 2021 VOL 31, NO. 7

Yang, Cox Breathe Music into Motion

JESSICA MOORE

AMFS Director of Marketing

Once an alumnus of the AMFS, always an alumnus of the AMFS. Whether it’s a professional debut, or an anticipated yearly return, there is a certain energy that surrounds a performance by a former Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) student. And so, the Aspen Chamber Symphony performance on Friday, August 13 has the makings of a truly spectacular concert with the return of the sparkling pianist and season regular, Joyce Yang, and the professional Aspen debut of globally in-demand conductor Roderick Cox.

Last year’s pandemic put the brakes on another trip to Aspen that Yang, now 35, describes as “the heart of my summer since I was 19.” Initially planned for last season, Yang will at last get to perform Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, a piece she describes as “truly like a roller coaster. You never know where Liszt is going to take you.”

Joyce Yang often exudes sheer delight during her performances, as she did on Opening Sunday 2019 with the Aspen Festival Orchestra.

CARLIN MA

A piano virtuoso himself whom Yang describes as the “keyboard version of Paganini, a Michael Jackson of that time,” Liszt began sketching out the concerto as early as the 1830s although it wasn’t premiered until years later in 1855.

In this work, Cox says “we see him already toying with the form. The orchestra and the piano are certainly very much intertwined in this specific concerto and they play off each other quite a bit.” He explains, “This is still revolutionary for this time where the orchestra typically is very much in the backdrop and the piano is the lead voice.”

Yang echoes this, saying that this first concerto shows the composer “bending the rules of traditional piano concerto form and testing the boundaries of piano technique and virtuosity.” She continues, “Nestled in between big and flashy bravura moments are poetic melodies and bold recitatives where one instrument suddenly pops out of the texture like a character that just appears.”

It’s in the close interaction between orchestra and soloist where Yang and Cox see the potential for a great collaboration. Says Yang, “This is the kind of piece that—because it’s so interactive—could very well take on a new life depending on how it gets interwoven with different musicians.” Although this performance will be their first of the Liszt concerto, the two artists have worked together in the past and eagerly look forward to melding their interpretive visions together to bring this work to life.

Of her past performance with Cox, Yang recalls being struck by “the waves that he could create from the orchestra.” It is this memory that makes her feel that “with this piece, where there’s a storm at sea on the left and the right, he will really be able to navigate it and bring it to its heights.”

For his part, Cox says “you can really feel Joyce’s presence on stage as a conductor. You can hear her breathing the music into motion and that is what makes her an incredible artist to work with.” He continues, “She really leaves it all out on the stage and gives herself, all of herself, to the audience.”

Roderick Cox conducts the Aspen Chamber Symphony featuring pianist Joyce Yang on Friday, August 13.

Also on the program is Brahms’s Third Symphony—the shortest of the composer’s four symphonies—which Cox likens to the Liszt in that “they really test every realm of orchestral technique, and it takes a lot of power to play both.”

Each represents the work of an experienced composer, packing a lot of punch in a condensed time frame. “Brahms was a middle-aged man at this time, certainly feeling the weight of not being in his youth anymore, but also very much confident in his writing ability,” explains Cox. “Liszt, as a seasoned virtuosic pianist and as a composer, this concerto represents him as a person who’s also charting new territory with stretching form, even in what is considered a short concerto.”

Cox will also conduct Kodály’s Dances of Galánta—referencing the Hungarian town where the composer, an ethnomusicologist, was exposed to folk tunes that he incorporated into his music. The inclusion of Kodály completes the evening’s Hungarian thread, “with Liszt being a Hungarian composer and Brahms very much a German composer that was highly influenced by Hungarian music and people,” he explains.

For his part, Cox looks forward to reliving his student memories of Aspen, acknowledging the significance of returning as a professional: “I imagine it’s certainly a special feeling to conduct at a place that’s been your training ground, where you can envision yourself conducting as a student and having all these questions.”

Surely his performance with Joyce Yang will be one worth remembering.

Joyce Yang poses for a selfie with students backstage at the Benedict Music Tent in 2019.

CARLIN MA

FESTIVALFOCUS

YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE