Festival Focus Week 8

FESTIVALFOCUS YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

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MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2021

VOL 31, NO. 8

Final Sunday: Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 The concert caps a season like no other, soaring Violin Concerto No. 1—the composduring which the AMFS administration and er’s first major work, which put him on the Audiences have come to expect grand artists went to great lengths to bring live, musical map. AMFS Vice President for Artistic things at the Aspen Music Festival and School’s in-person music back into being in Aspen. Administration and Artistic Advisor Asadour (AMFS) Final Sunday concert, and this season’s AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher says, Santourian says, “This violin concerto is so magprogram is sure to deliver. Two sublime artists “I think—despite some necesnificently conceived with whom to enjoy one final Sunday afternoon sary restrictions and a lot of that the artist is comare the two scheduled to perform this com- testing—that we all primarily “There is nothing pelled to follow the ing Sunday, August 22: AMFS Music Director felt joy in being together, and directions of this comlike a truly social, Robert Spano and violinist Augustin Hadelich. making and listening to magposer. It is rich with nificent live music. acoustic experience. melody and orchesThe ingenuity, cretration. It is rich in that ativity, and dedicarepartee between Returning to that tion with which musisoloist and orchestra. has been a blessing cians coped with the It is a quintessential pandemic and variRomantic work. Every for us all summer.” ous degrees of lockmovement gives us down and isolation multiple themes to Alan Fletcher have been moving hum and whistle all the AMFS President and CEO and impressive. They way home after the have also reinforced concert.” repeatedly the fact Bringing the season that there is nothing like a truly social, to a rousing close is Tchaikovsky’s Symphony acoustic experience. Returning to that No. 5 in E minor. For Fletcher, Tchaikovsky’s has been a blessing for us all summer.” Fifth Symphony brings up unforgettable memNamed Musical America’s 2018 ories of the last time the work was performed “Instrumentalist of the Year,” Hadelich at the Festival. “It was probably the loudest is consistently cited worldwide for thunder and hailstorm ever experienced in the his phenomenal technique, soulful Tent,” Fletcher says. “We decided to skip the approach, and insightful interpreta- slow movement and go straight to the noisy tions. The New York Times says, “Mr. parts to see if they would be loud enough.

Hadelich increasingly seems to be They were not and finally, we had to just stop.” one of the outstanding violinists of his He continues, “The slow movement of generation.”

Tchaikovsky Fifth has one of the greatest horn GRITTANI CREATIVE Under the baton of Spano, Hadelich solos in the whole repertoire, and our French Augustin Hadelich, performing with the Aspen Festival opens the program with Bruch’s Orchestra in 2018.

SHANNON ASHER

Festival Focus Writer

AN UNCOMMON FEAST FOR UNCOMMON WOMEN AUGUST 16 | 6 PM MDT Hotel Jerome The AMFS’s 2021 season benefit salutes women composers and performers, and honors longtime supporter and Honorary Trustee Joan W. Harris, celebrating her immeasurable philanthropic impact on the AMFS and beyond.

Bidding in AMFS’s annual online auction closes at 7 PM MST, Monday, August 16! The auction features an array of items from local businesses and once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Proceeds will be used to fund scholarships for the AMFS’s world-class student-musicians.

Bid online at aspenmusicfestival. com/support/the-2021-feast-ofmusic.

See Final Sunday, Festival Focus page 3

Merrill conducts Handel’s Rodelinda Saturday gifts in bringing their roles to life. “In this opera, that is such an important thing, since it is mostly a succession of individual arias,” Merrill explains. “For that dramatic form to work at its best, all the singers must really be at the same high level and that is indeed the case here. AOTVA Co-Artistic Directors Renée Fleming and Patrick Summers have truly assembled a stunning cast for this production of Rodelinda.”

Although abridged due to COVID-19 restrictions, Merrill says this concert version still hits all the major plot points of the opera. “Rodelinda is, for me, Handel’s greatest opera.

Unlike so many Baroque libretti, the story is very easy to understand and follow. It deals with the nature of true love (with a few complications and misunderstandings) as opposed to a totally corrupt lust for power and love.”

In the story, Rodelinda, the queen, faces a dire dilemma.

SHANNON ASHER

Festival Focus Writer

On Saturday, August 21 the Aspen Music Festival and School will present an abridged concert version of Handel’s Rodelinda, regina de’ Longobardi performed by the extraordinary rising talents of the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS program. The performance will be conducted

by AMFS artist-faculty member Kenneth Merrill with stage direction by Omer Ben Seadia.

Longtime AMFS artist-faculty member Merrill has been with the Festival for 40 years, starting the same year as his esteemed colleague and friend, Edward Berkeley, who passed away suddenly this summer. “I was originally hired by the Festival to come out to prepare a new opera,” Merrill says. “The Festival asked me to come the following year for the full summer. And from then on, every year since.”

The cast for Handel’s Rodelinda is a group of six singers, all of whom Merrill thinks show unique vocal and performing

Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS artist-faculty member Kenneth Merrill conducts Rodelinda, August 21.

See Merrill and Rodelinda, Festival Focus page 3

ONLY 7 DAYS LEFT! HAVE YOU BEEN TO THE TENT YET? FESTIVAL ENDS AUGUST 22.

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MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2021

FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

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Finding Empathy through Music: A Recital by Jeremy Denk JESSICA MOORE

AMFS Director of Marketing

When pianist Jeremy Denk takes the stage at the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) on Thursday, August 19 for a solo recital in the Benedict Music Tent, audiences can expect to be whisked away on a musical tour that, while seemingly unusual, is impeccably crafted and interconnected. Such program construction is typical of Denk, an artist whom Asadour Santourian, AMFS’s vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor, calls “a polymath. The guy’s a genius.”

Fittingly, Denk is the recipient of the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, the Avery Fisher Prize, and was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. “Jeremy Denk, my God, one can hardly categorize him as just a pianist,” says Santourian. “He’s a pundit, he’s an author, a defender of music, a promoter of music.”

It is through these various lenses that Denk imagines his Aspen recital program, which begins with Bach’s Partita No. 5 in G major—a work that he describes as “one of the most joyous possible pieces to play.” In what Denk hopes will serve as an “escape from the pandemic blues,” he characterizes this partita as “one of the funniest pieces by Bach, and one of the most outlandishly creative; you can really feel his genial invention in it.”

In contrast with this light and sunny material, Denk has chosen to close the program with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, op. 111—the final work the composer wrote for the piano. Denk says this sonata, “feels like a reflection from a late age, reevaluating everything that Beethoven has done in a way and trying to re-understand it, or re-contextualize it.”

From the opening of the first movement, one hears the com- 1800s, born into slavery; and a ragtime collaboration between poser speeding up and slowing down, as if stuck in “restless composers Louis Chauvin and Scott Joplin. circles and spirals” before reaching a conclusion in the final “One of the things I find so important about a lot of this music movement that Denk says “presents this unbelievable and is empathy,” says Denk. “Either the performer empathizing unfathomable solution to the whole impasse, something that with the composer, or the composer universally empathizing has never really before been seen in terms of music, rhythm, with all of us, trying to capture the human emotional spectrum and its timescale, which is endless.” in musical tones.”

Sandwiched in between the works of these two musical titans is a suite of pieces ranging from the Romantic period to the twentieth century that Santourian calls a “travelogue,” explaining, “It’s always hard to limit Jeremy to a program because he has so much to say and so much to offer.”

In the Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues

by Frederic Rzewski, Denk see a similar “epiphany” as in Beethoven’s Opus 111. The piece begins with the sounds of the cotton mill, “the sheer, relentless, brutal machine pounding in,” before “gradually the blues begin to burst out and take over,” in what Denk describes as “an incredible sense that the tune conquers the evil of the machine. Humanity wins out.”

Denk also selected works by the British composer Samuel ColeridgeTaylor; Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins, Pianist Jeremy Denk presents a wide-ranging recital of piano works on Thursday, August 19, in the unlikely piano phenom of the the Benedict Music Tent.

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Merrill and Rodelinda: Continued from Festival Focus page 1 Believing her husband, the king, dead, she must choose tenor Ricardo Garcia as Grimoaldo, contralto Lauren between marrying the man who stole his throne or watching Decker as Eduige, mezzo-soprano Erin Wagner as Unulfo, him murder her son. Audiences will and bass William Guanbo Su as delight in seeing how things unfold Garibaldo.

“Summer often allows people for the beleaguered queen while Expressing his passion and love hearing some of the most stunning for the AMFS, Merrill says, “It truly the chance to explore and music ever written for the Baroque attracts a world-class student extend their talents and skills opera stage. body to work with world-class “Two of Handel’s most famous faculty, performing artists, and more deeply. Such focus often arias, ‘Dove sei’ and ‘Vivi, tiranno,’ conductors.” Merrill continues, are from Rodelinda, and you will “Summer often allows people the gives them even greater insight be able to hear Key’mon [Murrah] chance to explore and extend into their own futures in music sing them both,” Merrill says. “The their talents and skills even more amount of beautiful music and chardeeply. And such focus often and performing.” acterization you will hear from all our gives them even greater insight singers in this Aspen performance is into their own futures in music Kenneth Merrill astounding.” and performing. To be part of this AOTVA Artist-Faculty Member CARLIN MA Cast members include soprano dynamic has always been such a Soprano Yaritza Véliz (left)—pictured during an Opera Theater Yaritza Véliz singing the role of wonderful and fulfilling thing.”

Master Class with baritone and fellow AOTVA student Joshua Rodelinda, countertenor Key’mon W. Murrah as Bertarido, Conyers (right)—sings the title role of Rodelinda, Queen of Lombardy, on August 21.

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Final Sunday:

Virtual and In-Person Offerings this Winter Festival Focus Staff

The music doesn’t end after the 2021 summer Festival draws to a close this weekend. The Aspen Music Festival and School will continue to curate and offer concerts throughout the winter both virtually, and, if possible, in person at Harris Concert Hall.

The series of planned virtual offerings will feature longtime Festival partners such as pianists John O’Conor and Steven Osborne, violinist William Hagen, and the Jupiter Quartet,

The Jupiter Quartet will showcase some of their programming passions in a curated recital for the AMFS this winter.

all in recitals of their own creation. Showcasing their virtuosity as well as the programming passions of each artist, these concerts will be about an hour long. Starting in October, the Festival will stream approximately one recital each month through the winter.

“The Festival has so many deep personal relationships with artists,” comments AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration and Artistic Advisor Asadour Santourian. “It is a pleasure to partner with them in this new way on, essentially, a virtual stage outside of summer. It expands what the Festival can do with the world’s creative minds and virtuosic talents. I’m very much looking forward to this series.”

One unique freedom of this new programming medium is that it gives the AMFS the ability to present artists who are scattered around the world. With travel still uncertain, it will be a treat for Festival audiences to be able to enjoy, for example, pianist Lise de la Salle from France.

Other artists planned for the series include pianists Steven Osborne, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Orion Weiss, and Simone Dinnerstein, guitarist Colin Davin; and mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung.

The virtual series will be available to view on the AMFS Virtual Stage at aspenmusicfestival. com/virtual-stage.

The Festival also plans to continue its in-person Winter Music Recital Series in Harris Concert Hall with a line-up to be announced.

Watch for further details on the winter concert schedule on Violinist and AMFS alumnus Will the AMFS website and Hagen will be featured in the Festival’s Winter Music offerings. via email beginning in September.

Continued from Festival Focus page 1

horn player John Zirbel had prepared so hard. He said, ‘I am playing that horn solo,’ and continued to sit in the middle of the stage by himself and play it. The whole audience was still there, and it was just a great Aspen moment.”

No matter the weather, the Festival’s Final Sunday concert itself is always an Aspen moment, especially with such a sweepingly beautiful symphony as this. “What better way to end the season?” Santourian asks. “This is the big finish. The last movement will probably have people on their feet before the last two dozen measures are done. It’ll be a fantastic close to the summer. I’m really excited.”

CARLIN MA

ELLE LOGAN

French pianist Lise de la Salle performing with the Aspen Chamber Symphony and conductor Xian Zhang in 2018.

Artist-faculty member and concertmaster Alexander Kerr celebrates with students after the Aspen Festival Orchestra concert on August 1.

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MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2021

FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

Supplement to The Aspen Times