FESTIVALFOCUS YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE
SUPPLEMENT TO THE ASPEN TIMES
MONDAY, JULY 11, 2022
VOL 32, NO. 3
AMFS Alumni Shaham and Elliott Perform July 17 PIPER STARNES
Festival Focus Writer
When Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) students become alumni, it is always a treat to have them return to town and perform as guest artists, especially throughout the course of their careers. This Sunday, July 17, AMFS alumnus and star violinist Gil Shaham and recent alumnus and cellist Sterling Elliott return to Aspen to join the Aspen Festival Orchestra and conductor John Storgårds for Brahms’s Concerto for Violin and Cello in A minor, op. 102. “The Brahms double is a very special piece,” AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher says. “A double concerto [for] violin [and] cello is actually quite unusual. He wrote it at the request of his closest friend, Joseph Joachim.” For many decades, Brahms and violinist Joachim championed and supported one another in personal and professional life until their friendship abruptly halted during Joachim’s divorce. “They had a falling out over a marital problem where Brahms took Joaquin’s wife’s side instead of his side,” Fletcher says. After years of receiving the cold shoulder, Brahms wrote the Concerto, hoping for reconciliation. Fortunately, Joachim accepted his peace offering, and the Double Concerto remains a testament to friendship. While this will be the first time veteran violinist and beloved Aspen artist Shaham and rising cellist Elliott share the stage, their performance is indicative of the mentorship opportunities that make the AMFS unique.
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Gil Shaham, a renowned, Grammy-winning violinist, and Sterling Elliott, a young star in the classical music world, will perform Brahms’s Double Concerto with the Aspen Festival Orchestra in the Benedict Music Tent on July 17.
Pleased with the pairing of these alumni from different generations, AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration Patrick Chamberlain says, “the Brahms Double offers so much opportunity for dialogue and interplay. It’s a piece that can be presented in so many different ways. [Still,] you cannot help but feel that story in the performance, [between] Gil, really one of the masters of his instrument, and Sterling, certainly, a master of his instrument as well, but in a
different place in his career.” Elliott’s professional cello career began as a family affair, traveling and performing alongside his mother and siblings in their Elliott Family String Quartet. He says, “Luckily, I had the chance to play with my best friends at the time—my family—when I was five years old. Chamber music has always been deeply rooted in my passion for music, and
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See Shaham and Elliott, Festival Focus page 3
From Small Town Roots, Jess Gillam Makes Aspen Debut PIPER STARNES
Festival Focus Writer
This week, 24-year-old saxophonist Jess Gillam makes her AMFS debut in a week full of performances and presentations. On July 13, she shares her story face-to-face with the Aspen community during a free High Notes panel discussion and then takes the stage on July 14 for A Baroque Evening with Nicholas McGegan that includes Le Monde Galant suite. To top off her visit, all eyes and ears will be on Gillam for her July 16 recital in Harris Concert Hall. Brought up in the small English town of Ulverston, Cumbria, Gillam believes we are all the product of our experiences and relationships. “[Ulverston is] quite a very tight community, so everybody knows everybody, which can be a blessing. My mom and dad have an English tearoom and shop, where I worked in the family business,” she
explains. Watching her parents serve their community inspired Gillam to replicate that same work ethic and drive on stage. “That really has fed into what I try and do with music—connecting people and creating communities. I’m really trying to bind the people and composers of the past with the people of the present,” Gillam says. “She’s basically a rock star in her native United Kingdom,” says Patrick Chamberlain, AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration. “The opportunity for Aspen audiences to experience some of that magic this summer is something not to be passed up. I love that we’re presenting such different sides of her artistry.” Equally gifted as a presenter and as a saxophonist, Gillam has extensive knowledge of many composers, styles, and eras. On her ARIA Award-winning weekly BBC radio show and podcast, This Classical Life, she invites guests to discuss the music that has shaped their lives. As the youngest
Gillam, an artist redefining the saxophone repertoire, will perform at the Aspen Music Festival for the first time on July 14.
See Gillam, Festival Focus page 3
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McGegan’s Baroque Evening Offers New Take on Vivaldi SAMANTHA JOHNSTON
Festival Focus Writer
Often referred to as one of the finest Baroque conductors of his time, it’s partly Nicholas McGegan’s quick wit and warm, welcoming English style that casts his charming spell. His sense of joy and enthusiasm about the way he conducts music to deliver a composer’s message are truly what make his performances such delightful adventures. McGegan, who was the music director of San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra for 34 years, will take the stage with a hand-picked ensemble at Harris Concert Hall on July 14 for A Baroque Evening—a cherished Aspen Music Festival and School tradition. The irrepressible conductor’s natural curiosity, wonder, and willingness to improvise make centuries-old compositions feel as if they were written just for his stage. “Most of the repertoire that is played during the whole Festival is from about the time America was founded to present day,” McGegan says. “Every so often it’s nice to do something that is a little bit earlier; to present music from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries just increases the sense of adventure.” In a nod to the flexibility and freedom of the Baroque period, a special treat this year will be Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Oboes in D minor, RV 535, transcribed for alto saxophone. Though the saxophone wasn’t invented until nearly 100 years after the period in which the music was composed, making
use of the instruments available at the time is a hallmark of the Baroque period. Joining McGegan onstage this year are English sensation Jess Gillam and award-winning rising star Steven Banks. “There is a deep connection between Baroque and saxophone through jazz,” Banks says. “There was such freedom in performance in Baroque and it was so common for people to just improvise and see what happened.” Through his strongly held belief that until people hear him play on stage, they can’t truly know him, Banks is obsessed with creating a listening experience that helps his audiences appreciate the value of true musical connection. “I think people often need a story or something that they can grasp onto that is beyond music and that isn’t always there. If they don’t have a direct connection to the music, it can be harder to find a reason to focus on it,” says Banks. “To combat that, we have to work hard to make music that is worth people’s attention.” Banks acknowledged that to just be human, people must be so connected to how fast the world is moving. “It’s the antithesis of a full concert experience where you are supposed to experience the flow of the whole evening and the art of the piece without interruption.” By its very nature, Baroque music was created through the lens of telling a story and establishing a powerful channel of communication with listeners. It is a genre of music known to stir up emotion and energy among diverse listening
Nicholas McGegan, a world-renowned conductor of Baroque music, performs with a select ensemble July 14 in Harris Concert Hall.
audiences. “One of the great things about Baroque music is that it is designed to be listened to and enjoyed at the very first hearing,” McGegan says. The evening’s program includes Handel’s ever-popular Water Music and Le Monde Galant, a suite of Baroque music. “We do have some much more obscure composers in there as well,” McGegan says. “It’s nice to do new and different things and it increases the sense of adventure.”
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SHAHAM AND ELLIOTT PLAY BRAHMS DOUBLE Continued from Festival Focus page 1 it’s certainly one of the strongest driving factors for me to perform in general—it’s the collaborative experience.” At only 14 years old, Elliott became an AMFS student and went on to earn numerous awards, showing the classical music world that he was just getting started. Now 23 years old, Elliott has won several Sphinx Competitions, is a two-time alumnus of NPR’s From the Top, and continues to solo with prestigious orchestras across the United States and abroad. Most recently, he was honored as a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant
recipient—the same award earned by Shaham in 1990. “There is a seasoning to Gil. He’s seen and done everything, and you imagine there will be a little bit of mentorship that happens alongside his performance with Sterling,” Chamberlain says. In anticipation of his Aspen debut as a guest artist, Elliott looks forward to sharing the stage with Shaham. “For Gil to have done this concerto so many times with the best musicians in the entire world, I’m excited to absorb his accumulation of experience and musical knowledge all at once.”
Chamberlain notes, “It’s not two soloists in front of an orchestra dueling. It’s really everybody on stage making chamber music together. That’s the type of environment that Aspen cultivates. I have a sense that this will be really a special and intimate moment and one that our audiences won’t want to miss.” Perhaps more thrilled than anyone, Elliott adds, “I’m extremely excited to return to a stage and a festival that still shapes me to this day. I hold it very dear to my heart, and I take this experience as one of my first large-scale, professional [ventures].”
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The Science of Music Lectures Begin July 18 even the composer, but thinking about how the concert hall shapes sound might not be as intuitive. If rhythms and tempos are what form the basic sounds of Harris Hall, designed by award-winning architect and Asmusic, then mathematics can explain everything from how pen icon Harry Teague, emulates the great parts of the best a string vibrates at a certain frequency to why the shape of halls in the world and strives to be the gold standard of cona particular instrument influences the sound it makes when cert halls. The success of the vision—which Teague credits played. The entire system of rhythm is simple fractions. to humility, research, and incorporating tried-and-true design “Pythagoras created the first theoretical writing about mu- elements with innovative qualities he felt were important— sic in the whole Western tradition,” says Alan Fletcher, Aspen seemed certain because of his great commitment to the arts. Music Festival and School president and CEO. “Both math “There is a very clear connection between the experience and music go back to the exact same of architecture—science, math, propoint in classical Greece.” portions—that is very similar to music,” As legend goes, Pythagoras listened to Teague says. “A hall can either enhance the sounds of blacksmiths hitting anvils the timbre of the music or it can distort and discovered that musical notes could it. If the acoustics are doing their job, THE SCIENCE OF MUSIC be translated into mathematical equanobody notices the acoustics because Harris Concert Hall Acoustics tions. His observations were related to the music sounds good.” Monday, July 18, 6 pm the ratio of sound wave frequencies and To be clear, there is a lot going on in $25 | Harris Concert Hall the intervals between them. Harris Hall. The hall itself is buried and Music and Mathematics A collaboration of the Aspen Science sheltered by an outer shell. And though Monday, August 1, 6 pm $25 | Harris Concert Hall Center and AMFS, the Science of Music there are elements of the hall that reseries was born of the idea that music semble the traditional “shoe box” shape, Organ Acoustics and science are inextricably intertwined. Monday, August 8, 6 pm asymmetry is just one innovation that $25 | Aspen Community Church The program is aimed at engaging the Teague created to improve the acoustic “enthusiastic novice.” In fact, no previous ecosystem. knowledge of music theory or physics is “Some materials are absorbent, some necessary to enjoy the programs, only a curiosity and desire are reflective, and some are dispersive,” Teague says. “What to learn. happens to the music between the time it is played and the Fletcher, a founding member of ASC, said the collaboration time when your brain and ears put it together—the delay—has between the organizations was a natural connection given an incredible influence on what you hear. How the notes both his career in music and love of science and the fact that blend is a function of how the notes exist together, or not, so many great scientists are musicians and vice versa. over time.” Attendees on July 18 will get to physically experi“I’m a composer and yet, when studying, I had a really ence exactly what Teague means. strong interest in science and especially in math and physics,” Music can be appreciated in much the same way as wine— Fletcher says. “There is so much intersection between the you like what you like. Understanding the elements of a great scientific method and music. What makes a Stradivarius violin musical experience can start simply with whether you had so great and what can science tell us about how that works?” a positive response to the music. Was it beautiful? Was it Though the series covers a range of topics each year, a sta- screeching? And as Teague likes to say, the mark of an incredple of the program is a discussion about the acoustics of the ible hall is when you can say, “I’ve heard that piece 100 times world-renowned Harris Concert Hall. and I’ve never heard it this way before.” “The public knows or feels that Harris Hall is one of the great This season’s Science of Music series also explores “Music music halls in the U.S. But why?” Fletcher said. “In our presen- and Mathematics: Similarities and Differences,” and “Organ tation, we’ll physically change the acoustics of the hall while Acoustics.” you are sitting there to see if you can tell the differences.” “We are always looking for that a-ha moment—to be sure When the lay listener thinks of hearing music, it’s common there will be something that makes our audience say, ‘Wow. to think of the musicians and the instruments and maybe That’s how that works,’” Fletcher says. SAMANTHA JOHNSTON
Festival Focus Writer
IF YOU GO:
GILLAM TO PLAY SET FOR CLASSICAL SAX
Continued from Festival Focus page 1
ever presenter for BBC Radio 3, she says, “I feel so lucky to be able to have conversations with guests about their impressions of something I love and to be introduced to things that they’re passionate about.” Whether chatting with a musician for the first time or catching up with friends and colleagues, Gillam looks forward to learning something new with each episode. “Music can really unite people and encourage us to listen better. I always love working with new people because it’s a real masterclass in how to listen, which is something that we need in the world,” Gillam says. For her Harris Concert Hall recital on July 16, she will perform with AMFS students instead of the Jess Gillam Ensemble, which normally tours with her. While it won’t be her usual performance, she says this makes the experience all the better. “Music invites you to be more open-minded and cooperative. I might want to play a piece or a phrase in a certain way, but somebody else might have a totally different idea for it, and you have to be empathetic, listen to their ideas, and find a solution together,” Gillam says. Her program features the United States premiere of the fascinating and moving “Pressure of Speech” by Nico Muhly. As a demanding piece for Gillam and the student ensemble, the audience is sure to take an interest in Muhly’s “playful puzzle.” The piece sits nicely in between spirited and atmospheric works by Astor Piazzolla, Björk, and Philip Glass, many of which were recorded and released on her 2020 album, TIME. “There’s not a whole lot of classical saxophone repertoire out there in the first place and I so admire the way that Jess has single-handedly developed and redefined repertoire for this instrument,” Chamberlain commends. “She’s become an ambassador for the saxophone just like Yo-Yo Ma is the ambassador for the cello.” When putting together a program as spectacular as this one, Gillam says, “I’m often thinking about the audience’s experience and trying to showcase the versatility of the saxophone, but also bringing as much energy and joy in as possible.” A true inspiration to all, Jess Gillam’s highly anticipated debut is not one to miss.