Your weekly CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE
Festival Focus
Supplement to The Aspen Times
Free Family Concerts!
Monday, July 7, 2014
Vol 25, No. 3
Pianist Yefim Bronfman plays Beethoven
Don’t miss the AMFS’s first Family Concert of the summer on July 10! This free concert at Edlis Neeson Hall offers an opportunity for the whole family to enjoy Stravinsky’s musical story The Soldier’s Tale. The short concert begins at 5 pm, with kid-friendly refreshments and activities starting at 4 pm. Another free Family Concert will take place at 5 pm on Thursday, August 14, in Harris Concert Hall, featuring Saint-Saëns’s The Carnival of the Animals. Mark your calendars! With special thanks to Gail and Daniel E. Schmidt IV and the Thrift Shop of Aspen.
alex irvin/amfs
The Aspen Festival Orchestra (AFO) will perform works by Beethoven and Dvořák at its concert at 4 pm on Sunday, July 13, at the Benedict Music Tent.
jessica cabe
Festival Focus writer
The Aspen Festival Orchestra’s (AFO) Sunday concert at the Benedict Music Tent will feature core works from the classical canon, Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto and Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony, “From the New World.” Making the concert an even bigger treat is world-renowned pianist Yefim Bronfman, who will be playing Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto. The Grammy Award-winner’s performance of this piece with Andris Nelsons and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at the 2011 Lucerne Festival is available on DVD. Bronfman has a way of bringing something new to even great standards, accord-
ing to Alan Fletcher, president and CEO of the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS). “Yefim Bronfman has a technique of unparalleled power, but he uses it without the least sense of show, and can project the most tender delicacy as well as thunderous force,” says Fletcher. Beethoven’s concerto will be followed by Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony, “From the New World.” The masterful work has been an audience favorite since its 1893 debut because of its daring new sound and fresh melodies. The work is particularly notable because it represents a change in Dvořák’s style that directly resulted from his living in America from 1892 to 1895, a move spurred by his desire to discover American
music. “This was a new sound for Dvořák,” says Asadour Santourian, vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor for the AMFS. “It’s also bigger and bolder, in response to the sounds that he heard in America and then imagined in his symphony. And of course the use of original material that he assimilated while he was here is very interesting.” In order to fully appreciate how Dvořák came to develop his new, Western sound, two talks from musicologist Joseph Horowitz are scheduled this week, perfectly timed to supplement the AFO’s program. The first event, on Wednesday, July 9, at Paepcke See AFO, Festival Focus page 3
‘Onegin’ explores love, cynicism jessica cabe
Festival Focus writer
Opening at the Wheeler Opera House on July 10 is the Aspen Music Festival and School’s (AMFS) first-ever production of Tchaikovsky’s operatic masterpiece, Eugene Onegin, conducted by Steven Mercurio. A tale of love and longing, set to sweeping Romantic melodies, Onegin is an opera that Aspen Opera Theater Center (AOTC) Director Edward Berkeley says perfectly fits a program for young singers, as well as the 2014 season exploration of Romanticism. “Eugene Onegin was the peak of Romanticism in terms of the score,” says Berkeley. “From the moment you hear the first phrase, you feel like you’ve heard it before.” The opera tells the story of the title character, a cynical, shallow young man, and Tatyana, a romantic, naive woman who falls in love with him. When she
tells him how she feels, he responds coldly, advising her to control her emotions so others do not take advantage of her. Years later, Onegin sees Tatyana again, now married into aristocracy, and he realizes he is in love with her. But it is too late, as Tatyana is set on staying faithful to her husband. “It’s like two ships that pass in the night: people who find love and yet not at the same moment, and therefore can never be together,” says Berkeley. “It’s just an incredibly touching story.” AOTC student and baritone Craig Verm, who is at the AMFS for his fifth season, sings the role of Onegin. He said one of his favorite parts of the opera is the challenge in showing off Onegin’s charming exterior while portraying a character who is hollow on the inside. See OPERA, Festival Focus page 3
photo courtesy of craig verm
Baritone Craig Verm, who plays the title role in Tchaikovsky’s Romantic opera Eugene Onegin, is spending his fifth summer at the Aspen Music Festival and School.
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Festival Focus: Your Weekly Classical Music Guide
Supplement to The Aspen Times
Radio show brings Music Festival to national audience jessica cabe
Festival Focus writer
Fred Child, host of America’s most popular classical music radio show, Performance Today, spends a lot of his time on the road. He traverses the country to report from the most important sites for classical music, but there’s only one place he and the Performance Today crew make sure to visit each summer: Aspen. For the past fourteen years, Child has been hosting Performance Today and for the past four years coming to Aspen for his week-long residency. “The only music festival in the world that I’ve gone to every year is the Aspen Music Festival,” says Child. “Clearly it’s because it’s one of the premier festivals and classical music gatherings and schools. Aspen is the heart of the classical music world.” Child says there are multiple factors that make the AMFS so special. The students, guest artists, and faculty members are the best in the world at what they do. But on top of that, Child says, the audience members at Aspen really care about the music, and there is great conversation after every performance. He says the location only adds to the magic of the experience, and the history of the Festival makes it all the more extraordinary. “There have been three generations of artists and musicians who learned their craft at the Aspen Music Festival and School,” says Child. “You put all that together—the incredible people, the incredible legacy, and the incredible audience—and there’s nothing else like that in the entire world.”
Child loves being in Aspen every year, so he takes seri“It’s become a really nice annual event,” says Child. ously his job of sharing that experience with listeners who “People who come see not only a concert and these live are not at the Festival. In order to paint a picture for his interviews, but they get a behind-the-scenes look at creatPerformance Today audience, Child uses natural sound ing a radio show.” from some of Aspen’s most beautiful spots to add dimenLaura Smith, AMFS vice president for communications, sion to his program. says the AMFS not only enhances “We always talk to students up Performance Today, but the radio at the campus—you have Castle show makes the Festival a greater Creek rushing in the background,” success. says Child. “We’ve also gone up “Fred and the Performance Today to some of the really high lakes, staff are spectacularly gifted at aulike Cathedral Lake, and recorded dio storytelling and really capture sounds there, like the wind whisperthe essence of the Aspen festival ing through the trees and the thunon their show—from the intimacy der echoing off the canyon walls.” of the connection between teachers Beyond capturing audio on loand students, to the star-studded cation, Child interviews as many performances on the main stage,” different people involved with the says Smith. “Performance Today AMFS as possible. “We try to give reaches more than a million clasa complete sense for what it means sical music fans each week and its to be at the Festival for a variety of ‘Aspen Week’ shares with the world people,” he says. the excitement of the Aspen festival in a way that’s very vital, very alive.” Although Performance Today feaTickets for An Evening with Pertures a wide array of Festival coverFred Child Host of Performance Today formance Today and Fred Child can age, the highlight of this residency be purchased at the Harris Concert comes at 8 pm on Thursday, July 10, at Harris Concert Hall. An Evening with Performance Today Hall Box Office from 9 am through intermission of the final and Fred Child offers ticket holders the opportunity to expe- concert or at the Wheeler Opera House Box Office from 9 rience a live taping of the radio show featuring guest artists am to 5 pm. To purchase by phone, call 970-925-9042, or visit www.aspenmusicfestival.com. Steven Osborne and Daniel Hope and two AMFS students.
The only music festival in the world that I’ve gone to every year is the Aspen Music Festival. Aspen is the heart of the classical music world.
Buy tickets now: (970) 925-9042 • www.aspenmusicfestival.com
Supplement to The Aspen Times
Festival Focus: Your Weekly Classical Music Guide
Monday, July 7, 2014 | Page 3
AFO: Concert features American influences Continued from Festival Focus page 1
Auditorium, is part of the AMFS’s free, ongoing High Notes series. Horowitz will focus on classical music in the United States and Dvořák’s place within that history—as well as what Horowitz considers to be a challenge in classical music in the U.S. even today. “It remains Eurocentric,” says Horowitz. “Our orchestras still fundamentally play European music. And my lecture will be about why and how that happened.” Fletcher hosts the High Notes series each week, featuring discussions with different musicians, composers, and industry insiders. Fletcher says Horowitz is one of the premier experts on Dvořák and someone who will get his points across in an accessible way. “He’s a musicologist, but he writes for the general public,” Fletcher says. “He is an academic, but his books are written so that the average audience can understand music, and he’s one of the greatest
experts on classical music.” Another discussion on Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony will come from Horowitz at 3 pm on Sunday, July 13, at Harris Concert Hall, before the AFO’s concert. This time, Horowitz says he will focus on what he thinks influenced Dvořák when he was composing the “New World” Symphony, specifically Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem “The Song of Hiawatha.” “It’s only in recent decades that a small group of music historians, including myself, have pursued this and discovered that the ‘New World’ Symphony is full of references to ‘The Song of Hiawatha,’” says Horowitz, who is quick to point out several instances within the symphony that seem inspired by specific scenes in the poem. “I think the whole symphony on one level of experience is a requiem for what was known as the ‘noble savage,’ [a literary stock character],” he says. “Hiawatha
Aspen Music Festival and School Box Office Hours
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World-renowned pianist Yefim Bronfman, pictured here at a 2013 AMFS performance, will play Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto on Sunday.
was the embodiment of the noble savage.” Fletcher says the theory is controversial, but Horowitz’s arguments are intriguing. “He shows you how it was influenced, in even certain rhythmic ideas. Once you realize it, it’s a very interesting way to listen.”
• Each morning at 8:59 am and 9:59 am for Festival Notes with daily news and information on the AMFS • Each weekday afternoon at 1 pm for Festival-related music • Each Tuesday at 3:30 pm for lively interviews with Festival artists 91.5 in Aspen, 90.1 in Basalt, 89.9 in Carbondale, 89.3 in Glenwood Springs.
Harris Concert Hall: 9 am through the intermission of the evening concert, daily. Wheeler Opera House: 9 am–5 pm daily.
Artist-faculty member starts 45th season jessica cabe
oPERA: Season starts Continued from Festival Focus page 1
Festival Focus writer
Thousands of talented brass students have come through Aspen over the years—and if they’ve studied at the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) in the past five decades, they’ve likely had their experiences enriched by one particularly familiar trombonist: artistfaculty member Per Brevig, who this summer celebrates his 45th season with the AMFS. That remarkable run makes him the artist-faculty member who has been with the Festival the longest. Brevig’s list of accomplishments outside the AMFS is also rich. He spent twenty-six years as the principal trombonist for the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. After leaving the Met in 1994, he set his sights on a conducting career that has garnered acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. But something about Aspen keeps him coming back. “If you look at what’s happening—the teaching, the performing, the new buildings, and the philanthropy that goes on at Aspen—it’s absolutely extraordinary,” says Brevig. “I think ‘overwhelming’ is a good word to use when you talk about these things. You feel the positivity in the air when you walk around here, and you know the positivity is contagious. It’s a good place to be.” As always, Brevig’s summer will be full of lessons. And this year, he’ll also conduct a free brass ensemble concert at 6 pm on Saturday, July 12, in the Benedict Music Tent. This type of concert is not something the Festival puts on every year, but AMFS Assistant Artistic Administrator Steven Slaff says it’s a perfect opportunity to showcase Brevig’s many talents. “He’s got decades of experience as a trombone performer, and he has a lot of experience as a conductor as well,” says Slaff. “It’s the perfect marriage of his skills to put together a brass ensemble performance, and it’s an idea Per has been kicking around for a long time.” After dabbling in a variety of brass instruments as a child, Brevig settled on trombone when he was eight,
photo courtesy of per brevig
AMFS faculty member Per Brevig here appears with pianist Lang Lang. Brevig says, “The harder you work, the luckier you’ll get.”
and his professional performing career began when he was just sixteen. He has performed in the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in Norway, where he was born, the American Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and more. He played jazz in the 1960s, and he also played an active role in the avantgarde movement of the same decade. Brevig studied at the Juilliard School and is still its only trombonist to have received a DMA. Now, Brevig is content to conduct and teach. “Conducting is almost like a different profession,” says Brevig. “To sit in the orchestra and perform is one thing. To conduct and be up front, that’s a very different one. But the two complement each other.” In addition to Brevig’s influence on his students as a teacher for the AMFS, a scholarship fund was started in his name to support today’s young aspiring trombonists. There is currently an effort to raise money for the fund to make it even more meaningful to recipients. To donate to the Per Brevig Trombone Scholarship, contact Alexander Brose, AMFS vice president for developement, at 970-205-5060 or abrose@aspenmusic.org, or make a gift at www. aspenmusicfestival.com/campaigngift and make a note to direct your gift to the Per Brevig Trombone Scholarship.
“Onegin is basically incapable of true intimacy, of true love,” says Verm. “And I think he finally discovers that at the end. He so desperately wants to love Tatyana and for her to love him, but he lost the chance long ago. And I think he’s also come to a much more tragic place of realizing that he’s never had a capacity to truly love and know what that means because he’s so selfish, so empty, so hollow, so shallow, so cynical.” Certainly the heart of Onegin is an ideal fit for a season exploring Romanticism—but it’s also an ideal opera for the AOTC’s young and talented performers. “The first performance of Eugene Onegin took place in a conservatory,” says Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor. “Tchaikovsky wanted age-appropriate singers to sing it. So the fact that we’re doing it with young people is exactly how Tchaikovsky imagined and executed it at its world premiere; conservatory singers sang it, and conservatory students performed the orchestral parts. So I’m thrilled about doing that here in Aspen, too.” Despite that similarity, there is one major difference between Eugene Onegin’s 1879 Moscow premiere and the AOTC’s production: In Aspen, it will be performed in English. “Ed Berkeley really wants the audience to be as involved as possible in the drama,” says Verm. “And if the audience is constantly looking up at the supertitles, then they lose so much of what’s actually happening on stage.” Santourian said he thinks putting on Onegin in English is the right artistic choice. “I attend many performances of all languages, and even with my familiarity with many operas, I’m approximating what is being said when it’s in a language I don’t speak,” says Santourian. “We’re still going to have supertitles, but in English my ear is free to pick up the beautiful, lush music of Tchaikovsky. And suddenly the score blossoms even more.” Eugene Onegin opens at 7 pm on Thursday, July 10, at the Wheeler Opera House, with subsequent performances on July 12 and 14.
Page 4 | Monday, July 7, 2014
Festival Focus: Your Weekly Classical Music Guide
Supplement to The Aspen Times