CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 46 MINUTES. INCLUDING A 20 MINUTE INTERMISSION.
PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY
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SEOYOEN MIN, principal cello
Seoyoen Min has served as Principal Cello of the Colorado Symphony since her inaugural season in 2019/20. As a native of South Korea, she has made multiple international appearances in performances and competitions, most notably winning First Prize in the Strad Music Competition, Seoul Soloists Cello Ensemble Competition, Music Association of Korea Competition, and Segye Times Competition, as well as Second Prize in the 2018 Samuel & Elinor Thaviu Endowed Scholarship Competition in String Performance.
As an active soloist in both the United States and South Korea, Seoyoen made her Youngsan Art Hall debut in 2016, where she was selected for the Young Artist of Youngsan Debut Concert Series. Most recently, she was featured with the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra, performing the Friedrich Gulda Cello Concerto with Christopher Dragon. Other solo engagements include concerts with the Northwestern University Chamber Orchestra, Seoul National Symphony Orchestra, the Seoul Academy Ensemble, the Seoul Soloists Cello Ensemble, and OZ Ensemble.
A founding member of the Edith String Quartet, Seoyoen has continued to engage in a variety of chamber music collaborations throughout her career. Some highlights include performing in a cello ensemble with Lynn Harrell, and with Kyung Sun Lee in the Virtuosi Seoul Ensemble, as well as work with the St. Lawrence Quartet. Active in her local performing arts community in Colorado, she also regularly performs at Englewood Arts as a chamber musician and soloist, and the Front Range Chamber Players. Seoyoen has also worked to pave the way for the contemporary music scene in South Korea, where she was a member of the emerging contemporary music group <Ensemble BLANK>. During her summers, she performs with South Eastern Young Artists in Georgia as a guest artist, Grand Teton Music Festival as Principal Cello, and the “Going Home Project” Orchestra as Assistant Principal. Seoyoen has also begun to leave a mark as a private teacher in her local community and guest faculty member at music institutions. She has most recently taught a masterclass at the University of Wyoming, where she also taught a class at the UW Cello Festival. Her own mentors include musical figures such as Lynn Harrell, Gary Hoffman, Xenia Jankovic, Peter Bruns, and Tilmann Wick. She holds a Master of Music degree from Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, where she studied with Hans Jørgen Jensen, and a Bachelor of Music degree from Seoul National University.
CHLOE HONG, assistant principal cello
Originally from Southern California, Chloe Hong began a multifaceted career as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral performer at the age of eight. At the age of eleven, Chloe made her solo debut with the South Coast Symphony. She has appeared as a soloist with the Torrance Symphony, Peninsula Symphony, and the Montecito Festival Orchestra. Chloe was a prize winner of the Hellam Young Artists Competition and first prize winner of the American String Teacher’s Association, the Edith Knox Concerto Competition, and the Los Angeles Violoncello Society Scholarship Auditions. She has performed in masterclasses for artists including Jean-Guihen Queyras, Frans Helmerson, Ronald Leonard, Ralph Kirshbaum, and János Starker.
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Chloe’s passion for orchestral and chamber music has led her to perform in some of the great halls of the world including Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Segerstrom Hall, and Alice Tully Hall. Her interest in chamber music has led her to study in prestigious programs such as the Perlman Music Program and the Colburn School’s Ed and Mari Chamber Music Institute. Chloe has performed several times for Juilliard’s Chamberfest program as well as the Juilliard Focus! festival. Prior to joining the Colorado Symphony, Chloe served as principal cellist at the Verbier Festival Orchestra for three summers, where she had the privilege to work with renowned conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Fabio Luisi, among others. She was principal of the Juilliard School Orchestra where she served under the batons of Alan Gilbert and John Adams. Festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival, New York String Orchestra Seminar, and the Grand Teton Music Festival.
Chloe received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Juilliard School under the tutelage of Joel Krosnick. Chloe joined the Colorado Symphony as Assistant Principal in 2019.
JUDITH McINTYRE GALECKI, fixed 3rd chair cello
Cellist Judith McIntyre Galecki has been a member of the Colorado Symphony as Third Chair Cello since 2003 and held the position of Acting Principal for the 2017-19 seasons. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto and a Master’s Degree from the Manhattan School of Music.
Judith McIntyre Galecki was born into a very musical family and began violin lessons at the age of 4 but chose to switch to the cello at age 7.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto where she studied as a scholarship student with former Principal Cellist of the Toronto Symphony Daniel Domb and Master’s Degree from the Manhattan School of Music where she studied as an almost full tuition scholarship student with former Associate Principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic Alan Stepansky.
While studying at the Manhattan School she performed regularly as principal cellist of the Symphony and Chamber Sinfonia and was chosen as one of 5 students to travel to the Salzburg Easter festival to attend concerts given by the Berlin Philharmonic and take lessons from one of its cellists. While in New York Judith was an Artist’s International Music Auditions Finalist. Upon graduation from the Manhattan School she was awarded the Pablo Casals Graduation Award given for musical accomplishment and human endeavor.
As a teenager Judith was invited to perform in Masterclasses for Janos Starker and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi at the Orford Arts Center in Quebec and returned there a couple years later to study with her teacher, Daniel Domb, and Yuri Turovsky. Prior to joining the Colorado Symphony, Judith performed as substitute member for one of the Pittsburgh Symphony’s European Tours and spent many summers and tours in Europe playing with the Verbier Festival Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra as Principal Cellist and Assistant principal cellist including a tour with Joshua Bell performing the continuo part for Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
She made her first appearance as concerto soloist with her hometown symphony, the Windsor Symphony, at the age of 16. She also performed as concerto soloist with the Detroit Symphony at the age of 18. More recently Judith has performed as soloist with the Colorado Symphony and the Colorado Young Sinfonia.
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An avid chamber musician Judith has performed all over the world and has been very active with many groups and festivals including the Colorado Chamber Players, the Front Range Chamber Players, the Off the Hook Festival, the Crested Butte Music Festival, the Steamboat Springs Music Festival, Symphonic Salida!, the Englewood Arts Center series, Highlands Ranch Chamber Music series, Cherokee Ranch Chamber music series, the Boulder Library concert series, as continuo player the Bach Ensemble and the Cabrillo New Music Festival in Santa Cruz, CA. She spends her summers playing orchestral and chamber music in the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson WY.
Judith lives in Denver with her husband, two daughters, dog and cat. She loves spending her time teaching, skiing, cooking, hiking, camping and snow-shoeing.
DAKOTA COTUGNO, cello
Dakota Cotugno began his study of cello at the age of 12 and has loved it ever since. A native of Colorado, he grew up in the Longmont area attending many Colorado Symphony concerts and joined the Colorado Symphony as a tenured member in the 2023/24 season.
He earned his Bachelor of Music in Cello Performance from the University of Colorado Boulder studying under David Requiro, and later received dual Master’s degrees in Cello Performance and Chamber Music along with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan studying with Richard Aaron. During his DMA, Dakota transcribed many works for the cello, including string arrangements of orchestral excerpts for cello and violin to be published in 2025/26.
Mr. Cotugno was awarded the silver medal in the 2019 Irving M. Klein International String Competition, in which he also garnered the Pablo Casals Prize for Best Performance of Bach. He was also the first place winner of the concerto competition at CU Boulder as a sophomore performing the Elgar Cello Concerto with the University Symphony Orchestra. He has performed with the Detroit Symphony, the Ann Arbor Symphony, the Colorado Music Festival, and was an orchestral fellow and principal cellist of the Aspen Festival Orchestra.
A passionate teacher, Mr. Cotugno has enjoyed working with dozens of cellists of all ages, from 7 to 76. A number of his students have been named principal cello of the District Honors Orchestra, and have participated in the Colorado All-state and Western States Orchestra. His private students have been accepted with scholarships to schools such as the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the New England Conservatory of Music. Outside of music, Dakota loves to cook, read, is an avid gamer, and a very amateur golfer trying to hit par.
DANIELLE GUIDERI, cello
Danielle has performed extensively throughout the New York metropolitan area as a soloist, performing works such as Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations, Brahms Double Concerto, Haydn Cello Concerto, and Tan Dun Elegy: Snow in June and Eternal Vow. She has given numerous recitals in New York, including at The Juilliard School, and in Europe.
As a chamber musician, Ms. Guideri has appeared at Weill Concert Hall at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, The James Lenox House, The Juilliard School, Kaye Playhouse with The American Ballet Theatre, as well as the National
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Arts Club. As a member of the Veronika String Quartet, she was Artist in Residence at Colorado State University-Pueblo, where she performed and taught throughout Colorado. Ms. Guideri was a member of the Phoenix Symphony for three years before relocating to New York, where she performed regularly with the New Haven Symphony and Harrisburg Symphony. Ms. Guideri currently resides in Westminster, CO and has been a member of the Colorado Symphony since 2015.
THOMAS HEINRICH, cello
Thomas Heinrich has been a member of the Colorado Symphony since 1997 and was Assistant Principal Cellist of The Santa Fe Opera orchestra (2009-18), Principal Cellist of the Grand Teton Music Festival orchestra (2001-08), Principal Cellist of the American Sinfonietta (1997-2003), and Asst. Principal Cellist of the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra under Leonard Bernstein (1990).
A graduate of the Eastman School of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music, Thomas made his solo debut with the Vermont Symphony at age sixteen. At the Bellingham Festival of Music, he appeared with Janos Starker and the American Sinfonietta performing the Vivaldi Double Cello Concerto. In Colorado, Thomas has performed as soloist with the Littleton, Lone Tree, and Aurora symphonies and the Up Close and Musical chamber orchestra. He has also performed at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Strings in the Mountains (Steamboat), June in Buffalo, and the Bellingham Festival of Music.
Thomas is a founding member of the Boulder Piano Quartet (BPQ), former ensemble-in-residence at the Boulder Public Library, and Trio Cordilleras (TC). Recordings include Lowell Liebermann Quintets with BPQ and Jon Manasse (Koch Int’L), and Las Puertas del Tiempo: The Music of Luis Jorge Gonzalez and Tango: Body and Soul with TC (Meridian).
Thomas’ performances have been broadcast across North America on CBC Radio’s Chamber Music at Noon, NPR’s Performance Today, and CPR’s Colorado Spotlight. As a chamber musician, Thomas has collaborated with Ida Kavafian, David Krakauer, Elmar Oliveira, the Cavani and Miami String Quartets, and members of the Takacs Quartet. He has worked with composers Fred Bretschger, Jon Deak, Phillip Glass, Luis Jorge Gonzalez, Clark W. Ross, and R. Murray Schafer.
Thomas has been a faculty member of Memorial University of Newfoundland and the University of Colorado at Boulder College of Music. His principal mentors and teachers include Leopold Teraspulsky, Alan Harris, and Aldo Parisot.
When not playing music, Thomas loves to spend time birding and photographing birds. Thomas’ photos have been published in several birding journals and newsletters as well as The Raptor Guide of Southern Africa. He displays his photos in web galleries at http://www.pbase.com/ birdercellist. Other interests include mountain biking, backpacking, mountaineering, and rock climbing. Thomas has hiked and climbed all 58 of Colorado’s 14ers, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and many peaks in the Tetons and North Cascades. Thomas lives in Boulder with his wife and their two children.
SPOTLIGHT BIOGRAPHIES
EUGENE KIM, cello
Cellist Eugene Kim made her concert debut as a soloist with the Youth Orchestra of the Educational and Cultural Art Center in Incheon at the age of 12. She performed as an orchestral musician with Maestro Nanse Gum as a prize of the Korean Classic Prodigy Discovery Project by KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) and sponsored by KT (Korea Telecom Corporation). She showcased her promise as a soloist by holding her first recital during the 2021 season at the Kumho Asiana Cultural Foundation.
Music was a strong part of Eugene’s education from a young age through learning various instruments until eventually focusing on the cello and attending Yewon School and Seoul Arts High School, the most prestigious art academies in South Korea. While at Seoul Arts High School, she received an Award for Excellence. She studied with Lluis Claret at New England Conservatory, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree. In May 2024, she received her Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Timothy Eddy and Natasha Brofsky.
Eugene Kim recently won a section position with the Colorado Symphony and will be joining them in September 2024. She performed at Carnegie Hall as part of the New York String Orchestra Seminar in her early career as a dedicated orchestra musician in 2022. In 2023, she served as principal cellist with the Juilliard Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall and as associate principal for the opening concert of the 30th edition of the Verbier Festival Orchestra, performing alongside the legendary Maestro Zubin Mehta and pianist Yuja Wang. During the 2023-2024 season at Verbier, Eugene collaborated with renowned musicians such as Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Antonio Pappano, Yunchan Lim, Charles Dutoit, Klaus Mäkelä, Daniele Gatti, Bryn Terfel, Lahav Shani, Placido Domingo, Christoph Eschenbach, and Wynton Marsalis at Verbier. She continued her role as principal cellist at the Spoleto Music Festival in 2024. Most recently, Eugene played with the Britt Festival Orchestra during the summer of 2024.
She has won various competitions in South Korea including The Strad competition and the Ehwa & Kyunghyang Concour. Being selected for the country’s only chamber music program jointly developed by LG and The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center greatly influenced her capability as a chamber musician as well as a soloist. She also received fellowship offers from the Aspen Music Festival in 2020 and the Bowdoin International Music Festival in 2021.
MATTHEW SWITZER, cello
Matthew Switzer joined the Colorado Symphony as assistant principal cello in 1988. Prior to joining the Colorado Symphony, Mr. Switzer served as principal cellist of the Oklahoma Symphony. Currently Music Director and Conductor of the Lakewood Symphony, Mr. Switzer was interim conductor of the Denver Young Artists Orchestra and has conducted the Colorado Symphony.
Mr. Switzer is the founding conductor of the Steamboat Springs Symphony where he served as conductor for 6 years. He has appeared as a guest artist with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Colorado Symphony, Oklahoma Symphony, Littleton Symphony, Aurora Philharmonic and the Lakewood Symphony Orchestra.
In 2010, Matthew completed the composition of Ansel and the Great Tree, a score for narrator and orchestra. Subsequently, a collaboration between the story’s author, Rose Switzer, noted artist Quang Ho, and Mr. Switzer resulted in the publication of an illustrated children’s book with an
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included DVD featuring the narration, music, and illustrations (visit anselandthegreattree.com to find more information).
Matthew holds a DMA from State University of New York at Stony Brook. His teachers have included David Soyer and Timothy Eddy.
ANNA CHRISTY, soprano
Praised by the New York Times as “nimble of voice, body and spirit,”
GRAMMY Award® winning soprano Anna Christy continues to impress and delight audiences with an extraordinary blend of sparkling voice, powerful stage presence, and innate musicality. In the 24/25 season, Anna returns to the Colorado Symphony as the guest soloist for Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5. Last season, she returned to the Colorado Symphony for Bruckner’s Psalm 150 and Messiah.
Operatic highlights of Ms. Christy’s career include Don Giovanni, Madame Mao, Lucia Silla, Fidelio, The Mother of Us All, Zemire et Azor, A Wedding, An American Trajedy, Die Zauberflöte, Candide, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Giulio Cesare, Dialogues des Carmélites, Un ballo in maschera, Bianca e Falliero, La rondine, Die Fledermaus, Lucia di Lammermoor, Rigoletto, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Les contes d’Hoffmann, Aridne auf Naxos, L’enfant et les sortilèges, Our Town, The Ballad of Baby Doe, Alcina, Gianni Schicchi, and La bohème. She regularly appears on the stages of The Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Canadian Opera Company, The Santa Fe Opera, Teatro Real, Opéra National de Bordeaux, English National Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Opéra national de Paris, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Teatro alla Scala, Théâtre du Châtélet, Opéra de Lille, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, New York City Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Des Moines Metro Opera, and Central City Opera.
Anna enjoys frequent collaboration with the world’s foremost conductors including Seiji Ozawa, Peter Oundjian, Joe Hisaishi, Stéphane Denève, Brett Mitchell, Michael Tilson Thomas, Marin Alsop, Harry Bicket, Charles Dutoit, Emmanuelle Haïm, Sir Andrew Davis, Edward Gardner, David Stern, Bertrand de Billy, Bramwell Tovey, George Manahan, Antony Walker, James Conlon, Paul Daniel, Marco Armiliato, Julius Rudel, Donald Runnicles, Kent Nagano, Jane Glover, and Emmanuel Plasson to name a few. Orchestral highlights include Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, East Land Symphony, Messiah, In Terra Pax, Carmina Burana, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, Savannah Philharmonic, Kansas City Symphony, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Saito Kinen Festival, English Concert, Baltimore Symphony, and Les Vents Atlantiques.
Selected by New York City Opera, Anna Christy is the recipient of the Martin E. Segal Award presented annually to nominees by two of Lincoln Center’s twelve resident arts constituents. She is also the recipient of a Richard Tucker Music Foundation Career Grant, the ARIA Award, Sullivan Foundation Grant, a Richard F. Gold Grant and the Shouse Debut Artist Award from Wolf Trap Opera.
Anna was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Pasadena, California. She spent her summers in Tokyo, Japan, at her mother’s family home, and is fluent in Japanese. Ms. Christy attended Polytechnic School in Pasadena and was a founding member of the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus. She is a graduate of Rice University and the University of Cincinnati, CollegeConservatory of Music. Ms. Christy currently resides with her husband and children in Colorado.
PHOTO: DARIO ACOSTA
SPOTLIGHT 2024/25
CHRIS THILE WITH THE COLORADO SYMPHONY
NICHOLAS HERSH, conductor
CHRIS THILE, mandolin
KATHRYN RADAKOVICH, soprano
COLORADO SYMPHONY CHORUS
Saturday, October 12, 2024 at 7:30pm
Boettcher Concert Hall
BEETHOVEN Creatures of Prometheus: Overture
CAROLINE SHAW And So
COPLAND Appalachian Spring: Suite
— INTERMISSION —
CHRIS THILE Attention!
I. Attention
II. Lord Starbucks
III. The Rooftop
IV. Carrie Freaking Fisher
CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 48 MINUTES. INCLUDING A 20 MINUTE INTERMISSION.
PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY
SPOTLIGHT BIOGRAPHIES
NICHOLAS HERSH, conductor
Conductor Nicholas Hersh is in his second season as Music Director of the Modesto Symphony. Across the country, Nicholas has earned critical acclaim for his innovative programming and natural ability to connect with musicians and audiences alike, and he was the unanimous choice of the search committee in Modesto
During the 2024-25 season, Nicholas’s guest conducting takes him to the Nashville, Madison, Omaha, and Tucson Symphonies, and the Florida and Apollo Orchestras. Recent highlights include performances with the National, Houston, Detroit, Utah, Colorado, New Jersey, Grand Rapids, New World, North Carolina, Phoenix, Portland (ME), Richmond, and Winston-Salem Symphonies; Louisiana and Rochester Philharmonics; and the Sarasota Orchestras.
Over a remarkable tenure as Associate Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Hersh created the BSO Pulse series, through which he brought together indie bands and orchestral musicians in unique collaborations; he led the BSO in several subscription weeks, and concerts in and around Baltimore; and he directed the BSO’s educational and family programming, including the celebrated Academy for adult amateur musicians. Hersh also maintains a close relationship with the National Symphony Orchestra, leading concerts throughout Washington, D.C. He stepped in to replace an indisposed Yan Pascal Tortelier, on subscription, to great acclaim.
Hersh is frequently in demand as an arranger and orchestrator, with commissions from orchestras around the globe for adaptations of everything from classical solo and chamber music to popular songs. His orchestration of Beethoven’s Cello Sonata Op. 69 was premiered by the Philharmonie Zuidnederland in January 2022, while his symphonic arrangement of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody continues to see worldwide success as a viral YouTube hit. He also serves as arranger and editor for the James P. Johnson Orchestra Edition.
Hersh grew up in Evanston, Illinois and started his musical training as a cellist. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Music from Stanford University and a Master’s Degree in Conducting from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Hersh is also a two-time recipient of the Solti Foundation Career Assistance Award. Nicholas lives in Philadelphia with his wife Caitlin and their two cats, and in his free time enjoys baking (and eating) sourdough bread.
CHRIS THILE, mandolin
Acclaimed Grammy Award-winning mandolinist, singer, songwriter, composer, and MacArthur Fellow recipient of the prestigious “Genius” grant, Chris Thile is a multifaceted musical talent, described by The Guardian as “that rare being: an all-round musician who can settle into any style, from bluegrass to classical,” and hailed by NPR as a “genre-defying musical genius.” Thile is a founding member of the highly influential string bands Punch Brothers and Nickel Creek, and has collaborated with countless luminaries from Yo-Yo Ma to Fiona Apple to Brad Mehldau. For four years, Thile hosted public radio favorite Live from Here with Chris Thile (formerly known as A Prairie Home Companion). With his broad outlook, Thile creates a distinctly American canon and a new musical aesthetic for performers and audiences alike, giving the listener “one joyous arc, with the linear melody and vertical harmony blurring into a single web of gossamer beauty” (New York Times).
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Over the last year, Thile has been touring with Nickel Creek in support of the critically acclaimed 2023 release Celebrants, and captivating audiences with a playfully ambitious biographical composition entitled ATTENTION! (a narrative song cycle for extroverted mandolinist and orchestra). Additionally, he has been focused on the production of a new musical variety show, “The Energy Curfew Music Hour.” Created with Claire Coffee and featuring Punch Brothers, the series will be released on Audible later this year.
KATHRYN RADAKOVICH, soprano
Noted as a “very expressive soprano” (Opus Colorado), Kathryn Radakovich enjoys a varied career performing works from the modern, classical, baroque, and jazz idioms. Kathryn can be found singing with the nation’s top vocal ensembles including; Grammy and Pulitzer Prize winning Roomful of Teeth, Lorelei Ensemble, Santa Fe Desert Chorale, and Opera Philadelphia Chorus, as well as with Philadelphia-based vocal sextet Variant 6.
A highly sought after soloist, Kathryn’s solo engagements include appearances with Choral Arts Philadelphia in the premiere of previously unpublished Carissimi oratorios and Bach’s Easter Oratorio, Germantown Oratorio Society’s Messiah, Musikanten Montana (Bach’s “St. John Passion”), as Musica and Ninfa in Monteverdi’s Orfeo with Baroque Chamber Orchestra (Stephen Stubbs), with Colorado Chamber Players under the direction of Matthieu Lussier in Messiah, the Colorado Springs Philharmonic in Bernstein: On Stage and Screen, the Victoria Bach Festival in Bach’s “Magnificat”, the Ars Nova Singers in “Mass in Blue”, and in Padworski’s “Reflections on a Mexican Garden” with Colorado Chorale. She is also the featured vocalist on the 2023 chamber jazz album “Flowers of Evil” by jazz pianist and composer Annie Booth, and the upcoming album featuring the new work from NYC-based composer Eric Shanfield and Pierrot Ensemble.
In addition to her work as a vocalist, Kathryn is the Director of Learning and Engagement for Boulanger Initiative, a DC-area non-profit dedicated to uplifting the music of women and gender-marginalized composers, past, present, and future.
TAYLOR MARTIN, director
Taylor Martin is Associate Director and Conductor for the Colorado Symphony Chorus and Artistic Director of ELUS Vocal Ensemble. In 2019 Taylor made his debut with the Colorado Symphony conducting their staged version of Handel’s Messiah, titled Messiah: Awakening. Now in his ninth season with the Colorado Symphony Chorus, he has frequently taken the podium during the holiday season for productions of A Colorado Christmas and Messiah. Taylor has prepared the Chorus for productions with the Colorado Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Dallas Symphony, and he recently conducted a concert tour of Austria featuring works for chorus and organ, leading Anton Bruckner’s Te Deum with the Salzburg Domorchester. Known for his musical versatility, Taylor has prepared choruses for Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, Al Green, and Josh Groban, among other critically acclaimed artists. Entering his seventh season with ELUS Vocal Ensemble, Taylor has led performances of great a cappella repertoire through imaginative programming of new music and major works, such as David Lang’s the little
PHOTO: WENDEL
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match girl passion and Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem to considerable acclaim. In 2021, ELUS collaborated with international EDM artist, OPIUO, to perform a sold-out show at Colorado’s iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre.
COLORADO SYMPHONY CHORUS
The 2024/25 Colorado Symphony concert season marks the 41st season of the Colorado Symphony Chorus. Founded in 1984 by Duain Wolfe at the request of Gaetano Delogu, then the Music Director of the Symphony, the chorus has grown into a nationally respected ensemble. This outstanding chorus of volunteers joins the Colorado Symphony for numerous performances each year, to repeated critical acclaim.
The Chorus has performed at noted music festivals in the Rocky Mountain region, including the Colorado Music Festival, the Grand Teton Music Festival, and the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, where it has performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Dallas Symphony, under conductors Alan Gilbert, Hans Graf, Jaap van Zweden, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Fabio Luisi. For over twenty five years, the Chorus was featured at the world-renowned Aspen Music Festival, performing many great masterworks under the baton of conductors Lawrence Foster, James Levine, Murry Sidlin, Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, and Robert Spano. Among the eight recordings the Colorado Symphony Chorus has made is a NAXOS release of Roy Harris’s Symphony No. 4. The Chorus is also featured on a Hyperion release of the Vaughan Williams Dona Nobis Pacem and Stephen Hough’s Missa Mirabilis. Most recently, the Colorado Symphony and Chorus released a world-premiere recording of William Hill’s The Raven
In 2009, in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the chorus, Duain Wolfe conducted the chorus on a three-country, two-week concert tour of Europe, presenting the Verdi Requiem in Budapest, Vienna, Litomysl and Prague; in 2016 the chorus returned to Europe for concerts in Paris, Strasbourg and Munich featuring the Fauré Requiem. In the summer of 2022, the Chorus toured Austria, performing to great acclaim in Vienna, Graz and Salzburg.
Duain Wolfe, Founding Director and Conductor
Mary Louise Burke, Principal Associate Director and Conductor
Taylor Martin, Associate Director and Conductor
Jared Joseph, Assistant Conductor
Hsiao-Ling Lin and ShaoChun Tsai, pianists
David Rosen, Chorus Manager
Barbara Porter, Assistant Manager
Eric Israelson, Chorus Manager Emeritus
SOPRANO
Emily Burr
Angie Collums
Mary Dobreff
Roberta Sladovnik ALTO
Anna Friedman
Kaia Hoopes
TENOR
Jack Dinkel
Max Witherspoon
Jared Joseph
Matthew Smedberg
BASS
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LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43
Ludwig van Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770 in Bonn, and died on March 26, 1827 in Vienna. He composed the overture and the sixteen additional pieces comprising the music of the ballet The Creatures of Prometheus early in 1801. The ballet was premiered at Vienna’s Imperial Court Theater on March 28, 1801. The score calls for woodwinds, horns and trumpets in pairs, timpani and strings. Duration is about 5 minutes.
Salvatore Vigano was one of the great dancers of the early 19th century, whose fame during his own time has been compared to that of Nijinsky a century later and Nureyev and Baryshnikov in more recent days. Though he was constantly in demand throughout Europe as performer, producer and choreographer, Vigano showed Vienna the special favor of two extended residencies, the second beginning in 1799. Late in 1800, Vigano devised the scenario for a new ballet based on the Prometheus legend, a work he intended as a compliment to Maria Theresa, second wife of the Emperor Francis. He inquired at court as to which composer might be the most suitable to engage, and was informed that Beethoven, who had recently (and tactfully) dedicated the score of his Septet (Op. 20) to Maria Theresa, would be an appropriate choice. Beethoven was approached, and he agreed to undertake the project.
The following description of the ballet’s plot appeared in the program for the premiere: “The foundation of this allegorical ballet is the fable of Prometheus. The philosophers of Greece allude to Prometheus as a lofty soul who drove the people of his time from ignorance, refined them by means of science and the arts, and gave them manners, customs and morals. As a result of that conception, two statues that have been brought to life are introduced in this ballet; and these, through the power of harmony, are made sensitive to all the passions of human life. Prometheus leads them to Parnassus, in order that Apollo, the god of the fine arts, may enlighten them.”
The Overture to Prometheus is Beethoven’s earliest work in that form, and one of his most compact. George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “When I was a boy, an overture beginning emphatically with an unprepared discord made me expect something tremendous.” So begins this Overture. The characteristic tension — the expectation of “something tremendous” — generated by so many of Beethoven’s works appears here in the very first measure. The electric opening chord initiates a lyrical introduction in slow tempo. The main body of the Overture follows without pause. The first theme is an energetic display of rushing scales propelled by a vibrant rhythmic energy. The second theme is a more delicate melody, entrusted to the piping flutes in duet.
@CAROLINE SHAW (BORN IN 1982)
And So for Vocalist and Strings
Caroline Shaw was born on August 1, 1982 in Greenville, North Carolina. She composed And So in 2019 and the song was premiered on March 12, 2019 at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center in New York City by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Nicholas McGegan with Anne Sofie von Otter as soloist. The score calls for strings. Duration is about 5 minutes.
Caroline Shaw made one of the most dramatic entries of any American composer into the consciousness of the music world — in 2013, at age 30, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Music
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for her Partita for 8 Voices, the youngest person ever to receive that award, one of the music world’s most prestigious honors. As with most “overnight success,” however, Shaw had worked diligently and productively since childhood, studying violin as a youngster in her native North Carolina, composing from age ten (at first, imitations of chamber music by Mozart and Brahms), earning bachelor’s (Rice University, 2004) and master’s degrees (Yale, 2007) in violin, working on a doctorate in composition at Princeton, and firmly establishing herself on the New York music scene as a violinist adept in a wide range of styles, vocalist with the remarkable a cappella ensemble Roomful of Teeth (for whom she wrote Partita, which also received a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Composition in the group’s recording), backup singer and violinist on Saturday Night Live (with Paul McCartney), Letterman (with The National) and The Tonight Show (with The Roots), and collaborator on an album with rapper Kanye West. Shaw was the inaugural Musician-in-Residence at Dumbarton Oaks (2014-2015) and Resident Composer with Vancouver’s Music on Main (2014-2016), and has received commissions from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, BBC, Guggenheim Museum, Folger Library, Carmel Bach Festival, Baltimore Symphony, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Yo-Yo Ma, Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw and many other noted artists and ensembles. In addition to her Pulitzer Prize, Shaw has received six Grammy nominations and won four times (most recently in 2022 for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for Narrow Sea), been a Rice Goliard Fellow (busking and fiddling in Sweden), a Yale Baroque Ensemble Fellow, and a recipient of the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship (which “empowers students to expand their vision, test and develop their potential, and gain the confidence and perspective to do so for others”), during which she studied historical formal gardens and lived out of a backpack for a year. “Caroline,” according to her website, “loves the color yellow, avocados, otters, salted chocolate, kayaking, Beethoven Opus 74 [the ‘Harp’ Quartet], Mozart opera, the smell of rosemary, and the sound of a janky mandolin.”
Shaw composed And So in 2019 as the second in a trilogy of songs, collectively titled Is a Rose, for the Philhamonia Baroque Orchestra of San Francisco and Anne Sofie von Otter, the brilliant Swedish mezzo-soprano noted for her performances of 18th-century music. Those artists, conducted by Nicolas McGegan, premiered And So at Alice Tully Hall in New York City on March 12, 2019. Shaw revised And So in 2023 for her recording Rectangles and Circumstance as vocalist with Brooklyn-based Sō Percussion.
Shaw wrote both music and words for And So, threading references to Gertrude Stein and Robert Burns through her own original verses. In the liner notes for the recording by von Otter and the Philharmonia, Bruce Lamott, the orchestra’s Scholar-in-Residence, wrote, “As a professional vocalist in the Grammy-winning and technically revolutionary vocal octet Roomful of Teeth and an accomplished Baroque violinist, Caroline Shaw is uniquely prepared to write works for period orchestra and voice. Her sensitivity to the delivery of the text is often unencumbered by specific rhythms subject to divisions of a beat, giving the singer the freedom to inflect the words according to the subtle accents of speech, an innovation called recitative that dates back to the very beginnings of the Baroque period circa 1600. Shaw eschews the excessive vocal gymnastics of the bravura arias of the High Baroque period, as well as the literal representations of the text known as ‘word-painting,’ although those aspects are frequently assigned to the orchestral accompaniment in introductions, interludes and postludes that illuminate — rather than overwhelm — the clarity of the text.”
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AND SO
Words & Music by Caroline Shaw
Would a song by any other name
Sound as sweet and true?
Would all the reds be just the same
Or violets as blue?
If you were gone
Would words still flow
And would they rhyme with you?
If you were gone
Would I still know
How to love, and how to grow
And how the vowel threads through?
And so, you say, the saying goes
A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
Is a rose is a rose is a tired rhyme
But in the verse there’s always time
Would scansion cease to mark the beats if I went away?
Would a syllable interrupt the feet of tetrametric iambs when I am gone?
Listen, and I will sing a tune of love and life, and of the ocean’s prose
And the poetry of a red, red rose that’s nearly sprung in June
And so, you say, the saying goes
A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
Is a rose is a rose is how I’m
Keeping track of time
When all the seas rise high, my dear
And the rocks melt with the sun
Will the memory of us
Still rhyme with anyone?
Will we still tune our violins?
Will we still sing of roses?
Will we exist at all, my love
Or will we fade to stanzas of the dust
That, I suppose, is all we were and all we’ll be?
And so, the saying, so it goes
Depends a lot on if a rose
Is a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
Is a rose is a thing sublime
And so we stay on borrowed time
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AARON COPLAND (1900-1990)
Suite from Appalachian Spring
Aaron Copland was born on November 14, 1900 in Brooklyn, New York, and died on December 2, 1990 in North Tarrytown, New York. Appalachian Spring was composed for a chamber orchestra of thirteen instruments in 1943-1944 and revised as a suite for full orchestra in 1945. The ballet was premiered at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. on October 30, 1944; Louis Horst conducted. The first performance of the orchestral suite was given on October 4, 1945 by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Artur Rodzinski. The score calls for woodwinds, horns, trumpets and trombones in pairs, timpani, percussion, harp, piano and strings. Duration is about 23 minutes.
Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, one of America’s greatest patrons of the arts, went to see a dance recital by Martha Graham in 1942. So taken with the genius of the dancer-choreographer was Mrs. Coolidge that she offered to have three ballets specially composed for her. Miss Graham chose as composers of the music Darius Milhaud, Paul Hindemith and an American whose work she had admired for over a decade — Aaron Copland. In 1931, Miss Graham had staged Copland’s Piano Variations as the ballet Dithyramb, and she was eager to have another dance piece from him, especially in view of his recent successes with Billy the Kid and Rodeo. She devised a scenario based on her memories of her grandmother’s farm in turn-of-the-20th-century Pennsylvania, and it proved to be a perfect match for the direct, quintessentially American style that Copland espoused in those years. Edwin Denby’s description of the ballet’s action from his review of the New York premiere in May 1945 was reprinted in the published score:
“[The ballet concerns] a pioneer celebration in spring around a newly built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills in the early part of the 19th century. The bride-to-be and the young farmerhusband enact the emotions, joyful and apprehensive, their new domestic partnership invites. An older neighbor suggests now and then the rocky confidence of experience. A revivalist and his followers remind the new householders of the strange and terrible aspects of human fate. At the end, the couple are left quiet and strong in their new house.”
The premiere of Appalachian Spring (Miss Graham borrowed the title from a poem by Hart Crane, though the content of the poem has no relation to the stage work) was given on October 30, 1944 (in honor of Mrs. Coolidge’s 80th birthday) in the auditorium of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., where the limited space in the theater allowed Copland to use a chamber orchestra of only thirteen instruments (flute, clarinet, bassoon, piano and nine strings). The performance was repeated in New York in May to great acclaim, and garnered the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the New York Music Critics Circle Award as the outstanding theatrical work of the 1944-1945 season. Soon after its New York premiere, Copland revised the score as a suite of eight continuous sections for full orchestra by eliminating about eight minutes of music in which, he said, “the interest is primarily choreographic.”
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CHRIS THILE (BORN IN 1981)
Attention! A Narrative Song Cycle for Extroverted Mandolinist and Orchestra
Chris Thile was born on February 20, 1981 in Oceanside, California. Attention! was composed in 2023, and premiered on June 29, 2023 at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts by The Knights conducted by Eric Jacobsen, with the composer as soloist. The score calls for woodwinds, horns and trumpets in pairs, trombone, timpani, drum set and strings. Duration is about 50 minutes.
I adore orchestras. Whether scaled up for grandeur, or down for intimacy, nothing makes me prouder to be human than hearing a stage full of highly skilled orchestral musicians practicing their craft together. It’s magic, and it’s something I’ve been desperate to participate in since the early aughts, when a hero of mine, Edgar Meyer, walked me through the score of a violin concerto he wrote for another hero of mine, Hilary Hahn. In the late aughts, I wrote a mandolin concerto, but after performing it quite a bit for a year or so with some truly lovely orchestras, I realized that it was basically the musical equivalent of fan fiction (like I’m tempted to rename it ‘Bartók meets Adès for coffee at Edgar’s’). SO, I went back to admiring orchestral music from afar, even as I continued to monitor my inner ear for something that might justify another attempt.
A year or two ago, a tantalizing text from my pal Eric Jacobsen (‘Thile, whatever you wanna do with orchestra, we can make it happen!’) prompted more proactive monitoring and I started hearing bits of what would eventually become ATTENTION! I was confused at first, ’cause these little aural visions included not just mandolin and orchestra but singing AND talking as well. Whoa, ok … FUN. Further dreaming led to the conviction that there should be an actual STORY, not just loosely related vignettes (which has pretty much been my M.O. on long-form pieces with vocals up to this point). But WHAT story? I’ve always loved writing songs based on short stories, so I started there, widened the search to essays, then read a bunch of plays, but every time I got excited about something, a nagging little voice (probably remembering my last orchestral piece) would say, ‘Yeah, but why would YOU be the one to musicalize this story?’ Ugh. Fair. Ok, fine then: What is a story I like to tell about something that happened to me that my friends seem to like hearing? Ah HA! THIS ONE, hands down, no contest. If you’ve ever had a couple rounds with me at a good cocktail bar, chances are I’ve trotted it out, and the thought of turning it into a piece of orchestral music got my inner ear cranking like never before. It’s a ridiculous story, but it’s 100% true, and the more I’ve worked on the telling of it, the more aware I’ve become of what a profound impact the whole experience had on me as a person who loves to make things and show them to other people.
