FESTIVALFOCUS YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE
SUPPLEMENT TO THE ASPEN TIMES
MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 2024
VOL. 34, NO. 7
Bach’s Mass in B Minor Promises ‘A Spiritual Experience’ By David Hoyt In the seventy-five year history of the Aspen Music Festival and School, countless works of classical music have rung out into the clear summer air of the Roaring Fork Valley, including plenty of pieces by J. S. Bach. After all, the very first season of the fledgling Festival in 1949 was intended as a celebration of the German art and culture exemplified by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, reclaiming a legacy that had been hijacked by the Third Reich, and the great Bach enthusiast Albert Schweitzer was on hand as keynote speaker. And yet, when Bach’s Mass in B minor is performed at 6 p.m. on Thursday, August 8, in Harris Concert Hall, it will be the first time this exquisite work joins the pantheon of music that has been carefully constructed in Aspen over the past three quarters of a century. AMFS Music Director Robert Spano will lead an orchestra of Aspen artist-faculty
DIEGO REDEL
AMFS Music Director Robert Spano will conduct Bach’s Mass in B minor on August 8 in Harris Concert Hall—the first time the work has ever been performed at the Music Festival.
and students in collaboration with the pro- right now.’ It is an energizing piece of music fessional choir Seraphic Fire, directed by for every person who participates in it.” Much of the brilliance of the Mass in B Patrick Dupre Quigley. A relatively small instrumental ensemble minor stems from Bach’s carefully conand a chorus of fewer than two dozen structed musical structure and symmetry— voices, performing in the acoustically ex- which has been compared to the architeccellent Harris Concert Hall, means audi- ture of a great cathedral or palace—and ence members will feel fully immersed in especially his mastery of counterpoint, in which multiple disparate musical lines ocan intimate musical experience. cur simultaneously Part of the reason and yet do not clash. for the Mass in B “There are no moments “Counterpoint is reminor’s relative obally where we see the scurity stems from in the B-minor Mass greatest moments its history; it was where one is ever of Bach,” Quigley composed in stages says. “The way that throughout Bach’s bored . . . . It is an Bach uses counterlife, only coming together as a cohesive energizing piece of music point makes it feel more like the voices whole shortly before of angels rather than his death in 1750. For for every person who something that is in more than a century participates in it.” any way esoteric or after that, the score studied. . . . The fiwas unpublished, nal movement of the and the first docuPatrick Dupre Quigley Artistic Director, Seraphic Fire work, the Dona nobis mented complete pacem, is a piece that performance was starts with a single not until 1859. The Mass is also, well, massive in scale, clock- unison line in the bass and then adds voice ing in around two hours—something Quig- [to] voice until it’s sort of this primordial cry ley encourages audiences to not be intimi- at the end.” Maestro Spano, reflecting on this AMFS dated by. “It is a longer piece of music, but there season’s theme of Becoming Who You are no moments in the B-minor Mass Are, noted that “since celebrating our 75th where one is ever bored,” Quigley said. “It anniversary has to do with looking backis to the Baroque period what Beethoven’s ward as well as looking forward, not only Ninth Symphony is to the Classical pe- does it seem right to do a large work of riod. . . . It is the piece where you finish performing it and you say, ‘let’s just do it again See Bach, Festival Focus page 3
FULLY-STAGED OPERA RETURNS TO THE WHEELER!
Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro
AUGUST 12, 15, 17* Laughter and love combine in Mozart’s brilliant and beloved comic opera. Directed by Sara Erde and conducted by Matthew Aucoin. * Join us at intermission on August 17 for a special dessert reception.
Giving Voice to Untold Legacies of Powerful Black Women BY SAMANTHA JOHNSTON
Soprano Karen Slack’s brilliant curation of works by acclaimed Black American composers celebrating the legacy of seven African queens is the impetus behind her upcoming Aspen program on Wednesday, August 7 at 7:30 pm in Harris Concert Hall. Inspiration for the African Queens recital with pianist Kevin Miller was born of Slack’s frustration and anger about so many of the stories being told about women through the lens of how their lives were shaped and impacted by the decisions of men. “I don’t necessarily like all the stories that get green lit in this industry, and I was in a place to present seven wonderful, complex, interesting women who did transfor-
mative things,” Slack etry throughout the performance, serving says. “We don’t have as the connective tissue between story to do another opera and song. about Cleopatra or Slack, who grew up in the northern part Black trauma or narraof Philadelphia, credits her introduction tive where women are to classical music and her ultimate path victimized. If we are in to opera to a time when arts programming the business of storyexisted in most major city classrooms. It telling, we should tell was at Baldi Middle School that a teacher all the stories.” noticed her gift of voice and encouraged In a desire to give her to seriously consider singing. Slack deadequate voice and scribes her voice back then as “loud and clarity to the traditionunruly,” but special. ally ignored stories of “Back in the ’80s, arts in the schools was powerful Black womnot a rare thing like it is now,” Slack said. en, Slack incorporates “When I grew up, music was always playoriginal lyrics and po- Soprano Karen Slack presents African Queens, a curation of works by acclaimed Black composers, on August 7 in Harris Concert Hall. See Slack, Festival Focus page 3
CELEBRATE THE AMFS’S 75TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON, THROUGH AUGUST 18