Aspen Music Festival and School - Festival Focus, Week 3

FESTIVALFOCUS

Grand Musical Spectacle with Hadelich, The Ring

Hold on to your seats! On July 16 at 4 p.m., the Aspen Festival Orchestra presents the thrilling music of Wagner’s The Ring and the return of Augustin Hadelich, one of the biggest stars in classical music. With music that is impressive in scale and deeply evocative of nature—in line with the season’s theme, The Adoration of the Earth—this Sunday’s program is a concert everyone can enjoy.

Aficionados of The Ring cycle and casual listeners alike will delight in this engaging 70-minute transcription by Dutch composer Henk de Vlieger, who has transcribed many of Wagner’s operatic works for orchestra. “The Wagner buff will appreciate that his or her inner movie will follow the paths of the original scenes. And the Wagner novice will find a magnetic way into the Wagner universe,” says Maestro Markus Stenz, who has performed this version with many orchestras around the world and will lead this Sunday’s concert. This adaptation not only “fits the bill perfectly” for orchestras that want to present the glorious music of Wagner’s The Ring, says Stenz, but also brings new life to it. Using a typically huge Wagnerian-style orchestra with expanded wind and brass sections and highlighting some of the most well-known, resounding sections of the nearly 16-hour opera cycle, it’s a “Wagner experience that allows you to get carried away without prior knowledge of the plot. No singers, no text, just mesmerizing sound,” says Stenz. It’s “truly an orchestral

adventure.”

The size and acoustics of the Benedict Music Tent support the extraordinary scale of the orchestra and the excitement of the music. “It’s a type of music that really thrives in the outdoor setting of a tent. It should be a definite highlight,” says Aspen Music Festival and School Vice President for Artistic Administration Patrick Chamberlain.

The adventure begins with the E-flat major chord from the prelude to Das Rheingold, the first opera of the cycle. The horns gradually move into higher octaves, as if rising from deep inside the earth. The

energetic and famous Die Walküren (The Ride of the Valkyries) marks the transition to Die Walküre, the second opera of the cycle. Waldweben (Forest Murmurs) from Siegfried begins with strong evocations of nature in the soft colors of the upper woodwinds. Music from Götterdämmerung, the last of the four Ring cycle operas, brings the exhilarating transcription to a fiery, dramatic finish. The 14-section transcription is through-composed without breaks between sections, making it an “irresistible journey of discovery,” says Stenz.

To begin Sunday’s program, violin superstar Augustin Hadelich brings a “cap -

2023 Opera Benefit A Cabaret Evening of Romance

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Swoon with us on July 11 for an elegant dinner and show on the Benedict Music Tent stage featuring student artists of the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS program as they brighten the evening with a cabaret-style program. Miles Angelo, Executive Chef at the Caribou Club, will present an indulgent and creative dinner menu that perfectly pairs with the evening.

tivating modern-time violin concerto” to the Benedict Music Tent, says Stenz.

See Hadelich, Festival Focus page 3

Fresh Artistry at Annual Baroque Evening with McGegan

This Thursday, July 13, fans of the Aspen Music Festival and School’s (AMFS) annual Baroque concert are in for an extra treat when acclaimed pianist Awadagin Pratt makes his AMFS debut, joining the much-loved conductor Nicholas McGegan for a Bach-centric program.

The evening’s program includes Bach’s Sinfonia in D major, Keyboard Concerto in A major, and, finally, the Magnificat in D major—often recognized as one of his crown jewels. In between is living composer Jessie Montgomery’s Rounds for piano and string orchestra, a short work that was composed expressly for Pratt.

Celebrated pianist Pratt studied under the legendary Leon Fleisher, starting in 1986 when Pratt took one of Fleisher’s master classes at the Peabody Conservatory, and, later, as a full student of Fleisher’s in 1990. Pratt’s career exploded when he won the 1992 Naumburg

International Piano Competition and then the 1994 Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Now, at 58, Pratt continues to be in high demand. “Awadagin is not new in his career,” says Alan Fletcher, president and CEO of the AMFS. “But sometimes we have missed someone, and we come back and say, this is someone you really need to hear. It’s just fabulous playing.”

Known for his strongly personal interpretations of Bach, Pratt says he approaches the music with light. “For me,” he says, “Bach always has to dance, sing and dance. So that’s what I’m after.”

Of the Keyboard Concerto in A major, Pratt says, “I like both the energy of the outer movements and the ruminating, contemplative, and yearning quality of the middle movement.”

Pratt will also perform a Jessie Montgomery work that

See Baroque, Festival Focus page 3

Beethoven’s “Emperor” with Osorio and Spano

That Robert Spano has an affinity for Sibelius should not come as a surprise to anyone who has attended his concerts since he took over as AMFS Music Director in 2011. On Friday, July 14, Spano and the Aspen Chamber Symphony will bring Sibelius back to the Tent on a program that also features pianist Jorge Federico Osorio making his Aspen debut in Beethoven’s stunning “Emperor” concerto.

“Sibelius” and “Spano” are almost synonymous suggests AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration Patrick Chamberlain. “Everywhere he goes, there’s so much Sibelius.

It’s high time that we do a Sibelius Symphony here in Aspen. I love it, and I think the audience is going to love it.”

Born from the tradition of Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, and Wagner, the core of Sibelius’s work is in his symphonies and symphonic poems. While every symphony is uniquely distinct, Sibelius achieves the pinnacle of his technique in the Seventh Symphony, condensing the entire form into one movement.

Composed in 1924, Chamberlain describes the 22-minute work as “completely concise with not a single wasted note.”

Endowed with all the atmosphere typical of Sibelius’s music, it ends “with a C major chord that is about the hollowest C major ending you can imagine,” says Chamberlain. Its dissonance will “leave you questioning everything. It’s a tremendously beautiful and ambiguous moment,” he concludes.

Also on the program is Sibelius’s The Bard. At six minutes, the work is a symphonic poem, rife with gestural themes and motifs. While no overt narrative is readily apparent, The Bard brings to mind the poetic inspiration of a singer delivering his heroic epic through the use of rising and falling chords on a harp amidst a sea of violas.

Joining Spano on stage for the second half of the program is Mexican pianist and long-time Chicago resident Jorge Federico Osorio performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, nicknamed the “Emperor.”

A long-time collaborator with Spano, Osorio has performed all of Beethoven’s concertos with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) under Spano’s direction. It’s a partnership that began more than a decade ago when the ASO asked him to step in for another pianist the very next day in a performance of Brahms First Piano Concerto. “Luckily I said yes,”

says Osorio, “because after the second performance, Maestro Spano invited me to play the five Beethoven Concerti. How thrilling can this be?”

Over the past decade, Osorio has performed with Spano at the Fort Worth Symphony, in San Diego, and in Spain. There’s a nobility in Spano’s manner, says Osorio, that embodies a natural and generous sound. “As a performer, he gives me the space to breathe and to do what I want to let the moment be important.”

Osorio is particularly drawn to Beethoven, he says, because “he’s like an architect. Within all this structure, it’s all about a freedom that feels joyous, expressive, and deep.” The piano sets the mood in all of Beethoven’s concertos; in the “Emperor” concerto—his last and largest—it is particularly noticeable in the beginning of the second movement, where Osorio describes the “heavenly phrases of the strings giving way to the piano in a low and high register. Every time I play it, it is magical.”

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Baroque: A Fresh Exploration

Continued from Festival Focus page

was based on T. S. Eliot’s epic poem The Four Quartets He comments: “Rounds is a piece that is a mixture of a wonderful kinetic energy juxtaposed with moments of stasis and repose. Audiences love it, it’s easy to listen to and enjoy.”

Says AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration Patrick Chamberlain, “When I first heard it, I said, ‘Oh, well, this is Bach, or this is clearly inspired by Bach.’ It’s in a rondo form, an old form. It’s scored for just 17 strings and piano, and it has an homage to Bach, but it’s still very much in Jessie’s language. It’ll be really interesting to hear a piece written two years ago alongside music that’s 300 years old.” Pratt wrote the cadenza himself. He notes, “When performing the cadenza, I also improvise 10 to 30 percent. Because it’s the centerpiece of the work, it was a big moment of trust on Jessie’s part and you’ll hear my own musical energy.”

Leading the evening’s charge is longtime festival guest artist McGegan, Music Director Laureate of San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale, where

he led performances of Baroque and early Classical works for 34 years. Renowned for his sparkling stage presence and called “one of the finest Baroque conductors of his generation” (The Independent), he’s simply one of the

Student Spotlight: Daniel Gurevich

For Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) student Daniel Gurevich, a defiant decision in the fifth grade turned out to be a life-changing and career-defining moment. With beginning band and orchestra starting that school year, Gurevich was sent a list of instruments to choose from. Oboe wasn’t on the list. Actually, “it was on the list of things you weren’t supposed to pick,” Gurevich recalls. His dad brought him to two music stores to find an oboe to rent. Although his band teacher was likely a little displeased when he showed up, oboe in hand, on the first day, she would likely now be proud, as Gurevich is on track for a fruitful career in music.

While it wasn’t an immediate career choice at 12 years old, looking back, many factors led Gurevich to pursue the oboe. He grew up with classical music in the house: his mother is a professional singer. He notes that, like many others, he was captivated by the sound of the oboe when he heard it in Peter and the Wolf and in countless movie scores—especially Star Wars. But it was during a tour to various European cities with his youth orchestra in the eighth grade that he had his ‘aha’ moment. Something clicked, and “after that tour, I came home and thought, ‘I have to do this. There’s no way around this,’” Gurevich says, recalling the moment he decided he was going to pursue a career in music. “I don’t need anything else in life—this is good.”

His pursuit has thus far proven successful: Gurevich earned his bachelor’s degree at The Juilliard School and a master’s at San Francisco Conservatory. He is currently completing a Professional Studies Diploma at the Mannes School of Music in New York. In addition to freelancing, Gurevich also sells oboe reed-making tools that he invented. In a full-circle moment, many of the stores he first bought reeds from are now selling his tools. This year marks Gurevich’s third in Aspen since first attending the AMFS in 2019. He will be studying with all three of the oboe artist-faculty members, whom he cites

among his main reasons for returning. “They are all very serious about making sure the students get the most out of Aspen. They’re here for us, which is amazing,” he says. Playing side-by-side with his teachers is also a big plus, and “sort of a rare experience,” he says. “They are leading by example. The orchestra level goes up and you feel like you’re playing in an absolutely amazing orchestra. It’s great.”

Although he has a busy summer of music-making ahead of him, “keep it simple,” advises Gurevich on concert preparation. “That way your mind is on the music. Just be prepared and it will go well. People will enjoy the concert.”

best conductors to see lead this music.

“He’s a deep scholar and an incredible thinker,” says Chamberlain. “He’s historically informed, but he’s not particularly dogmatic about it. It’s the way that he approaches music with a deep intent to really understand the context and how it would have been heard at its first performance. He brings both that scholarly wisdom and pure joy to his performances.”

Bach’s much loved Magnificat in D major closes the program with a five-voice chorus composed of AMFS students, including singers from the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS (AOTVA) program, which trains the world’s most talented young adult opera singers, on the cusp of their professional careers.

Says Chamberlain, “Choral singing has become a curricular focus in the AOTVA program. With that, we now have the opportunity to present works like the Bach Magnificat, which is actually celebrating its 300th anniversary this year. This is a tremendous showpiece for our vocal program.”

Hadelich: New Dennehy Work

Continued from Festival Focus page 1

Composer and Princeton University professor Donnacha Dennehy’s wrote his Violin Concerto specifically for Hadelich, molding it to his musicianship and technical prowess. “It’s an A+ new addition to the repertoire,” says Stenz.

“The piece is “virtuosic, it’s songful, it’s beautiful, it’s tuneful,” says Chamberlain. He recalled a conversation with Hadelich that ultimately led to the AMFS co-commissioning the piece. “He told me that if you’re scared of music that’s written today, you shouldn’t be scared of this piece. [Hadelich] is one of those artists when he says, ‘I’m doing this and it’s interesting,’ we say, ‘Okay.’”

It is only fitting that this work gets its AMFS premiere during this summer with the theme The Adoration of the Earth

Dennehy depicts humankind’s complicated relationship with nature saying that, “because of climate change, we are perhaps getting stuck in our last season—that the natural cycle of recurrence is starting to splinter. Sometimes this is represented in my music by loops that suddenly appear and get locked in place in a kind of dizzying way.”

Dennehy’s concerto takes listeners on a journey through the natural world; he describes the first movement as “aerial,” the second having a “strong impact of the sea,” and third as “earthy.”

Stenz warns Sunday audiences to “be ready to be disarmed and overwhelmed” by countless “mind-boggling orchestral moments.”