Principal guest conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni returns for the festival’s fourth week
By Peter Alexander July 12 at 12:25 p.m.
Peter Oundjian is the most distinguished musician to lead the Colorado Music Festival (CMF) in its 43 seasons.
Peter Oundjian. Photo by Jaime Hogge.
Since Jean-Marie Zeitouni stepped down as music director at the end of last season, Oundjian — former first violinist of the Tokyo String Quartet and just-retired as music director of the Toronto Symphony and Royal Scottish National Orchestra — has been artistic advisor to the festival. This year he will conduct three weeks of orchestral concerts, starting the weekend of July 12–15.
Zeitouni, now CMF’s principal guest conductor, will lead the orchestral concerts the following week. Oundjian will return for the final two weeks, July 26–Aug. 4.
For his concerts, Oundjian has established a theme: “It’s all Bernstein-inspired,” he says, in honor of the 2018 centennial of Leonard Bernstein’s birth. That means “things that influenced Bernstein, things Bernstein loved, things he was famous for, and by extension, music written on American soil.”
Read more in Boulder Weekly.
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Colorado Music Festival
July 12–July 22
All performances at Chautauqua Auditorium
Two Peak Performances
7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 12, and Friday, July 13
Peter Oundjian, conductor, with Yefim Bronfman, piano
Leonard Bernstein: Overture to Candide
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances, op. 45
Octets at Altitude
7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 14
Chamber Music with CMF Chamber Players
Stravinsky: Octet for Wind Instruments
Prokofiev: Two Pieces for String Octet
Mendelssohn: String Octet, op. 20
All-American
7:30 p.m. Sunday, July 15
Peter Oundjian, conductor, with Robert McDuffie, violin
Copland: Appalachian Spring Suite
Barber: Adagio for Strings
Philip Glass: Concerto No. 2 for Violin, “American Four Seasons”
Scheherazade
7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 19
Jean-Marie Zeitouni, conductor, with Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano
Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde
Timothy Collins: Buch des Sängers (world premiere)
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
Fresh Fridays: Scheherazade
6:30 p.m. Friday, July 20
Conductor: Jean-Marie Zeitouni, conductor
Borodin: In the Steppes of Central Asia
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
(Played without intermission)
American Strings
7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 21
Chamber Music with CMF Chamber Players
Philip Glass: String Quartet No. 2 (“Company”)
Barber: String Quartet
Dvořák: String Quartet No. 12, op. 96 (“American”)
Beethoven’s “Eroica”
7:30 p.m. Sunday, July 22
Jean-Marie Zeitouni, conductor
Ravel: Mother Goose
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”)
Sharps & Flatirons 
This concert would almost be worth the drive to Colorado! That Brahms is my favorite!!!
FYI: below is a copy of a text exchange I just had with Melissa:
Pat: Wasn’t the Tokyo String Quartet resident at Yale when you were there?
Melissa: Yes! I worked with them on Trout. Peter Oundjian was still there-
We had chamber music coaching weekly, and when I was doing the Trout quintet, my group cycled through the members of Tokyo when they came to town. I think we worked with all but one of them. Peter was Dennis Kim’s teacher, so I also had another weekly hour when I went to Dennis’ lessons as we prepared for his recitals. 🙂
Sent from my iPhone
You missed a great concert!
Fun to hear about Melissa’s connection with Peter. Everyone seems to love him.