Monthly Archives: January 2022

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January 31, 2022

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Pro Musica responds to past year’s events in Boulder with music

“A Concert for Healing” in Longmont Friday, Boulder Saturday

By Peter Alexander Jan. 31 at 5 p.m.

Cynthia Katsarelis. Photo by Glenn Ross.

Cynthia Katsarelis planned the next concert for Pro Musica Colorado (PMC) Chamber Orchestra as an opportunity for healing for the Boulder community—from the March 2021 King Sooper’s Shooting and from the pandemic.

In planning the 2021-22 season over the summer, she says, “I’m thinking about our response to the pandemic and all our losses there, and the King Soopers shooting.” In that context, she decided that the first concert program of 2022 would be devoted to healing, with music that seemed suited for that purpose. 

“Mozart: A Concert for Healing” will be performed in Longmont at 7:30 Friday (Feb. 4) at the Stewart Auditorium and in Boulder at 7:30 Saturday (Feb. 5) at the First United Methodist Church (see concert details below).

“Something I think always works medicinal magic in the hearts of human beings is Mozart,” Katsarelis says. And so two of Mozart’s symphonies became the bookends of the program: Symphony No. 15, chosen in honor of the orchestra’s 15th season to open the program, and the “Jupiter” Symphony to round it off with a masterpiece.

Flutist Christian Jennings

The rest of the program fell into place through a collaboration with flutist Christina Jennings from the CU Music faculty. Last summer Katsarelis and Jennings were talking about what they could do together, and Jennings said, “Maybe Carter (Pann, a CU composition professor) will write something for me.”

“She must have texted him,” Katsarelis says, because in less than half an hour, Jennings had Pann’s agreement. “Of course we’ll do a world premiere,” Katsarelis says. “The idea was born via text in about 30 minutes!” And completing the program Jennings will play one of the flute’s most lively pieces, Vivaldi’s Concerto for Flute known as “The Goldfinch.”

Carter Pann

It should be remembered that at the time she planned this program, Katsarelis had no idea that a third disaster would strike in the middle of the orchestra’s season. “Of course we didn’t know the Marshall Fire was going to happen,” she says. “I’m glad that we planned this concert as we had.”

Katsarelis was looking around for pieces numbered 15 to fit the PMC’s anniversary, and since Mozart is always a good programming choice she decided to look at his 15th Symphony. Written when Mozart was 16, it is not a well known work, but Katsarelis says “he’s pretty mature actually by that point.

“The symphony has a lot of witty details. In the recapitulation, when you expect the scale to go up as it had before, it goes down—things like that. It’s four movements, but they’re really short. It makes a good opener—it has wonderful energy, and these wonderful ideas. It’s a dynamite piece.”

At the opposite end of the program and of Mozart’s career is his last symphony, the “Jupiter.” “It marks Mozart’s progression as a composer,” Katsarelis says. “It marks [the transition] of the early classical to the high classical style, and Mozart is in dialog with Bach with contrapuntal and fugal writing.

“Mozart’s always loaded with ideas, and they’re always beautiful and balanced and have incredible variety and different kinds of energies and characters. But this [symphony] goes beyond. This is just astonishing.”

As familiar as the “Jupiter” Symphony has become, the key for performers and listeners, Katsarelis says, is to approach it like a new piece, “like it’s the freshest idea ever. That’s how you have to present it. That’s (PMC’s) approach to Mozart—doing it like we’re composing it ourselves. That’s what we bring to it, and I think that the aspect of familiarity done really beautifully in this way is part of healing.”

European Goldfinch

Of the two pieces that Jennings will play, the Vivaldi concerto is bright, cheerful and showy. It was written for girls at a famous orphanage in Venice, the Ospedale della Pietà, where Vivaldi taught. The girls’ orchestra was internationally famous, with people coming from all across Europe to hear their performances. With music as their main activity, the girls were renowned for their virtuosity.

Carter Pann’s piece creates a strong contrast with Vivaldi, and it fits the concert theme very well. “It’s beautiful and evocative,” Katsarelis says. “Christina (Jennings) was really into the theme about healing, and wanting a beautiful , cantabile kind of work—something that was more soulful and more cantabile. That’s what we thought would be really nice in this program, and I think it works out really well. 

As she talks about the concert, Katsarelis keeps reflecting on subject of healing and the triple challenge Boulder has had to face in the past year, with a pandemic, a shooting and then a fire. “I just never thought I would see that level of devastation,” she says. “It seems to me that the arts have to respond. All of us in the arts need to think deeply and ponder our role, what do we need to say, who do we need to be for the community.

“That’s been on my heart a great deal.“

# # # # #

“Mozart: A Concert of Healing”
Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra, Cynthia Katsarelis, conductor
With Christina Jennings, flute

  • Mozart: Symphony No. 15 in G major, K. 124
  • Vivaldi: Concerto for Flute in D major, op. 10 no. 3, “The Goldfinch”
  • Carter Pann: My Cross for solo flute and chamber orchestra (world premiere)
  • Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551 (“Jupiter”)

7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 4
Stewart Auditorium, Longmont Museum

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 5 
First United Methodist Church, 1421 Spruce St., Boulder

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NOTE: All Pro Musica musicians have been vaccinated. Audience members must show proof of vaccination at the door. Audience members age 2 and up will be required to wear a mask. Audience capacity will be limited to allow for approhripriate distancing, and patrons are asked to observe social distancing in the hall and the lobby. If you cannot receive the vaccine for medical or religious reasons, you will be asked to show a negative COVID test taken 72 hours before the performance.

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January 26, 2022

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Pianist Andrew Staupe brings two very different concertos to the BCO

Bahman Saless will conduct works by J.C Bach, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky

By Peter Alexander Jan. 26 at 10 p.m.

Bahman Saless. Photo by Keith Bobo.

Conductor Bahman Saless will join with pianist Andrew Staupe and the Boulder Chamber Orchestra Saturday (7:30 p.m. Jan. 29 at the Boulder Adventist Church) to present “Diversions from History,” a program that balances some diversions from the usual programming with one of the most familiar works from the Romantic era.

“That’s what you do when you do programming,” Saless says. “You go ‘well, we need something that brings the audience in.’”

“Something” in this case is the Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings, a piece that the often self-critical composer wrote “does not lack artistic worth.” It does not lack admirers, either, being one of the most performed of Tchaikovsky’s works. It has been heard in films, TV shows, and, remarkably, as the lead in to commercial breaks for an NFL playoff game.

If the Serenade provided the audience draw, the other two works on the program provided the concert’s title. And they are certainly a diversion from the standard repertoire: the Piano Concerto in E-flat, op 7 no. 5, by Johann Christian Bach, and the Concerto No. 1 for Piano by Shostakovich. 

Andrew Staupe

“Staupe wanted to do two small concertos,” Saless explained. This may have been a reaction to his last performance with Saless and the BCO in 2018, when he played the massive Piano Concerto No 3 of Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a contemporary of Beethoven. “It’s crazy hard!” Saless says of that concerto, suggesting that Staupe wanted something different this time.

When they started looking for shorter concertos, Saless remembered conducting music by J.C. Bach in Europe. “I was fascinated,” he says. “Also, I read that he and another composer, (Carl Friedrich) Abel, wrote the first piano concertos, the way we know them, in terms of writing for piano rather than harpsichord.”

The youngest son of J.S. Bach, Johann Christian is known as “The London Bach” from having lived there for many years. He is important in history as a transitional figure between his father’s Baroque style and the high classic style of Mozart and Haydn, and for having taught the eight-year-old Mozart in London. In fact, the young Mozart’s first concertos were modeled on works by J.C. Bach.

At a distance of more than 150 years, Shostakovich stands at a long remove from J.C. Bach. “We’re basically playing the music by a composer from the beginning of piano concerto as we’re familiar with, to the end of piano concerto as we’re familiar with,” Saless says.

But there is a musical connection, in that Shostakovich ties his concerto to earlier eras in various ways. He uses contrapuntal textures that recall the Baroque era of the elder Bach in the concerto’s fast movements, and quotes themes by Beethoven, including the “Appassionata” Sonata at the very outset, and the so-called “Rage Over a Lost Penny” in the finale.

Derek McDonald

Shostakovich originally set out to write a trumpet concerto, but at some point he decided that the music needed a piano. As he continued to compose, the piano became more prominent, until he decided it was turning into a concerto for piano—with trumpet—although it is effectively a double concerto for the two instruments. The trumpet soloist will be Derek McDonald, the principal trumpet of the BCO.

The two soloists have their work cut out for them, Saless says. “The tempos are so wild! When it’s that fast, it’s a hard piece to put together. We’re going to have to practice a lot.”

Because of the fast tempos, “the pianist makes the decisions because the jumps in the left hand between the very end of the piano and the middle are ridiculous. Most of the tempos came from (Staupe) and (McDonald) is just making sure that he can play at the tempo that Andrew wants.”

In places it goes so fast that “the best thing (for the conductor) is not to get in the way,” Saless says. “You just conduct really small and let them do it. And you pray!”

Tchaikovsky wanted a large, lush string orchestra for the Serenade. The BCO is limited in numbers, due to COVID and the small stage space of the Adventist Church where they perform. “The problem is, how many people can we fit on that stage, and how many people do we WANT on the stage during the pandemic,” Saless says.

“But we’ve got 24 strings, so this is one of our bigger string sections. We have five cellos and two basses, which is pretty big for us. It’s going to be a nice, full sound.”

It’s not obvious, but the Serenade’s rich, Romantic score has a connection to the Classical elements of the other works on the program. Tchaikovsky was an ardent admirer of Mozart, to whom he intended a tribute in the Serenade’s first movement.

Whether you hear a connection with Mozart—and it is subtle—or hear the Beethoven quotations in Shostakovich, the program of three varied works is designed to appeal to varied tastes. And Saless hopes you will want to experience all three. “Come hear,” he says, suggesting a pun. 

“Come see. And listen!”

# # # # #

“Diversions in History’
Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Bahman Saless, conductor
With Andrew Staupe, piano, and Derek McDonald, trumpet

  • Johann Christian Bach: Piano Concerto in E-flat major, op. 7 no. 5
  • Shostakovich: Concerto No. 1 for Piano
  • Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 29
Boulder Adventist Church, 345 Mapleton Ave., Boulder

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January 23, 2022

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Boulder Phil and Marcus Roberts Trio celebrate the return to live performances

“Gershwin Celebration” at Macky hits the right notes for a festive event

By Peter Alexander Jan. 23 at 12:20 a.m.

The Boulder Philharmonic and the Marcus Roberts Trio both returned to a live stage last night (Jan. 22) for the first time in two years, to present “A Gershwin Celebration” in Macky Auditorium. And it was a celebration for certain.

Two works by Gershwin were on the program: An American in Paris, and the Piano Concerto in F with the trio—Marcus Roberts, piano, Jason Marsalis, drums, and Rodney Jordan, bass—as a solo ensemble with the orchestra. The interpretation of Gershwin’s concerto, which Roberts first did with conductor Seiji Ozawa nearly 20 years ago, has become something of a specialty for the trio. They did it with the Boulder Phil once before, in conductor Michael Butterman’s first season with the orchestra 15 years ago.

We should be grateful that Butterman decided to return to that experience. The program, and especially the performance with the trio, hit all the right notes for a festive event. It was brilliantly creative, it was fun, it was musical art on a very high level.

Mar us Roberts Trio rehearsing with the Boulder Phil. Photo by Peter Alexander.

The performance was live-streamed from Macky to anyone who had bought a ticket. I had the privilege of first attending the rehearsal yesterday morning, so that I could hear how the trio put their interpretation and interpolated solos together with the orchestra, and watching the live stream in the evening to hear how it all fit together.

One advantage of “attending” the concert by live stream is that you can see things that are not easily seen from seats in the hall—the very busy percussionists, for example, and who is playing the solos. That is very much a worthwhile pleasure. Since COVID, streaming is common, since it allows people to take in a concert without being in a crowd. Let’s hope streaming becomes normal, as it gives access to people who otherwise would not be able to attend. 

And it give us all the opportunity to hear performances from around the world, building a larger, shared musical culture.

The program opened with An American in Paris, which has earned a place in the orchestral repertoire—and in American audience’s hearts. It’s not fair to “review” a streamed performance because as a listener I am at the mercy of the sound engineers and the speakers on my desktop. But Butterman and the Boulder Phil clearly gave a fluid, polished performance.

For the Concerto, the orchestra played almost entirely what Gershwin wrote. When playing with the orchestra, Roberts observed, if he did not exactly reproduce, what Gershwin wrote in the piano part. At times he spun off from Gershwin’s line—but Gershwin did the same.

The Marcus Roberts Trio

There were also “breaks” for the jazz trio when the orchestra sat out and turned the performance over to the trio. These moments were, for me, the most joyous parts of the concert, because all three members of the trio are just so darned good. It was delightful to hear Roberts work bits of Gershwin into the multi-hued fabric of his improvisations, and to witness the exchanges among three musicians who know each other so well. Like any tight jazz group, whatever direction Roberts went, the others were with him.

Hearing both the rehearsal and the concert, it was not hard to find the essence of both classical and jazz styles. “We want to make sure that [audiences] understand the grandeur and beauty and structural logic that classical music has,” Roberts told me earlier, “and the freedom of improvisation and the spontaneity of jazz.”

Both were evident in Macky. The “grandeur of classical music” was present in the full orchestral passages of the concerto, which frame and culminate the solo passages. Of course those grandiose passages were the same in the morning and in the evening; that’s classical music. 

The improvised, jazz passages, however, were not the same; in their exuberant unpredictability they showed the “spontaneity of jazz”—and therein lies is the true greatness of the art form. The true greatness of Roberts’s performance of the Concerto in F is in bringing the two together.

As an encore, the trio alone played their version of another Gershwin staple, “I Got Rhythm,” which is both a nod to the composer’s variations for piano and orchestra on “I Got Rhythm” and recognition of the place the tune’s chord progression has taken in jazz history. Here the trio was playful, trading riffs at the beginning and the end, and giving a welcome chance for Marsalis on drums and Jordan on bass to have their own solos.

They all killed it. It was a dazzling demonstration of what we have missed for the past two years, and an exhilarating end to the celebration.

# # # # #

The Boulder Phil and the Marcus Roberts Trio will repeat their performance of “A Gershwin Celebration” this afternoon, at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 23, at the Lone Tree Arts Center. You may purchase tickets for that live performance here.

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January 20, 2022

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Boulder Phil returns to Macky with Gershwin Celebration

Concert with pianist Marcus Roberts Jan. 22 will also be streamed

By Peter Alexander Jan. 20 at 11 a.m.

The Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra returns to Macky Auditorium Saturday (7:30 p.m., Jan. 22) for the first time in two years, with an all-Gershwin program.

Marcus Roberts Trio

Two works are featured: An American in Paris and the Piano Concerto in F, performed with the Marcus Roberts trio: Roberts, piano, Rodney Jordan, bass, and Jason Marsalis, drums. The same program will be presented Sunday at the Lone Tree Arts Center (1:30 p.m. Jan. 23). Tickets to both concerts, and for a live stream Saturday, are available through the Boulder Phil Web page.

While an all-Gershwin program is a little unusual for a symphony orchestra, “this is a nice way to get back to Macky” conductor Michael Butterman says. “A Gershwin celebration just feels festive.”

The Concerto harks back to a concert early in Butterman’s tenure with the orchestra, when Roberts and his trio played the Concerto in F. “I think it was my very first season,” Butterman says. “I remember that as one of the highlights of my time in Boulder, because it’s exciting to see the musicians of the orchestra so engaged.”

Read more in Boulder Weekly.

# # # # #

Gershwin Celebration
Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Butterman, conductor
With Marcus Roberts Trio: Marcus Roberts, piano; Rodney Jordan, bass; Jason Marsalis, drums

  • Gershwin: An American in Paris
    —Piano Concerto in F

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 22, Mackey Auditorium
1:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 23, Lone Tree Arts Center
Masks and proof of vaccination are required.

Live steam 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 22

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January 19, 2022

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Colorado Music Festival announces its 2022 festival programs

Takács Quartet, composer John Adams will be among the featured artists

By Peter Alexander Jan. 19 at 3 p.m.

CMF Music Director Peter Oundjian

The Colorado Music Festival (CMF) announced its 2022 festival season last night (Jan. 18) in an event live-streamed from the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art.

During the hour-long event, music director Peter Oundjian introduced the concerts that are scheduled during the festival, planned for June 30–Aug. 7. “Every festival should be a celebration,” he said by way of introduction. “This is no exception. It’s a very eclectic series of programs.”

John Adams. Photo by Riccardo Musacchio

Also speaking remotely from his home in California was composer John Adams, who will be composer in residence during the festival. He will conduct parts of two concerts that feature his music, and he also helped Oundjian curate the “Music of Today” week, July 11–17, which will feature works by contemporary composers most of whom are still living.

The announced programs for the summer make good on Oundjian’s intention to make the festival a lively event that both honors the great works of the past and recognizes the music and composers of today. There have been times in the past when the CMF seemed unfocused and unadventurous, but under Oundjian’s leadership that has changed. Through thoughtful programming, the participation of figures like Adams and some remarkable young performers, the CMF is becoming an event worthy of broad attention.

Wang Jie

As part of the emphasis on music of today, this year’s festival will include three premieres: the world premiere of a commissioned work by Timo Andres (July 14); the world premiere of Wang Jie’s Flying on the Scaly Backs of Our Mountains (Aug. 4); and the Colorado premiere of a work co-commissioned from Wynton Marsalis (Aug. 7). 

Introducing these works, Oundjian noted that “We always love to have premieres at the festival. It’s so important for us to hear new ideas and to give opportunities to composers.”

In addition to Adams, other composers featured during the “Music of Today” series include Steven Ellison (known as Flying Lotus), Anne Müller, Philip Glass, Caroline Shaw, Stacy Garrop, Valerie Coleman, Osvaldo Golijov, John Corigliano and Christopher Rouse, among others (see the full summer program below).

In addition to the Music of Today, interest in the 2022 festival will be generated by the inclusion of composers who are outside the standard repertoire. African-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor will be represented by his Fantasiestücke for String Quartet (July 5) and Solemn Prelude for orchestra (July 21­–22); and African-American composer Florence Price will be represented by her Violin Concerto No. 2 (also July 21–22). Starburst by the young American composer Jessie Montgomery will be played on July 31, outside of the Music of Today programs.

Danish String Quartet

Concerts of chamber music on Tuesday nights will form the second Robert Mann Chamber Music Series, named for the founding first violinist of the Juilliard Quartet. The series will feature the Takács Quartet playing music by Haydn, Dvořák and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (July 5); the Attacca Quartet in a wide-ranging program of contemporary pieces during Music of Today (July 12); and the Danish String Quartet in a creative program that includes a collection of folk music from Britain. Other chamber concerts will feature members of the CMF Orchestra.

The Takács Quartet will also be featured on opening night, marking their return to the Chautauqua stage for their first live performances at CMF since 2004. They will be soloists with the CMF Orchestra in a performance of Adams’s Absolute Jest. Other works on the opening night program are Fate Now Conquers by Carlos Simon and Dvořák’s Symphony “From the New World.”

Simone Dinnerstein. Photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco

Other featured soloists during the summer will include pianist Jan Lisiecki performing all of Beethoven’s piano concertos in programs that also honor the 150th birthday of English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (July 7, 8 and 10); pianist Jeremy Denk playing Adams’s Must the Devil have all the Good Tunes? (July 17); violinist Randall Goosby playing Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2 (July 21–22); pianist Simone Dinnerstein on an all-Mozart program (July 24); pianist Gabriela Montero playing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor (July 28–29); and clarinetist Anthony McGill (Aug. 4).

Conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni, former music director of CMF, returns to lead two programs (July 28–29 and 31). The award-winning young American conductor Ryan Bancroft will also lead the orchestra in two programs (July 21–22 and 24).

Reverting to past patterns, there will be three pairs of Festival Orchestra concerts with the same program on Thursday and Friday nights, with the Thursday performance at 7:30 p.m. and the Friday performance at 6:30 p.m. (June 30–July 1; July 21–22; July 28–29). The annual Family Concert will be Sunday, July 3, with Tubby the Tuba and Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.

The 2022 Festival ends on Sunday, Aug. 7, with the Colorado premiere of a fanfare by Wynton Marsalis and Mahler’s massive Fifth Symphony, which Oundjian described last night as “virtuosic for the orchestra, incredibly entertaining for all of us.

“The final moments of Mahler 5 are as exuberant as music can possibly get. There is no greater way to witness a symphony orchestra than to come and listen to a Mahler symphony!”

Single tickets to the 2022 Festival will be available for purchase on the CMF website beginning March 1. You may also email  tickets@comusic.org, or call 303-440-7666. At this time, CMF states that they will follow recommended and required COVID guidelines during the 2022 festival. Any specific rules have not yet been announced.

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Colorado Music Festival 2022
All performances at Chautauqua Auditorium

7:30 pm. Thursday, June 30: Opening Night
6:30 p.m. Friday, July 1
Peter Oundjian, conductor, with the Takács Quartet

  • Carlos Simon: Fate Now Conquers (2020)
  • John Adams: Absolute Jest (2012) 
  • Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 in E minor (“From the New World”)

11 a.m. Sunday, July 3: Family Concert
Maurice Cohn, conductor, with Really Inventive Stuff

  • George Kleinsinger: Tubby the Tuba
  • Benjamin Britten: Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 5
Takács Quartet

  • Joseph Haydn: String Quartet in F Major, op. 77 no. 2
  • Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Fantasiestücke for String Quartet
  • Dvořák: String Quartet No. 13 in G Major

7:30 pm. Thursday, July 7
Peter Oundjian, conductor, with Jan Lisiecki, piano

  • Ralph Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
  • Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major
    —Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor

6:30 p.m. Friday, July 8
Peter Oundjian, conductor, with Jan Lisiecki, piano

  • Ralph Vaughan Williams: Overture to The Wasps 
  • Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major
    —Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major

6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 10
Peter Oundjian, conductor, with Jan Lisiecki, piano

  • Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5 in D major
  • Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major (“Emperor”)

——-Music of Today——-

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 12
Attacca Quartet

  • John Adams: selections from John’s Book of Alleged Dances 
  • Flying Lotus: Clock Catcher
    —Remind U
    —Pilgrim Side Eye
  • Anne Müller: Drifting Circles 
  • Louis Cole: Real Life
  • Philip Glass: String Quartet No. 3, “Mishima”
  • Caroline Shaw: The Evergreen
  • Gabriella Smith: Carrot Revolution

7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 14
Peter Oundjian and John Adams, conductors
With Samuel Adams, composer; Tessa Lark, violin; and Timothy McAllister, saxophone

  • Timo Andre: world premiere commission 
  • Samuel Adams: Chamber Concerto 
  • John Adams: City Noir

7:30 p.m. Friday, July 15: Kaleidoscope
Timo Andres, piano; Tessa Lark, violin; Timothy McAllister, saxophone; and members of the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra

  • David Skidmore: Ritual Music 
  • Stacy Garrop: Reborn in flames (from Phoenix Rising)
  • Osvaldo Golijov: Last Round
  • Valerie Coleman: Red Clay & Mississippi Delta for Wind Quintet
  • Timo Andres: Honest Labor 
  • Roshanne Etezady: Recurring Dreams 
  • John Corigliano: STOMP 
  • Philip Glass: Etude No. 6 
  • John Adams: Road Movie

6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 17
Peter Oundjian and John Adams, conductors, Jeremy Denk, piano

  • Gabriella Smith: Tumblebird Contrails 
  • John Adams: Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? 
  • Christopher Rouse: Symphony No. 6

—————————

7:30 Tuesday, July 19: Flavors of Russia
Members of the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra

  • Borodin: String Sextet in D minor
  • Mikhail Glinka: Trio Pathétique in D minor
  • Tchaikovsky: Souvenir de Florence Sextet in D Minor, op. 70

7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 21
6:30 p.m. Friday, July 22
Ryan Bancroft, conductor, with Randall Goosby violin

  • Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Solemn Prelude
  • Florence Price: Violin Concerto No. 2
  • Saint-Saëns: Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, op. 28
  • Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 in D major

6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 24
Ryan Bancroft, conductor, with Simone Dinnerstein, piano

  • Mozart: Serenade in C minor for winds, K388 
    —Piano Concerto B-flat major, K595 
    —Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major, K543

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 26
Members of the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra

  • Mozart: Flute Quartet in D Major, K285
  • Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson: Movement for String Trio
  • Dvořák: Terzetto in C Major, op. 74
  • Brahms: Clarinet Quintet in B minor, op. 115

7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 28
6:30 p.m. Friday, July 29
Jean-Marie Zeitouni, conductor, with Gabriela Montero, piano

  • Mussorgsky, arr. Rimsky-Korsakov: Night on Bald Mountain
  • Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor
  • Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major

6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 31
Jean-Marie Zeitouni, conductor with Jennifer Bird-Arvidsson and Abigail Nims, sopranos; John de Lancie and Marnie Mosiman, actors

  • Jessie Montgomery: Starburst 
  • Georges Bizet: Symphony No. 1 in C major 
  • Felix Mendelssohn: Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 2
Danish String Quartet

  • Henry Purcell, arr. Benjamin Britten: Chacony in G minor
  • Folk Music from the British Isles, arr. Danish String Quartet
  • Schubert: String Quartet No. 15 in G major, D. 887

7:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 4
Peter Oundjian, conductor, with Anthony McGill, clarinet

  • Wang Jie: Flying On the Scaly Backs of Our Mountains (world premiere) 
  • Carl Maria von Weber: Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in F minor 
  • Debussy: Première Rhapsodie for clarinet and orchestra
  • Stravinsky: Suite from The Firebird (1919) 
Peter Oundjian with the CMF Orchestra. Photo by Michael Emsinger

6:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 7: Festival Finale Concerto
Peter Oundjian, conductor

  • Wynton Marsalis: Fanfare (Colorado premiere)
  • Mahler: Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor
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January 11, 2022

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Kronos Quartet returns to Macky with some unfinished business

“Music for Change,” cancelled in 2020, comes back in revised form Jan. 13

By Peter Alexander Jan. 11 at 1:30 p.m.

The Kronos Quartet has some unfinished business in Boulder.

Kronos Quartet: John Sherba, Hank Dutt, David Harrington, Sonny Yang (L-R)

The path-breaking string quartet was scheduled to perform at Macky Auditorium in March of 2020, but like most performances around that time, their concert was cancelled. Now they will return to Macky with a revised version of that same program scheduled for Jan. 13, and—fingers crossed!—so far the visit is still on.

The original 2020 program, titled “Music for Change: The ‘60s, the Years that Changed America,” was organized around protest songs from the 1960s, arranged especially for Kronos. The centerpiece was to have been a celebration of Pete Seeger’s music for his 100th birthday.

Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, 1969

Many of the same pieces are on the program for this year, although the Pete Seeger celebration has been replaced. Music that has survived the transition include arrangements of the “Star Spangled Banner” inspired by Jimi Hendrix‘s famous 1969 performance at Woodstock and “Strange Fruit” inspired by Billie Holliday; “Glorious Mahalia” by Stacy Garrop which features the recorded voices of Mahalia Jackson and Studs Terkel, and “Peace Be Till” by Zachary James Watkins, which incorporates the recorded voice of Clarence B. Jones, Martin Luther King Jr.’s speechwriter.

Added to the program for 2022 are another Mahalia Jackson arrangement, “God Shall Wipe All Tears Away”; an arrangement of John Coltrane’s “Alabama”; “Colonizer (Remix)” by Tanya Tagaq arranged for Kronos; and Michael Gordon’s “Campaign Songs #1,” one of a series of short pieces recorded by the Kronos players separately during the height of the pandemic.

“I wanted to play a concert like we’re going to do in Boulder, years ago,” David Harrington, Kronos’s first violinist and guiding spirit says. “It’s taken many, many years to arrive at the kind of work that we’re able to do now.”

Stebe Reich

The program opens without Kronos playing a single note, with Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music featuring four microphones swinging freely above speakers, creating feedback as they cross directly over the speakers. Eventually all four microphones stop above the speakers, creating a bed of constant feedback from which the Hendrix-inspired “Star Spangled Banner” emerges.

“It’s audacious, the idea that we can start a program with microphones,” Harrington says. “I love that! It sounds like fog to begin with, and then slowly it gets more and more together, to the point where there’s a fabric of pulsating feedback. From that is going to be the ‘Star Spangled Banner’.”

Other works on the program stand out for their impactfulness. One of these is certainly the arrangement of Abel Meerepol’s “Strange Fruit.” Famously sung at the height of the Civil Rights struggle in the 1940s and ‘50s by Billie Holliday, the song describing a lynching became a tortured anthem for the anti-lynching movement. Rejected by Columbia Records, Holliday’s recording on the Commodore label was later entered in the National Recording Registry.

“’Strange Fruit’ is at the solar plexus of American music and American culture,” Harrington says. “The quality of (Holliday’s) voice is definitely in my ear. When we play that piece, her voice is singing inside of me.”

Another piece that came from the Civil Rights struggle is an arrangement of John Coltrane’s “Alabama.” Coltrane wrote the piece as a response to the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four African-American girls. “The way certain musicians are able to respond to events, and attempt to create a counterbalance, to me is so inspiring,” Harrington says.

Tanya Tagaq

Reflecting the breadth of Kronos’s interests, both musically and politically, is “Colonizer (Remix)” by Tanya Tagaq. An Inuk throat singer from Iqaluktuuttiaq (Cambridge Bay) in Nunavut, Canada, Tagaq wrote the song as a response to performing in what she characterizes as “symbolically colonial spaces.”

“’Colonizer’ is a statement,” Tagaq has written. “There is guilt in complacency. Accountability means taking action.”

The political implications of the program are not accidental, but come out of Harrington’s thoughts about his family. “In 2003 I had just become a grandfather for the first time, and I was thinking about the world (my granddaughter) was going to grow up into,” he says. Historian Howard Zinn told him that political leaders are actually afraid of artists like Kronos, because they know the artists cannot be controlled.

“I thought to myself, if those types are actually afraid of people like me that use violins to communicate, then I am doing what I can do,” Harrington says. The desire to make the world a better place for the coming generations through Kronos’s programming grew from that thought. 

Another quality that characterizes Kronos’s is adventurousness. Their repertoire has ranged over the world and across many musical styles. “I’m so glad that we’ve had the years that we’ve had to explore,” Harrington says. “The only thing that happens when you explore is you find things, and then you want to find more.”

That adventurousness is fueled by Harrington’s curiosity. “How could anybody not be curious?” he asks. “I want to do the most (I can to) ensure that I keep curiosity alive. Learning new things is humanity at its best.”

Not that he thinks he has found all the answers. “People think I know something about music, but I don’t know how it works,” he admits. “As listeners, we’re all in the same boat. You never know when something in music is going to penetrate to the deepest possible place within yourself.

“It’s almost incalculable.”

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Kronos photographed in San Francisco, CA March 26, 2013©Jay Blakesberg

“Music for Change”
Kronos Quartet 
David Harrington and John Sherba, violins; Hank Dutt, viola; Sunny Yang, cello
Brian H. Scott, lighting designer, and Scott Fraser, sound designer

  • Steve Reich: Pendulum Music
  • “Star Spangled Banner” (inspired by Jimi Hendrix, arr. Stephen Prutsman and Kronos)
  • Michael Gordon: “Campaign Songs #1”
  • Stacy Garrop: Glorious Mahalia, featuring the recorded voices of Mahalia Jackson and Studs Terkel
  • Antonio Haskell, arr. Jacob Garchik: “God Shall Wipe All Tears Away” (inspired by Mahalia Jackson) 
  • Tanya Tagaq (arr. Tanya Tagaq, Kronos Quartet, and Joel Tarman): “Colonizer (Remix)”
  • Abel Meeropol, arr. Jacob Garchik: “Strange Fruit” (inspired by Billie Holiday)
  • John Coltrane (arr. Jacob Garchik): “Alabama”
  • Zachary James Watkins: Peace Be Till featuring the voice of Dr. Clarence B. Jones

7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 13
Macky Auditorium 
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January 6, 2022

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Takács Quartet show goes on, with revised program

Live performances Jan. 9 and 10 in Grusin Hall also available online

By Peter Alexander Jan. 6 at 11:25 a.m.

So far this year, COVID has not stopped the music. The Takács Quartet will begin their spring 2022 series of concerts on the CU campus as planned, with performances Sunday and Monday (Jan. 9 and 10) in Grusin Hall.

Takács quartet. Image by Amanda Tipton Photography.

They will not, however, play the program that was originally announced. Pianist David Korevaar was scheduled to perform the Schumann Quintet in E-flat major, op. 44, but he is unavailable due to possible exposure to COVID. Korevaar reports that he feels fine, and he will perform the Schumann Quintet with the Takács Quartet later in the semester.

To fill his place on the January program, the quartet turned to members Harumi Rhodes and Richard O’Neill, violin and viola, who will play the Mozart Duo in G major, K423. The full ensemble will finish out the concert with the new String Quartet No. 1 by Stephen Hough, subtitled “Les Six rencontres” (The six encountered), and the String Quartet in F major by Maurice Ravel.

Both the Sunday and Monday performances will be open to an in-person audience, and will also be available for streaming from 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon until 11 p.m. Monday, Jan. 17. In-person and online tickets can be purchased from CU Presents. 

At this time, face masks are required in all buildings on the CU campus.

Stephen Hough

Widely celebrated as a pianist, Hough is also active as a composer of works for a variety of media including chamber music, piano solo and choral works, among others. The Takács Quartet asked him to write a piece for string quartet to fill out a recording of Ravel’s String Quartet and Ainsi le Nuit (Thus the night) for string quartet by Henri Dutilleux, which the Takács played in Grusin last fall.

The title of Hough’s quartet—“Les Six rencontres”—refers to a group of composers known as “Les Six” (The six) who were a prominent part of French musical life between Ravel in the early years of the 20th century, and Dutilleux in the second half of the century. The six composers—Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Germaine Tailleferre—are not quoted directly in the score but occur “as an echo,” Hough wrote.

The title is also a pun, as the quartet is in six movements. Hough wrote in his program notes that the work “evokes a flavor more than a style. . . . seeing life through a burlesque lens is one recurring ingredient.” The titles of the six movements evoke places in Paris where one might have encountered the composers of “Les Six”—the boulevard, the park, the theater and so forth.

Ravel composed his one string quartet in 1902–03, when he was 28. Largely classical in form, it was inspired by, and in some ways modeled on, the String Quartet of Debussy that had been written a decade before. It remains one of Ravel’s most popular works.

Mozart wrote two duos for violin and viola in 1783 during a visit with his family in Salzburg. They were written as a favor for Michael Haydn, the brother of Joseph Haydn, who was court composer to the Archbishop of Salzburg and a friend of the Mozart family. Haydn was supposed to write six duos for the Archbishop but had fallen ill, and Mozart agreed to finish the set for him. 

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Takács Quartet
Edward Dusinberre and Harumi Rhodes, violin; Richard O’Neill, viola; András Fejér, cello

  • Mozart: Duo for Violin and Viola, K423
    Harumi Rhodes and Richard O’Neill
  • Hough: String Quartet No. 1, “Les Six rencontres” (The six encountered)
  • Ravel: String Quartet in F Major

In-person performances:
4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 9
7:30 p.m. Monday. Jan. 10
Grusin Hall, CU Imig Music Building

Streamed performance: 4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 9, through 11 p.m. Monday, Jan. 17

Tickets for all performances available HERE.