Festival Finale concert ends with Mahler Symphony No. 1
By Peter Alexander July 26 at 11 a.m.
The 2023 Colorado Music Festival (CMF) is nearing its end up at the Chautauqua Auditorium, but one thing that remains the same all the way to the final concert is the felicitous mix of programming selected by Music Director Peter Oundjian.
Since his arrival at the festival as music advisor (2018) and then music director (2019), Oundjian has curated programs that recognize both the most interesting work being done by living composers and the greatest works from the standard repertoire, all performed by creative and adventurous musicians. That mixture continues.
The two final concerts conceived as a pair for Thursday, Aug. 3, and Sunday, Aug. 6 (7:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. respectively; see details below) are leading examples. Both concerts feature familiar orchestra works, plus violinist Joshua Bell, certainly one of the most distinctive and accomplished of soloists, playing a series of short pieces that were written for him by five different composers.
Or is it one piece?
“Talk about a focused idea, I think it’s brilliant,” Oundjian says. Because the finished piece is scheduled for a series of official premieres starting in the fall, Oundjian thought Bell and the composers might like to hear their pieces in a workshop setting, where they could make adjustments.
“In one of my conversations with Josh, I said, ‘Do you want a preview series of performances where you can work the repertoire over an entire week?’ And we both felt it was really great way to introduce a new piece, for everyone including the composers, who I think are all going to be there. We’ll workshop these pieces over the week.”
That piece is The Elements: Suite for Violin and Orchestra. Bell contacted five composers that he knew—Jake Heggie, Jessie Montgomery, Edgar Meyer, Jennifer Higdon and Kevin Puts—and asked each to write a mini-concerto movement for him. To unify the piece, each movement (or are they separate pieces?) was based on an individual element: fire, ether, water, air and earth.
The three movements will be split over the final two concerts, both conducted by Oundjian and featuring Bell as soloist. The movements by Heggie, Montgomery and Meyer (“Fire,” “Ether,” “Water”) will be presented on Thursday, July 3, when they will share the program with Debussy’s La Mer—perhaps inevitable after the movement titled “Water”?
The movements by Higdon and Puts (“Air” and “Earth”) will follow on the “Festival Finale Concert” Sunday (Aug. 6). They will share the program with Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D major. The latter might be the least surprising feature of the final week, but one that history suggests will be embraced by the audience. “We have created a tradition of closing with a Mahler symphony, so that’s going to continue,” Oundjian says.
Before the final concerts, there are two separate orchestral programs scheduled for the coming weekend, featuring guest conductors. Korean conductor Eun Sun Kim, whose appointment as music director of the San Francisco Opera starting in 2021 made headlines throughout the musical world. She will lead the Festival Orchestra Thursday and Friday playing Brahms’ gently lyrical Symphony No. 2 in D major. Joining Kim, German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser will play the Cello Concerto No. 1 of Shostakovich.
Opening the program will be The Rhapsody of Steve Jobs by Mason Bates. This is based on music from Bates’ opera The (R )evolution of Steve Jobs, which premiered at the Santa Fe Opera in 2017 under the baton of CMF Conductor Laureate Michael Christie. Bates wrote in his program notes that The Rhapsody of Steve Jobs “swirls together many key musical elements” of the opera, including electro-acoustic sound elements that “conjure the excitement of the early Information Age.”
Hannu Lintu, chief conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony, happened to be on his way to California at the end of July, and as luck would have it, was able to stop off for a single concert at Chautauqua Sunday. “He is an absolutely extraordinary conductor,” Oundjian says. “He conducts major orchestras all over the world, so we’re delighted to have him!”
Like other programs at the CMF this summer, his concert will combine music from different centuries, opening with the 1972 orchestral score Cantus Arcticus by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara. Subtitled Concerto for Birds and Orchestra, the Cantus incorporates recordings of birds including the shore lark and the whooper swan, collected in northern Finland and near the Arctic Circle.
Moving back a century, Canadian pianist Tony Siqi Yun, first prize winner and gold medalist at the First China International Music Competition in 2019, will play the Schumann Piano Concerto from the mid-19th century with Lintu and the Festival Chamber Orchestra. And one more century: the program will close with Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No 96 in D major.
One of the 6 symphonies Haydn wrote for his first trip to London 1791–92, No. 96 is known as the “Miracle” Symphony. The name, however, is misapplied; it actually refers to an incident in 1795, when a chandelier fell at the premiere of Haydn’s Symphony No. 102 without harming the audience, which was crowded to the front of the hall.
No chandeliers will collapse at Chautauqua. No, the miracle of CMF is in the programming, with music from the 18th century to the 21st, familiar favorites mixed with intriguing discoveries. The festival is one of Boulder’s musical treasures, and there are only eleven more days to join the 2023 CMF audience.
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COLORADO MUSIC FESTIVAL
2023 Summer Festival, remaining concerts
All performances at Chautauqua Auditorium
7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 27, and 6:30 p.m. Friday, July 28
Festival Orchestra: Eun Sun Kim, conductor
With Johannes Moser, cello
- Mason Bates: The Rhapsody of Steve Jobs (2021)
- Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, op. 107
- Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, op. 73
6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 30
Festival Orchestra, Hannu Lintu, conductor,
With Tony Siqi Yun, piano
- Einojuhani Rautavaara: Cantus Arcticus (1974)
- Schumann: Piano Concerto in A Minor
- Haydn: Symphony No. 96 in D Major (“Miracle”)
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 1
Robert Mann Chamber Music Series: Members of the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra
- Beethoven: String Trio in C Minor, op. 9 no. 3
- Debussy: Danses sacrée et profane (Sacred and profane dances)
- Dvořák: Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, op. 81
7:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 3
Festival Orchestra, Peter Oundjian, conductor
With Joshua Bell, violin
- The Elements: Suite for Violin and Orchestra (commissioned by Joshua Bell)
—“Fire” by Jake Heggie
—“Ether” by Jessie Montgomery
—Water” by Edgar Meyer - Debussy: La Mer
6:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 6: Festival Finale Concert
Festival Orchestra, Peter Oundjian, conductor
With Joshua Bell, violin
- The Elements: Suite for Violin and Orchestra (commissioned by Joshua Bell)
—“Air” by Jennifer Higdon
—“Earth” by Kevin Puts - Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D major
CORRECTION: The original version of this article listed the soloist in the Schumann Piano Concerto on July 30 as Lisa de la Salle. She had to cancel here appearance at CMF; the correct soloist for the Schumann Concerto is Tony Siqi Yun. I apologize for the error.
Sharps & Flatirons 