Monthly Archives: October 2023

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October 26, 2023

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GRACE NOTES: Chamber music, orchestras, operas and chorus, all in one weekend

Piano Quartet returns with guest violinist, Pro Musica plays world premiere

By Peter Alexander Oct. 26 at 6:35 p.m.

The Boulder Piano Quartet, one of Boulder’s most creative musical groups, has been silent since the untimely death of violinist Chas Wetherbee last year. 

For the coming season, they will have four concerts with four different guest violinists who are at least informally auditioning to take the quartet’s empty seat. The first program—Friday night at the Academy in Boulder (7 p.m. Oct. 27, 970 Aurora Ave., Boulder)—will feature violinist Hilary Castle Green, who teaches strings at the Shining Mountain Waldorf School in Boulder. 

Green maintains a private virtual teaching studio based in New York and is also a faculty member at Bow and Heart, a program dedicated to providing ensemble opportunities to string students in New York City. She has performed extensively on the east coast, including appearances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher and Alice Tully halls, and Bargemusic.

Friday’s program offers two works: the Piano Quartet in A major by Brahms, and the “Spanish” Quartet for piano and strings by Louise Héritte-Viardot.  The granddaughter of renowned tenor and singing instructor Manuel Garcia and the niece of soprano Maria Malibran, Héritte-Viardot came from a renowned musical family. She was a composer, largely of chamber music, as well as singer, pianist and conductor.

Remaining concerts by the quartet during the 2023–24 concert season will be Dec. 15 with violinist Jubal Fulks from the University of Northern Colorado; Jan. 19; and May 3, all at the Academy. Performances at the Academy are free with prior registration. You may register for Friday’s concert HERE.

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Boulder Piano Quartet
Hilary Castle Green guest violinist; Matthew Dane, viola; Thomas Heinrich, cello; and David Korevaar, piano

  • Louise Héritte-Viardot: Quartet No. 2 in D major for piano and strings (“Spanish Quartet)
  • Brahms: Quartet in A major for piano and strings

7 pm. Friday, Oct. 27
The Academy, Boulder

Free with reservation, available HERE 

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The Boulder Symphony will present its first “Curiosity Concert” of the season Saturday (3 p.m. Oct. 28) at the group’s home base, Grace Commons Church at 1820 15th St. in Boulder. Devin Patrick Hughes will conduct the program that ranges from Mozart to Bille Eilish. 

The orchestra’s “Curiosity Concerts” are family-oriented programs designed to provide an introduction to music for young listeners. The Boulder Symphony offers a “Curiosity Concert” in the fall, and another in the spring, the latter scheduled for 3 p.m. Saturday, March 23, 2024.

Titled “Perfectly Imperfect,” Saturday’s performance is a program of the classical music education producer Extra Crispy Creatives. With music ranging from Mozart to Billie Eilish, “Perfectly Imperfect” explores “what makes Earth’s music the best in the galaxy.” The performance with full orchestra and an alien named “Blip” will last approximately 45 minutes.

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Fall Curiosity Concert: “Perfectly Imperfect”
Boulder Symphony, Devin Patrick Hughes, conductor
Production of Extra Crispy Creatives

Program includes original music and arrangements from:

  • Sia: “Cheap Thrills”
  • Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G minor
  • Rossini: Overture to William Tell
  • Richard Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra
  • Billie Eilish: “Bad Guy”

3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28
Grace Commons Church, 1820 15th St., Boulder

TICKETS

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Boulder Chorale will explore the music of the Nordic countries in their season-opening “Nordic Lights” concert, at 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (Oct. 28 and 29 at First United Methodist Church). Under the direction of Vicki Burrichter, the concert will feature Ola Gjeilo’s Sunrise Mass and other choral works from Nordic countries.

The music of Scandinavia stands somewhat apart from the mainstream of classical concert music. While the names of Edvard Grieg, Jan Sibelius and Carl Nielsen are known, there are many younger composers writing music today, particularly choral music, who are not well known outside of their home countries. 

One of those successful young Scandinavian composers, Gjeilo grew up and first studied music in Norway. Later a graduate of both the Royal College of Music in London and the Juilliard School in New York, he currently lives in Manhattan, where he works as a freelance composer.

His Sunrise Mass is in four movements that evoke aspects of the rising sun rather than movements of the traditional mass. The movements are titled “The Spheres,” “Sunrise,” “The City” and “Identity.”

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“Nordic Lights”
Bouder Chorale, Vicki Burrichter, conductor

  • Ola Gjeilo: Sunrise Mass
  • Other choral works from Nordic traditions

4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28, and Sunday, Oct. 29
First United Methodist Church, 1421 Spruce St., Boulder

TICKETS

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Boulder Opera will present one of the best known and most popular of operas from the 18th, or any, century Saturday and Sunday (7 p.m. Oct. 28 and 3 p.m. Oct. 29) at the Dairy Arts Center: Mozart’s Magic Flute.

First performed in 1791, the last year of Mozart’s life, The Magic Flute is based on Masonic ideals and symbolism. It features Tamino, a young prince who gets caught up in a conflict between the Queen of the Night and Sarastro, respectively representing evil and wisdom. Tamino is initiated into Sarastro’s temple in a scene that reflects traditional Masonic initiation rites. In the end, he is paired with Pamina, the daughter of the Queen of the Night who rejects her mother in order to embrace Sarastro’s wisdom.

Other characters in the opera include Tamino’s sidekick Papageno, a simple but good-hearted birdcatcher; his mate-to-be Papagena; the malicious slave Monostatos; a trio of ladies who serve the Queen of the Night; and a trio of young boys who represent goodness and innocence.

In spite of the serious aspects of the plot, The Magic Flute is broadly comic, especially the role of Papageno. The libretto was written by Emanuel Schikaneder, a multi-talented comic actor, singer and impresario who was Mozart’s Masonic brother in a lodge in Vienna, and who played the role of Papageno in the original production at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien.

Boulder Opera will present The Magic Flute in a family-friendly production that will feature an orchestra on stage in the Dairy Arts Center’s Gordon Gamm Theater. It will be sung in the original German with English titles. The performance will be conducted by Steven Aguiló-Arbues. The stage director is Madeleine Snow.

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Boulder Opera
Steven Aguiló-Arbues, conductor
Madeleine Snow, stage director

  • W.A. Mozart: The Magic Flute

7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28
3 p.m.Sunday, Oct. 29
Gordon Gamm Theater, Dairy Arts Center

TICKETS

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Conductor Cynthia Katsarelis is back in Colorado, visiting from her position as professor of conducting at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Ind., to lead the Colorado Pro Musical Chamber Orchestra (CPM)in their opening concert of the 2023-24 season.

Titled “Passione!” the program includes a symphony by Haydn with that nickname, as well as the world premiere of a new piece by CU composition student Jessie Lausé and Mozart’s “Turkish” Violin Concerto played but the CPM’s concertmaster, Stacy Lesartre.

Lausé’s Stretch in Periphery was the winner of the most recent CU-PMC composition competition, a contest started by the PMC which every year premieres a work that is selected by Katsarelis and the CU composition faculty from among submissions by their students. The winner receives a performance by PMC and an award of $1000.

PMC’s program notes explain that Lausé’s score “uses color, improvisatory devices, and traditional harmonies that ‘push out’ into spicy dissonances, to tell a story of the last four years, both autobiographically and in our common life here in the US. It is dedicated to ‘anyone who lives their lives in the margins’.”

Haydn’s Symphony No. 49 is one of a group of symphonies written in the 1760s that have been associated with a literary movement known as Sturm und Drang (“storm and stress“). The works associated with that title are generally in a minor key with a lot of  forceful rhythmic activity creating an anxious—or “stormy”—mood. 

Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 has the nickname “Turkish” from a march section that interrupts the minuet finale. The march uses cymbals and other percussion instruments that give it a quality that was conventionally known as alla turca (in a Turkish style) in the late 18th century. The style was popular in operas of the time and was used to evoke the music of the Middle Eastern countries as an exotic element.

In addition to her role with PMC, Lesartre is concertmaster of the Cheyenne Symphony and has played with the Houston and the Colorado symphonies. She is also a member of the Amber Quartet and teaches private violin students and chamber music in Colorado.

Because of her recent appointment out of state, Katsarelis has announced that she will leave PMC at the end of this program year. She will return to Colorado for all three planned concerts, including Handel’s Messiah Dec. 2 (7:30 p.m., Mountain View Methodist) and a concert featuring guitarist Nicoló Spera April 6 (7:30 p.m., Mountain View Methodist).

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“Passione!”
Pro Musica Colorado ChamberOrchestra
Cynthia Katsarelis, conductor, with Stacy Lesartre, violin

  • Jessie Lausé: Stretch in Periphery (world premiere)
  • W.A. Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K219 (“Turkish”)
  • Joseph Haydn: Symphony No 49 n F minor (“Passione”)

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18
Mountain View Methodist Church, 355 Ponca Place, Boulder

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October 25, 2023

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Eklund Opera presents Verdi’s madcap Falstaff

‘One of the greatest Italian ensemble operas’ Friday and Sunday

By Peter Alexander Oct. 25 at 5:40 p.m.

“Reverenza!”

That extravagant one-word greeting delivered by Mistress Quickly to the corpulent Sir John Falstaff (“Your reverence!”) sets off all the madcap action of Verdi’s final opera, the comedy Falstaff. A series of hilarious escapades follow, leaving Falstaff dumped in the river at the end of the second act and the butt of a comedic thrashing in the third. In spite of the abuse, it all ends with Falstaff cheerfully proclaiming “All the world’s a jest.” The entire cast joins him for, of all things, a rollicking 10-part fugue.

Melissa Lubecke (Alice Ford) and Andrew Hiers (Falstaff) in Eklund Opera’s Falstaff. Photo by Leigh Holman.

Falstaff will be the fall production of the CU College of Music’s Eklund Opera Company, with performances this coming Friday and Sunday in Macky Auditorium (Oct. 27 at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 29 at 2 p.m.; tickets available HERE). Performances are stage directed by Leigh Holman and conducted by Nicholas Carthy.

The opera is derived from Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor. Verdi had already retired twice when his publisher passed him the libretto, crafted by the Italian composer Arrigo Boito who also wrote the libretto for Verdi’s Otello. Verdi couldn’t resist, and Falstaff had its premiere in February 1893, when the composer was nearly 80.

The opera has two intertwining plots: Falstaff is trying to woo two wealthy wives in order to get at their fortunes; and one of their husbands, Ford, wants to marry his young daughter Nanetta to his friend Dr. Caius. She, however—in typical comic-opera fashion—is in love with someone her own age, Fenton. And also in comic-opera fashion, the women are far cleverer than the men and hilariously foil both plots.

Falstaff is seldom performed by student opera companies. For one thing, the role of Falstaff requires an experienced singer. As Carthy explains, this is an opera “where, if we get one person in, we can cast around them. So you bring a Falstaff in and it allows you to do one of the greatest Italian ensemble operas there is. Bringing in that one person is a fantastic opportunity to do something (the students) wouldn’t normally do.”

Andrew Hiers. Photo by Anthony Perez.

Eklund Opera has engaged Andrew Hiers (pronounced “hires”), who has performed with the San Francisco Opera Merola program, Opera Colorado, and the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Opera, to sing Falstaff. “He’s really good,” Holman says. “It ups everything a level, both in that it allows the students to do an opera that they might not otherwise be able to do. But also in what he brings, the experience that he has.

“He’s a really great actor, and the students are learning a lot working beside him. Every rehearsal, he’s just going, going, going, never complains, he’s just going. And it’s great for (the students) to see that.”

Other than Falstaff, Holman says, “We had all the other forces, including Quickly, who’s an artist diploma student”—Jenna Clark. That could be a difficult role to cast with students, but Holman says, “she’s really got the gravitas and the voice to pull that off.”

Another challenge is the breakneck pace of the music. “It’s a massive challenge for everybody,” Carthy says. “You don’t have time to do anything before something else comes along. It’s very tough, and we rarely have that sort of pacing in an opera. We’ve done Bohème and Traviata, but even Bohème doesn’t have that wickedness of pace that Falstaff does.”

“I would say the same thing,” Holman says. “It’s a difficult piece. As the director there’s just a lot coming at you.”

Nicholas Carthy

Carthy points out that the same is true for the orchestra and conductor. “Getting a mostly undergraduate orchestra, many (of whom) have never been in a pit before, to play Verdi or anything approaching Falstaff, is always going to be a challenge,” he says. “It’s this massive challenge to coordinate, but that‘s what I love doing that’s what I’ve spent my life doing.”

After all of Verdi’s dramatic, tragic operas, the speed and lightness of Falstaff is surprising. “It’s got more words, more notes, more melodies than anything else he ever wrote. It’s unlike his other operas in that it’s through-composed—it’s not arias and set pieces,” Carthy says. That lack of arias meant that Falstaff was not an immediate success, but the overall richness of Verdi’s invention has won over critics and musicians alike.

A good example is the love music between Nanetta and Fenton. He has one aria, but otherwise their scenes together are brief, made up of highly distilled lyrical expressions of love that are gorgeous but only last a minute or two. “It’s as if Verdi decided that he had trunks full of melodies to get rid of,” Carthy says. “And so he just threw them all at this thing.”

In Holman’s opinion, this is a do-not-miss performance. “We have wonderful singers with an amazing sense of humor and an amazing sense of comic and dramatic timing,“ she says.

“You’ll laugh the whole time!”

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CU Eklund Opera Program
Leigh Holman, director
Nicholas Carthy, music director

  • Verdi: Falstaff

7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 27
2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 29
Macky Auditorium

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October 19, 2023

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Boulder Chamber Orchestra presents mini-chamber concert Saturday

“Mini-Chamber 1: Capturing the Folk Spirit”

By Peter Alexander Oct. 19 at 3:45 p.m.

The Boulder Chamber Orchestra will present the first of four ”Mini-Chamber” concerts on their 2023–24 season schedule at 7:30 p.m. Saturday (Oct. 21, at the Boulder Adventist Church; ticket information below).

Three of the concerts—Saturday, and further performances Feb. 17 and April 6—will feature BCO’s artist-in-residence, pianist Hsing-Ay Hsu, performing chamber works with members of the orchestra. The other “Mini-Chamber” concert, Jan. 20, 2024, will feature pianist Adam Zukiewicz with members of the orchestra.

Boulder Chamber Orchestra artist-in-residence Hsing-Ay Hsu

The ”Mini-Chamber” concerts are distinguished from the BCO’s other performances in that they feature pure chamber music—small, one-player-per-part ensembles—rather than the full chamber orchestra itself under director Bahmann Saless.

Saturday’s concert features three pieces with differing instrumentation. The first will be the violin-and-piano version of Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances. A suite of six short pieces originally written for piano, based on Romanian tunes from the Transylvania—once part of Hungary and later part of Romania. Bartók himself wrote a version for small ensemble, and there have been arrangements for violin and other instruments with piano. It has been one of Bartók’s most popular pieces with performers. 

The program also includes Dvořák’s Quintet for piano and string quartet in A major. Composed in 1887, it is considered one of the leading works for Piano Quintet. It comprises four movements indulging two that are based in Eastern European folk culture: Dumka, a movement that alternates between melancholy and exuberance with a title that derives from Ukranian; and Furiant, a fiery Bohemian folk dance.

Finally, Hsu alone will pay Brahms’s Klavierstücke (Piano pieces) op. 118, a set of six pieces that Brahms dedicated to Clara Schumann, widow of the composer Robert Schumann. Composed in 1893, they were the composer’s next-to-last completed work.

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“Capturing the Folk Spirit”

Boulder Chamber Orchestra Mini-Chamber 1
Hsing-ay Hsu, piano, with members of the Boulder Chamber Orchestra

  • Bartók: Romanian Folk Songs for violin and piano
  • Dvořák: Quintet for piano and strings in A major
  • Brahms: Klavierstücke, op. 118 no. 3

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21
Boulder Adventist Church

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October 19, 2023

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Korevaar tackles “iconic masterpiece” filled with humor and joy

“Transcendence”: Bach’s Goldberg Variations at the Dairy Saturday

By Peter Alexander Oct. 19 at 2:25 p.m.

Bach’s Goldberg Variations is widely regarded as one of the great works of the European musical tradition, but pianist David Korevaar doesn’t want you to think of it that way.

David Korevaar. Photo by Manfred Fuss.

Korevaar will play the Goldberg Variations Saturday at the Dairy Arts Center (4 p.m. in the Gordon Gamm Theater) on a program titled “Transcendence” that is part of the 2023–24 Boulder Bach Festival concert series. “Although the piece is an iconic masterpiece,” Korevaar says, “it should be a piece that is full of joy and dances and sings, rather than an object of worship.”

Johann Gottlieb Goldberg

The Variations were written around 1740 and are named after harpsichordist and organist Johann Gottlieb Goldberg. Goldberg was employed by Count Kayserling, the Russian ambassador to the Court of Saxony and may have been one of Bach’s pupils. A story of dubious authenticity has been told by Bach’s biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel that Kayserling suffered from insomnia. To cheer him up on sleepless nights, Bach is supposed to have written the variations for Goldberg to play.

The completed score comprises an Aria and 30 variations, with the aria to be repeated at the end. Every third variation is a canon for two voices, with an increasing musical interval between the voices. In musical terms, Variation 3 is a canon at the unison, Variation 6 a canon at the second, and so forth to Variation 27, which is a canon at the ninth. 

Scholars have found patterns in the layout of the other variations as well, with one Baroque movement type and one rapid free movement in every pair of variations between the canons. The final variation is a “Quodlibet” (Latin for “whatever you wish”) that combines several German folk songs.

Korevaar recorded the Goldberg Variations once about 18 years ago, but he has not gone back to re-listen to that recording because he wants to approach the music afresh. “That was the first time that I set my hands to that music” he says, suggesting that his understanding of the music has evolved over the intervening years.

J.S. Bach

Because this is the first time he has played the full set with nothing else on the program, he has made the decision to take all of the repeats that Bach wrote into the score—something he did not do in his recording or in recital performances. “I do some embellishment with repeats,” he says, “but even in a case where I’m not doing embellishment, I think it’s worth hearing the music twice.”

“You also have to have the patience to accept the length of the piece. Isn’t it nice to slow down the pace of the world a little bit, and spend a little more time with some music?”

Korevaar believes that the time spent with the Goldberg Variations should be entertaining for the listeners. In spite of the complexity of Bach’s compositional stye, there is a lot of fun in the music. “I’m not going to say that there’s no profundity there, there’s plenty,” he says.  “But most of the piece is in an emotional range from contentment to outright joy.

“What we can miss is the humor, and a certain amount of show-off-iness, which of course Bach did occasionally. I think he had a good time writing this piece.”

David Korevaar. Photo by Matthew Dine

If Bach is showing off as a composer, with his canons and widely varying styles of variations, the music also gives the performer space to show off, too. “There is a combination of compositional virtuosity and keyboard virtuosity here,” Korevaar says. “It would be silly to claim that there’s not an aspect of bravura to this music. This music actually is very difficult and sounds very difficult!”

Bach wrote the Goldberg Variations specifically for harpsichord, as the piano was not yet well developed in 1740. Korevaar is playing them on piano, but he is not averse to more historically accurate performances. “I love my modern piano, but I also love listening to a wonderful harpsichordist play,” he says.

The modern instrument has different expressive possibilities and parameters than the harpsichord. “Color, dynamics and shaping are an inevitable part of playing the piano” he says. “And those parameters are much less available to a harpsichordist.” In contrast, he explains, the harpsichord and other historical instrument depends much more on flexibility of time and tempo to create expression.

And that’s what Korevaar seeks above all in performing Bach’s music. “I believe very deeply that Bach was essentially an expressive composer,” he says. 

“And so to understand that and to bring that music to life in a way that sings and dances and speaks—that’s what I admire and strive for.”

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Boulder Bach Festival
“Transcendence”
David Korevaar, piano

  • J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, S988

4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21
Gordon Gamm Theater, Dairy Arts Center

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October 11, 2023

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Boulder Philharmonic gently opens 2023-24 concert season Sunday

“Transformations” and “Visions of a Brighter Tomorrow” on the masterworks series

By Peter Alexander Oct. 11 at 5:40 p.m.

Conductor Michael Butterman and the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra will slip gently into their new season with a concert at 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15, in Macky Auditorium. (Please note the change of time and day from recent seasons.)

Michael Butterman and the Boulder Phil in Macky Auditorium

The first piece on the program will be Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten by the living Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, a quiet, reflective piece for strings and a tolling chime. “It’s a very effective work,” Butterman says. “It’s totally hypnotic, this sort of neo-minimalist language, if you want to call it that, that is very deeply felt and meditative.

“There are typically two ways to start a program. Either you get people’s attention with a lot of fireworks, loud and fast, or (you can have) a very centered piece to open the concert, rather than one that gets your blood pressure up. Either approach is effective, but we’re going to (open the season) relatively calm and quiet.” 

Anne-Marie McDermott

Following the gentle and soothing strains of the Cantus, Butterman and the Phil will be joined by pianist Anne-Marie McDermott for Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, a work that certainly has its showy moments but is generally more amiable than most Beethoven. 

“The Beethoven Fourth is my favorite piano concerto,” Butterman says. “There’s something very special about it, especially the second movement. It’s very affecting and dramatic in its relatively simple construct.”

Unlike other concertos of the time, Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto starts with the solo instrument alone, playing dolce e piano (sweetly and softly)—continuing the gentle mood of the concert. The dramatic second movement, which juxtaposes the piano and the strings, has been described by Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny as “an antique tragic scene.” The following finale is both lyrical and jovial, more in the mood of Haydn than either the grandiosity or the ferocity of Beethoven’s more powerful concertos and symphonies.

Butterman has not worked with McDermott before, but he knows her recordings and her reputation in the music world. “Knowing especially her affinity for and experience in chamber music, this seems like an ideal concerto for her to play,” he says. “I’m looking forward to welcoming her.”

In addition to her recordings of music by composers form Bach to Shostakovich, McDermott has been an artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Her recordings of 20th-century music, including the complete piano works of Prokofiev and Gershwin, have received extensive critical praise. She is currently director of Colorado’s Bravo! Vail Music Festival.

Henry Purcell

Butterman explains how he selected the remainder of the concert program: “The question was, do you end with a symphony or something like that?” he says. But instead of a single larger work, he selected two pieces, both by 20th-century composers and both based on earlier music from their home countries: Benjamin Britten’s Variations on a Theme by Purcell and Paul Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes of Carl Maria von Weber.

Carl Maria von Weber. Portrait by Caroline Bardua

 Britten’s score, known as A Young person’s Guide to the Orchestra when performed with a narration, comprises 13 variations, each devoted to a single instrument or section of the orchestra, and a fugue that brings them all together. Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis features four movements, each a transformation of music by the early Romantic German composer Carl Maria von Weber. Like Britten’s piece, it is a virtuoso score for orchestra, although it is not constructed as a set of variations.

“Together the two of them are 40 or 44 minutes,” Butterman says. “Taken together they have the time span and the weight of a symphony, although they are not constructed that way. They are much more episodic, and they are each colorful in their own way.

“I think of each of them as real showcases for the orchestra—Britten intentionally so, but no less so in the case of Hindemith as he crafts some really colorful and stirring renditions of these pieces.

“I think those are good season-starter kinds of pieces, because they’re rousing.”

The second masterworks concert of the fall (Nov. 12) is listed below. Tickets for the entire Boulder Phil season are available HERE. Please note that the opening concert will be at 4 p.m. Sunday. All of the masterworks concerts during the fall will be Sunday afternoon, as opposed to the usual Saturday evening times of recent seasons.

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Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra
Fall 2023 concert series

“Transformation”
Boulder Philharmonic, Michael Butterman, conductor
With Anne-Marie McDermott, piano

  • Arvo Pärt: Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten
  • Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major
  • Benjamin Britten: Variations on a Theme by Purcell
  • Paul Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes of Carl Maria von Weber 

4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15
Macky Auditorium

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“Visions of a Brighter Tomorrow”
Boulder Philharmonic, Michael Butterman, conductor
With 3rd Law Dance/Theater and Richard Scofano, bandoneon

  • Jeffrey Nytch: Beacon (world premiere)
  • Scofano: La Tierra Sin Mal (The World without Evil)
  • Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C minor

4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 12
Macky Auditorium

TICKETS

The Nutcracker
Boulder Philharmonic, Gary Lewis, conductor
With Boulder Ballet

  • Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Ballet

2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 24
2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Saturday Nov. 25
2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 26
Macky Auditorium

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“Holiday Brass”
Boulder Phil Brass and Percussion
Gary Lewis, conductor

4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 17
Mountain View Methodist Church

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October 6, 2023

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Central City Opera announces Scott Finlay as CEO

Search for permanent Artistic Director to get under way

By Peter Alexander Oct. 6 at 12:50 p.m.

The board and leadership of Central City Opera (CCO) yesterday announced the appointment of Scott Finlay as president and CEO of the opera company.

Finlay has been with Central City Opera for 12 years, most recently as vice-president of development. In announcing Finlay’s appointment, the company said that they will now begin a national search for a new artistic director—a position that has been open since the resignation of Pat Pearce from CCO leadership in June, 2022. That search will be led by Management Consultants for the Arts, a longstanding consulting firm that has clients large and small throughout the United States, from the Chicago Symphony to the Napa Valley Opera House in California.

Scott Finlay

In CCO’s news release, Finlay wrote “I am deeply honored to assume the position of President & CEO at Central City Opera. This institution’s legacy is unparalleled, and I am committed to honoring its past while embracing the necessary changes to ensure a vibrant and sustainable future. I am excited about the possibilities that lie ahead and the opportunity to lead CCO into a new era.”

CCO board co-chair Heather Miller writes, “[Finlay’s] dynamic leadership and tenure with the company make him the perfect fit for us. He brings a deep understanding of the organization from both the artistic and administrative sides. We are looking forward to seeing Scott, and the company flourish.”

Finlay succeeds former CEO Pamela Pantos, who was employed by the company from January, 2022, until she left the company last July, near the end of CCO’s 2023 summer festival. Pantos had overseen difficult and at times contentious negotiations for a new contract with the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), a union representing singers and apprentice artists at the company. That conflict was resolved with the signing of a new contract in May, 2023.

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October 5, 2023

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Longmont Symphony opens their season Saturday shooting for the stars

Exhilarating fanfare, a new harp concerto and Holst’s Planets form the program 

By Peter Alexander Oct. 5 at 3 p.m.

The Longmont Symphony Orchestra (LSO) and conductor Elliot Moore will open their fall concert series Saturday evening with a concert titled “Shoot for the Stars” (7 p.m., Vance Brand Civic Auditorium; details below).

Longmont Symphony and conductor Elliot Moore

The program’s title comes not from music about literal stars, but other astronomical bodies: The Planets, Holst’s suite that portrays in music the mythical and astrological character of seven of the planets in our solar system. While the opening movement, “Mars, the Bringer of War,” is the most popular of the seven, it is later movements in the cycle that best reflect the composer’s fascination with mysticism and astrology—especially the last three, “Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age,” “Uranus, the Magician” and “Neptune, the Mystic.”

The ending of the final movement is especially haunting, as an unaccompanied, wordless female chorus sings music of uncertain tonality. They get softer and softer as a door between them and the stage is slowly closed, and finally they vanish into silence.

Rachel Starr Ellins

Soloist for the concert will be harpist Rachel Starr Ellins, who has been principal harp with the LSO since 1996. Second harpist and first-call substitute with the Colorado Symphony, she has taught at CSU and maintains her own harp studio. She will play Harp of Ages by Michael Daugherty, a concerto that was commissioned by the Colorado Symphony and premiered earlier this year. 

An exploration of the history of the harp, Harp of Ages comprises seven movements, each based on a harpist of history or legend. These range from the Greek lyric post Sappho to Uhura on the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek to the Biblical David and Harpo Marx. Stops along the way include a Mexican convent and an Irish wedding. Known for his fluency in contemporary pop dooms, Daugherty even indulges in the blues at one point.

John Adams. Photo by Deborah O’Grady

The concert will open with Short Ride in a Fast Machine, a fanfare by American composer John Adams that was written in 1986 for the Pittsburgh Symphony. An energetic and at times frenzied composition, it quickly became popular as a concert opener and was in fact the most frequently performed orchestral work by a living American composer during the 1990s. To this day, its insistent woodblock, excited brass chords and pulsing polyrhythms make it just about the most exhilarating way there is to open a concert—or a concert season.

Tickets for the full season, as well as Friday’s concert are available on the LSO Web page. You may see the fall concerts listed below.

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Longmont Symphony Orchestra
Fall 2023 Concerts

“Shoot for the Stars”
Longmont Symphony, Elliot Moore conductor
With Rachel Starr Ellins, harp

  • John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine
  • Michael Daugherty: Harp of Ages
  • Gustav Holst: The Planets

7 p.m. Saturday Oct.  7
Vance Brand Civic Auditorium

“Mahler at the Museum” I—SOLD OUT
Longmont Symphony, Elliot Moore, conductor
With Ekaterina Kotcherguina, soprano

  • Mark Crawford: The Social Dilemma Suite (World Premiere)
  • Mahler: Symphony No. 4 in G major

7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21
Stewart Auditorium, Longmont Museum

“Shostakovich No. 5″
Longmont Symphony, Elliot Moore conductor
With Clancy Newman, cello

  • Beethoven: Overture to Coriolan
  • Ernest Bloch: Schelomo, Hebrew Rhapsody for cello and orchestra
  • Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5

7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 18
Vance Brand Civic Auditorium

The Nutcracker
Longmont Symphony, Elliot Moore, conductor
With Boulder Ballet, Ben Needham-Wood, artistic director

“Gentle Nutcracker”
Shortened, sensory-friendly performance of the Nutcracker ballet
1 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2
Vance Brand Civic Auditorium

Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Ballet
4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2
2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 3
Vance Brand Civic Auditorium

“Candlelight: A Baroque Christmas”
Longmont Symphony, Elliot Moore, conductor

  • Vivaldi: Gloria
  • Other Christmas music form the Baroque era

4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 16
Vance Brand Civic Auditorium

Tickets for all LSO concerts may be purchased through the orchestra’s WEB PAGE.

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October 4, 2023

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Rarely performed Mozart Mass in C Minor will be heard in Boulder, Greeley

Boulder Chamber Chorale and Chamber Orchestra join forces Friday

By Peter Alexander Oct. 4 at 12:10 p.m.

Conductor Bahman Saless and the Boulder Chamber Orchestra (BCO) will join together with Vicki Burrichter and the Boulder Chamber Chorale to perform one of the least known of Mozart’s major works Friday (7:30 p.m., First United Methodist Church; details below).

The C Minor Mass is, alongside the Requiem, one of two major choral works that Mozart left unfinished. Probably because it was never finished, and also because it is a difficult piece to put together, it is not performed very often. 

Bahman Saless with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra

Mozart began this very large-scale setting of the Ordinary of the Mass—those portions that are performed year-round as opposed to texts that are specific to individual days of the year—in 1782, soon after his marriage to Constanze Weber. Mozart said he started the Mass in honor of his marriage, but he never finished the work. 

Mozart

The opening Kyrie movement and the Gloria were completed, as were two sections of the Credo, as well as the Sanctus and Benedictus. The remainder of the Credo and the Agnus Dei text were never written. On the basis of the completed movements, a full Mass would have been an extensive work.

Mozart and Constanze visited the composer’s father Leopold in Salzburg in October of 1782, with the completed portions of the Mass in hand. At least some portions of Mozart’s score were performed as part of a service in Salzburg, including Constanze singing Et incarnatus est, a beautiful and difficult soprano solo. What else was performed is unknown, and Mozart never wrote another note of the Mass after the visit to Salzburg.

Constanze Mozart. Portrait by Joseph Lange

One theory is that Mozart had started the mass as a gesture to his very religious father, who had not approved of the marriage with Constanze. Having mollified the testy Leopold during his visit, he had no reason to write more, as there were no performance possibilities for a large-scale Mass setting in Vienna, due to the policies of the Austrian Emperor Joseph II.

In any case, the Mass in C minor falls at a transition point in Mozart’s life, at the time not only of his marriage but of his move to Vienna and his emergence as an independent composer. It also represents a new development in his musical style, which came about from his study of the Baroque masterpieces of Bach and Handel. The Mass contains several large-scale fugues and a few movements for double-chorus, which add to the complexity and difficulty of the choral parts.

“Every movement has a different challenge,” Burrichter, who rehearsed the chorus, says. “The double choruses certainly are challenging, in terms of listening to each other, and the fugues are extremely difficult and long. But in spite of the difficulties, we’ve all been thrilled with learning it. As Mozart is, it’s so beautifully melodic, it’s so emotionally powerful, and it’s a treat.”

Boulder Chamber Chorale with Burrichter (far right)

Saless, who will conduct the performance, shares Burrichter’s appreciation for Mozart’s music. “It’s a beautiful piece, and it has incredibly gorgeous arias,” he says. 

Among the arias, Burrichter points specifically to the one that Mozart wrote for Constanze. “The Et incarnatus est, one of the great soprano solos, is just one of the best things he ever wrote,” she says. “It’s really stunning!”

To sum up the Mass, Burrichter particularly likes to quote Patrick Mackie, who wrote in his book Mozart in Motion that “The C-Minor mass is . . . a sort of total statement on everything music could be . . . (It) has a surging monumentality and a giddy, athletic zip.”

The concert will open with the Colorado premiere of Summation, a brief piece for chorus and orchestra by composers Jim Klein and Ian Jamison. The performance by the BCO was commissioned by Klein, a successful businessman and entrepreneur who works as a visual artist in a studio outside Greeley and owns an art gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona. 

“We’re really delighted to showcase music by local Colorado composers,” Saless says. “It’s obvious this piece was inspired by a spiritual experience.”

Klein explains that source of inspiration in his program notes, where he writes “On my daily early morning walk down our farm lane over the decades, I have often asked the question, ‘Who am I?’” One day, while walking with his dog, he writes that the answer came to him in a text that begins “God is in me.” 

WIth that thought in mind, he worked with Jamison to express the text in music. “Hopefully,” he writes, “this internal investment will pass on for future generations.”

In addition to the Boulder performance Friday, the program will be presented at the University of Northern Colorado Commons in Greeley at 3 p.m. Sunday. Links for the purchase of tickets are listed below.

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“Mozart Mass and More”
Boulder Chamber Orchestra with Boulder Chamber Chorale
Bahman Saless, conductor, with sopranos Szilvia Schranz and Moira Murphy; tenor Thomas Bocchu; and baritone Tyler Padgett

  • Jim Klein and Ian Jamison: Summation
  • Mozart: Mass in C Minor

7:30 p.m. Friday Oct. 6
First United Methodist Church, 1421 Spruce St, Boulder

TICKETS

3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 8
University of Northern Colorado Commons
Beethoven in the Rockies Concert Series

TICKETS

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Pro Musica Colorado announces 2023-24 concert season

This will be the final season for director Cynthia Katsarelis

By Peter Alexander Oct. 2 at 10:28 p.m.

Boulder’s Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra made a major announcement over the weekend.

Actually, it was two announcements: first, the concert dates and repertoire for the coming season; and second, that the season would be conductor Cynthia Katsarelis’s last with the orchestra that she founded in 2007 and has led since. She has taken a position in South Bend, Ind., and will return to Boulder to conduct all three concerts on the current season. No replacement has been announced.

Cynthia Katsarelis, the Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra and the Boulder Chamber Chorale perform Messiah in 2018

All three concerts will be held at the Mountain View Methodist Church at 7:30 p.m. on Saturdays Oct. 28, Dec. 2 and April 6. Full program listings and ticket information are given below. 

Composer Jessie Lausé

The announcement noted several highlights of the coming season: the world premier of a new work by University of Colorado graduate student Jessie Lausé, a performance of the Christmas portion of Handel’s Messiah, and collaborations with local soloists including guitarist Nicolò Spera, soprano Jennifer Bird-Arvidsson, and bass-baritone Ashraf Sewailam. 

Each of the three programs includes a work by a woman: Lausé’s Periphery on Oct. 28, Florence Price’s Adoration on Dec. 2, and the Symphony No. 3 in G minor by little-known 19th-century French composer and virtuoso pianist Louise Farrenc on April 6.

Katsarelis released a statement when she announced her departure. “I’m really excited about this season.” the statement reads. “It gives me the opportunity to express my gratitude to all our supporters and patrons, as well as our tremendous musicians, soloists, and artistic partners, and we end on mission, with tremendous works by women composers on each concert.” 

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Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra
Cynthia Katsarelis, conductor
2023-24 Season

“Passione!”
With Stacy Lesartre, violin

  • Jessie Lausé: Periphery
  • Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major (“Turkish”)
  • Haydn: Symphony No. 49 in F Minor (“Passione”)

Saturday, Oct. 28, Mountain View United Methodist Church, 355 Ponca Pl, Boulder

“Messiah!”
With Jennifer Bird-Arvidsson, soprano; Nicole Asel, alto; Steven Soph, tenor; Ashraf Sewailam, bass-baritone; and the Boulder Chamber Chorale, Vicki Burrichter, director 

  • Florence Price: Adoration
  • Mozart: Divertimento in D Major
  • Handel:  Messiah, Part I, Christmas

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2, Mountain View United Methodist Church

“Nicolò!”
With Nicolò Spera, guitar

  • Joaquin Rodrigo: Fantasía para un gentilhombre
  • Louise Farrenc: Symphony No. 3 in G Minor

7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 6, Mountain View United Methodist Church

TICKETS for all three concerts