Two ninth symphonies among highlights

By Peter Alexander Jan 22 at 11:25 a.m.

The Colorado Music Festival (CMF) has announced its summer schedule of concerts at the Chautauqua Auditorium in Boulder. 

The season of 19 concerts will culminate with performances of two different ninth symphonies: Beethoven’s masterpiece, featuring the “Ode to Joy” finale, July 31 and August 1; and Mahler’s Ninth Aug. 3. Both are their composer’s last completed symphony, which has given a special mystique to the number of the “Ninth Symphony.”

Other highlights during the summer include appearances by outstanding solo artists, including pianist Hélène Grimaud playing the Gershwin Concerto in F on the opening night concert July 3 and 6; saxophonist Steven Banks playing the world premiere of Joan Tower’s Love Returns for saxophone and orchestra; and violinist Anne Akiko Meyers playing Eric Whitacre’s Murmur, a CMF co-commission written for her. 

Two birth anniversaries will be celebrated during the summer: Ravel’s 150th, with performances of  Daphinis et Chloé, Suite No. 2 and Bolero on the opening concert program, and Aaron Copland’s 125th with a performance of Appalachian Spring on July 17 and 18 and An Outdoor Overture on July 11.

Some younger, rising artists will be featured this summer. Classical guitarist Xuefei Yang will perform Rodrigo’s popular Concierto de Aranjuez July 27. Violinist Benjamin Beilman and conductor Chloé van Soeterstède will appear on an all-Mozart program July 13. Cellist Hayoung Choi and conductor Maurice Cohn will perform July 20, and pianist Yeol Eum Son will appear with conductor Ryan Bancroft July 24 and 25.

This year’s Family Concert, presented at 10:30 a.m. July 6, will be an orchestral mystery, “Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Maestro.” Shira Samuels-Shragg will conduct the program, in which all of the musicians are suspects and Sherlock Holmes must investigate each of the instrument families.

All of the CMF’s summer concerts and programs are listed below. Tickets to the 2025 Festival will be available for purchase beginning March 4. For information or to purchase tickets for the 2025 festival, visit the CMF Web page, or call the Chautauqua box office at 303-440-7666.

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Colorado Music Festival, Peter Oundjian, music director
2025 Summer Season
All performances in Chautauqua Auditorium

Opening Night
Festival Orchestra, Peter Oundjian, conductor
With Hélène Grimaud, piano

• Stravinsky: Feu d’artifice (Fireworks)
• Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F
• Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2
  —Bolero

7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 3
6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 6

Family Concert
Festival Orchestra, Shira Samuels-Shragg, conductor

• Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Maestro

10:30 a.m. Sunday, July 6

Chamber Music Concert
Colorado Music Festival musicians

• Schubert: String Trio in B-flat major, D471
• Prokofiev: Quintet in G minor, op. 39
• Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, op. 60

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 8

Festival Orchestra Concert
Peter Oundjian, conductor
With Steven Banks saxophone

• Copland: An Outdoor Overture
• Joan Tower: Love Returns for saxophone and orchestra (world premiere)
• Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C minor, op. 68

7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 10
6:30 p.m. Friday, July 11

An Evening of Mozart
Festival Orchestra, Chloé van Soeterstède, conductor
With Benjamin Beilman, violin

• Mozart: Overture to Don Giovanni
  —Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K219 (“Turkish”)
  —Overture to Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)
  —Symphony no. 34 in C major, K338

6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 13

Chamber Music Concert
Brentano String Quartet

• Schubert: Quartet in A minor, D804 (“Rosamunde”)
• Anton Webern: Five Movements for String Quartet, op. 5
• Brahms: String Quartet No. 3 in B-flat major, op. 67

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 15

Festival Orchestra Concert
Peter Oundjian, conductor
With Anne Akiko Meyers, violin

• Copland: Appalachian Spring
• Eric Whitacre: Murmur (CMF co-commission)
• Ravel: Tzigane
• Berlioz: Overture to Béatrice et Bénédict
• Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture

7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 17
6:30 p.m. Friday, July 18

Festival Orchestra Concert
Maurice Cohn, conductor
With Hayoung Choi, cello

• Respighi: Gli uccelli (The birds)
• Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme, op. 33
• Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C major, op. 21

6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 20

Chamber Music Concert
Colorado Music Festival musicians

• Nico Muhly: Doublespeak (2012)
• Mozart: Quintet for piano and winds in E-flat major, K452
• Dvořák: String Quintet No. 3 in E-flat major, op. 97

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 22

Festival Orchestra Concert
Ryan Bancroft, conductor
With Yeol Eum Son, piano

• Sofia Gubaidulina: Fairytale Poem (Märchenpoem, 1971)
• Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, op. 37
• Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10

7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 24

6:30 P.M. Friday, July 25

Festival Orchestra Concert
Peter Oundjian, conductor
With Xuefei Yang, guitar

• Zoltán Kodály: Dances of Galánta
• Joaquin Rodrigo: Concerto de Aranjuez
• Schubert: Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D485

6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 27

Chamber Music Concert
Dover Quartet

• Leoš Janáček: String Quartet No. 1 (“Kreutzer Sonata”)
• Schumann: String Quartet No. 1 in A minor, op. 41
• Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 1 in D major, op. 11

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 29

Festival Orchestra Concert
Colorado Music Festival orchestra and the St. Martin’s Festival Singers
Peter Oundjian, conductor
With Lauren Snouffer, soprano; Abigail Nims, mezzo-soprano; Issachah Savage, tenor; and Benjamin Taylor, baritone

• Michael Abels: Amplify (CMF co-commission)
• Beethoven: Elegischer Gesang (Elegiac song), op. 118
  —Symphony No. 9 in D minor, op. 125

7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 31
6:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 1

Festival Finale
Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, Peter Oundjian, conductor

Mahler: Symphony No. 9

6:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 3