Sondheim’s 1970s musical; “The Good, the Bad, the Music!”
By Peter Alexander March 9 at 2:40 p.m.
The CU Department of Theatre and Dance is presenting the quintessential 1970s musical, Stephen Sondheim’s Company, but over the past 24 hours the show sold out.
The story of a bachelor whose married friends want him to get married and settle down, Company won six Tony awards, including Best Musical, Best Score, Best Lyrics and Best Book. The original ensemble cast starred Dean Jones as Robert (“Bobby”) and Elaine Stritch as Joanne. That 1970 performance featured one of the iconic Broadway performances of the time, Stritch’s rendition of “Ladies who Lunch.”
Although firmly planted in the social mores of the times, Company continues to be popular, and three Broadway revivals—the most recent in 2021 with gender reversals in the cast—and numerous regional performances have kept the show before the public.
The CU production was designed by Annika Radovcich and stage directed by Bud Coleman. Adam Ewing is the music director.
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Company by Stephen Sondheim Book by George Furth Orchestration by Jonathan Tunick University of Colorado Department of Theatre and Dance
SOLD OUT
7:30 p.m. Friday, March 10; Saturday, March 11, Wednesday, March 15; Thursday March 16; Friday, March 17; and Saturday, March 18 2 p.m. Sundays March 12 and March 19
Charlotte York Irey Theatre, University Theatre Building
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It’s not Clint Eastwood, but it is the local Sheriff of Musical Harmony.
The “Curiosity Concert,” programmed for children and families, will feature classical, pop and movie music associated with the West, including Rossini’s Overture to William Tell,, the “Hoe-Down” from Aaron Copland’s ballet Rodeo, and Johnny Cash’s “Get Rhythm.” The concert’s plot features the loser of the orchestra’s recent “Best Conductor in the West” contest derailing the concert and taking the orchestra hostage. It will be up to the Sherriff of Musical Harmony to re-establish order in the concert hall.
The sheriff will be present when the Boulder Symphony and conductor Devin Patrick Hughes present “The Good, the Bad and the Music” at 3 p.m. Saturday (March 11) at Grace Commons Church, 1820 15th St. in downtown Boulder.
For 30 minutes before and after the concert, Boulder’s HB Woodsongs will sponsor an “instrument petting zoo” for children to try out instruments. Boulder Symphony’s Curiosity Concerts have sold out in the past, so potential audience members are encouraged to order their tickets soon (see below).
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“The Good, the Bad, the Music” Boulder Symphony, Devin Patrick Hughes, conductor
Program includes:
Rossini: Overture to William Tell
Copland: “Hoe-Down” from Rodeo
Scott Joplin: “Maple Leaf Rag”
Johnny Cash: “Get Rhythm”
Original song by Devin Patrick Hughes, Dana Vachharajani, Andrew Haller, and Liz Comninellis
World premiere from Boulder Symphony, chamber music from BCO
By Peter Alexander Jan. 12 at 3:10 p.m.
The Boulder Symphony and conductor Devin Patrick Hughes will start the new year with a new piece—the world premiere of the Oboe Concerto by CU graduate John Clay Allen.
John Clay Allen
The premiere will be included on concerts at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday (Jan. 13 and 14) in the Gordon Gamm Theater of the Dairy Arts Center. Other works on the same program are the much loved “New World” Symphony of Dvořák, the Overture to The Song of Hiawatha by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and music from the film Jurassic Park by John Williams.
Allen, who received his DMA in composition in 2019, has been active as a pianist and conductor in addition to his work as a composer. The soloist for the concerto will be the Boulder Symphony’s principal oboist, Ingrid Anderson.
One of the most familiar works in the symphony repertoire, the “New World” Symphony includes music inspired by Longfellow’s epic poem The Song of Hiawatha. The poem was familiar to Dvořák, who once planned an opera on the subject. That connection is highlighted by the inclusion of Coleridge-Taylor’s Overture to his trio of cantatas, The Song of Hiawatha.
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Boulder Symphony, Devin Patrick Hughes, conductor With Ingrid Anderson, oboe
John Clay Allen: Oboe Concert (World premiere)
John Williams: Themes from Jurassic Park
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Overture to The Song of Hiawatha
Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 in E minor (“From the New World”)
7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Jan. 13 and 14 Gordon Gamm Theater, Dairy Arts Center
Pianist David Korevaar returns for the second of two chamber music concerts with members of the Boulder Chamber Orchestra (BCO) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday (Jan. 14) at the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Boulder.
The program comprises two sextets for piano and woodwind quintet, one by the obscure composer Ludwig Thuille and one by the much more familiar Francis Poulenc. The third and final concert of Korevaar’s chamber series with the BCO, comprising quintets for piano with winds, will be April 8.
Thuille “is even more obscure than (his teacher) Rheinberger, which is saying something,” Korevaar says. Apart from the Sextet, his music is very rarely performed.
“The piece is wonderful, but it sounds very much of its time and place. (It represents) a nice late-Romantic idiom, with some occasional adventurous harmonies, (but) it doesn’t push boundaries in any way.
Poulenc’s Sextet is very popular with players and audiences alike. “It’s a classic,” Korevaar says. “If you think of one piece for piano and wind quintet, this is the piece you’ll think of. it’s very popular for good reason, filled with good infectious Poulenc-ey tunes, and the writing is brilliant for all the instruments. It’s just a marvelous, successful piece.”
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David Korevaar, piano, with members of the Boulder Chamber Orchestra
Ludwig Thuille: Sextet in B-flat major for piano and wind quintet, op 6
Francis Poulenc: Sextet for piano and wind quintet
Outdoor performances Ag. 14–16 and Aug. 29 will observe Coronavirus safety protocols
By Peter Alexander (Aug. 11 at 11:20 p.m.)
Live music is back in Boulder—in a limited, outdoorsy sort of way.
Two outdoor performances later this month will provide live music, for the limited audiences who can get tickets. Both presenters have worked with Boulder Parks and Recreation Department to meet all health requirements. Both will be strictly social distanced, with limited numbers admitted and carefully spaced.
The Gerald Stazio Softball Fields parking lot, site of drive-in performances Aug. 14–16
Boulder Arts Outdoors will present what it calls “A socially-distanced drive-in performance pop-up” this coming weekend, Friday–Sunday, Aug. 14–16. The mixed program of classical, blue-grass, soul, salsa, dance and juggling, will be presented before a drive-in audience at the parking lot of the Gerald Stazio Softball Fields off 63rd Street in East Boulder.
Later in the month, Boulder Opera (BOC) will present its annual Opera in the Park performance in the Boulder Band Shell on Canyon Drive, to an audience limited to 175 people. The performance Saturday, Aug. 29, will be in two parts, with separate admission for each so that more people might have the opportunity to attend. The first half will be music from fairy-tale and fantasy operas, and the second half will be music from Zarzuelas, a popular genre of Spanish musical theater.
Mara Driscoll, the organizer of the Drive-In Festival, recently returned to Boulder from New York, where she dances at the Metropolitan Opera. “I’m still connected to the Boulder arts community, having gown up here, and as a performer I was feeling the disappearance of live performance,” she says.
The band Lady Romeo, one of the groups performing on Boulder Outdoor Arts drive-in concert
“I really value everyone’s efforts to make things digital and to live stream, but we all know it’s just not the same. I was watching drive-in movie theaters pop up all over the country, and seeing how that made it possible for people to assemble safely, I thought, why not apply that same model to performance? There’s very, very stringent health regulations right now; a lot of the permit process was making sure that I could keep everyone socially distanced.”
The cars the parking lot will be spaced apart, in every second space, and arranged in a horseshoe shape for maximum visibility of the elevated stage located at one end of the lot. The music will be amplified, and also streamed through an FM transmitter for anyone who does not wish to lower their windows.
“The capacity is 40 vehicles, so people will be close enough to the stage that they can hear well, and see the performers,” Driscoll says. “It should feel like an outdoor amphitheater experience, you’re just looking through your windshield.”
The bluegrass duo Sugar Moon
Driscoll used her connections to the Boulder dance and music communities to invite artists and groups to be part of the performances. Some contacts suggested other performers, so that the total program grew to be extremely diverse.
The schedules over the three nights includes members of the Boulder Symphony, the Renaissance-music vocal quintet Solis Singers, the soul/rock band Lady Romeo, the Bluegrass groups Chandler Holt & Eric Wiggs, Sugar Moon and Bowregard, djembe drumming by Abdoul Doumbia, a new piece created for the occasion by dancer Helanius J. Wilkins, Salsa dance by Marcela Lay and Musa Starseed, Third Law Dance/Theater, and juggling by Peter Davison. The program is slightly different each evening; the full program by date can be seen here.
Helanius J. Wilkins
“It’s all about the artists,” Driscoll says. “I really wanted to create a platform for artists to do what they do. It’s exciting what everyone’s going to bring to the table, and I think audiences are going to go for this great ride and leave with a sense of awe at all the creativity and talent that’s right here in Boulder.”
Boulder Opera has offered “Opera in the Park” for several summers running, but this year was different due to the pandemic. “We definitely had to go through a lot of hoops putting in an application with the city of Boulder, to make sure we are following all of the safety precautions for performing live,” Dianela Acosta, the company’s artistic director, says.
“The event is going to be capped at 175 people, and we usually attract between 400 and 600. We have to do social-distance seating, and everybody has to wear masks. We’re going to have to set out some areas where people can sit and be six feet away from each other.
Boulder Opera’s 2019 “Opera in the Park”
The performance is free, Acosta notes, but audience members have to register in advance through Boulder Opera Web page , and bring a copy of their registration with them. Boulder Opera staff will be on hand to direct people to their seats and ensure that no-one who is not registered gets inside the audience area.
“Our overhead expense have gone up, because there’s lot of work we have to do to prepare for this,” Acosta says. “And then, for the performer’s safety, we follow the same guidelines, and there’s going to be a protective plastic barrier in front of the stage.”
The program is divide into two halves, each with its own theme and content. “You can register for the first part, or the second part of the concert, or you can register for both parts,” Acosta explains. The music from operas based on fairy tales, including “Hansel and Gretel” and “Cinderella,” on the first part might be more family oriented. The second part features music from a popular Spanish style of light opera, Zarzuela.
Singers from the 2019 performance of Boulder Opera’s “Opera in the Park”
Featured on the first half will be a scene from Hansel und Gretel by Humperdinck; an aria from Rimsky Korsakov’s Snow Maiden; “Olympia’s Song” and the “Barcarolle” duet from Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman; “Song to the Moon” from Rusalka by Dvořák, an opera based on the same folk tale as “The Little Mermaid”; a duet and quartet from El Gato con Botas (“Puss in Boots”) by Spanish composer Xavier Montsalvage; and several numbers from La Cenerentola (“Cinderella”) by Rossini.
Forming the second half of he program, “Zarzuela is a traditional opera from Spain,” Acosta says. “It’s based on the folkloric tales and folk songs that have been adapted for operatic singing. And it’s very well known in Spain.”
Dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Zarzuela is contemporaneous with the rise of operetta and musical comedy in the U.S. Neither the titles nor the composers—including Gerónimo Giménez, Federico Moreno-Torroba and Francisco Barbieri—are familiar to American audiences. Singers for both halves of the program are members of the Boulder Opera company, including Acosta herself. They will be accompanied on piano by Nathália Kato, the BOC staff pianist.
“Our theme is opera for people, and we want to bring these beautiful pieces to our audience as a way to bring the community together,” Acosta says. For those we cannot be brought together on this occasion, when the audience size is limited, the performance will be live streamed through the BOC Facebook page.
“That [distanced performing] is going to be just for a little while, and then we are going to hopefully meet together soon again,” Acosta says. “[Online viewing] cannot replace live performances. That’s the beauty of what we do, performing in a live stage!
“Nothing can substitute for what it means to be sitting there and feeling the vibration of the voice in the instant.”
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Boulder Arts Outdoors: “Drive-in Festival” 6:30 p.m. Friday–Sunday, Aug. 14–16 Gerald Stazio Softball Fields parking lot Tickets
Boulder Opera: “Fairy-Tale Opera, Zarzuela and Dance” 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29: Fairy-Tale Fantasy 8:10 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29: Zarzuela and Dance Boulder Bandshell, 1212 Canyon Drive Tickets Live stream on the Boulder Opera Facebook page.
Slightly different programs will be presented Thursday and Friday evenings
By Peter Alexander Jan. 28 at 4:10 p.m.
Mozart
Mozart, a composer universally acknowledged to be a genius, and Albert Einstein, a scientist universally acknowledged to be a genius, will be brought together, after a fashion, on the next concert of the Boulder Symphony.
The program, appropriately titled “Genius,” will be presented twice, in slightly different forms. Devin Patrick Hughes will conduct.
Both programs honor some of the great geniuses of physics as well as music. Thursday (Jan. 30) at Boulder’s Jewish Community Center (JCC), the program will comprise Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K550; Einstein’s Dream by Cindy McTee; the world premiere of And Yet it Moves, an homage to Renaissance astronomer Galileo by Clay Allen; and Fermi’s Paradox by Austin Wintory, inspired by a question the Italian nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi once asked casually over lunch.
A second performance Friday (Jan. 31) at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Boulder will substitute the first movement of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, played by Jessica Zhang, in place of McTee’s score. Zhang was the winner of the Single Movement Division of the Concerto Competition of the 2019 International Keyboard Odyssiad® and Festival Competition, held last summer in Ft. Collins.
Composer Cindy McTee
A program with music celebrating the work of great scientists has long been a goal for Hughes. “I’ve been wanting to do a program for a long time that brings the arts and sciences together,” he says, “especially now in this world we live in, where sometimes science gets pushed onto the side of opinion. For hundreds of years the arts and sciences were intertwined.”
Both performances open with one of Mozart’s most well known and celebrated works, the Symphony No. 40 in G minor. It was written at a time when Mozart was in dire straits financially and having to beg loans from his close friends. “This is out of tragedy, Mozart looking inside,” Hughes says. “Of course it’s the creative genius Mozart, and every time you play a Mozart symphony, it’s operatic, you’re telling a story.”
Albert Einstein
Mozart pairs well with McTee’s Einstein’s Dream, because Einstein was devoted to Mozart’s music. An excellent amateur violinist, he often played Mozart’s violin sonatas, and once described Mozart’s music as “part of the inner beauty of the universe.” McTee wrote Einstein’s Dream in 2005, for the World Year of Physics, also known informally as the “Einstein Year” because it was the centennial of some of Einstein’s critical work on the theory or relativity.
The piece is scored for strings and percussion who play with a computer-generated MP3 track that strictly controls the unfolding of the music. It begins with a chorale by Bach, another composer that Einstein admired for the logical construction of his works. The individual movements have titles referring to Einstein’s groundbreaking work as a physicist, including “Warps and Curves in the Fabric of Space and Time,” “Pondering the Behavior of Light” and “The Frantic Dance of Subatomic Particles.”
Composer Clay Allen
And Yet it Moves was commissioned by the Boulder Symphony for the “Genius” program. Allen is a doctoral composition student at the University of Colorado, where he directs the Pendulum New Music concert series. Hughes suggested the idea of a piece about Galileo to Allen, who embraced the idea.
The title, And Yet it Moves, is a comment attributed to Galileo, after he was placed under house arrest and forced by Catholic authorities to recant his claim that the earth revolves around the sun. Galileo’s ideas were such a threat to the Catholic Church’s theological stance that the earth was at the center of the universe that Galileo was tried by the Inquisition. His books were banned by the church until 1718, and only in 1992 did Pope John Paul II finally admit the church had been wrong to censor Galileo’s work.
Allen’s score includes “sweeping string melodies that [portray] standing up in the face of tyranny or ignorance,” Hughes says. The composer will attend the premiere performances by the Boulder Symphony and will speak about his work at a 6:45 p.m. preconcert talk both nights.
Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi was an Italian nuclear physicist who was part of the Manhattan project developing the atomic bomb during World War II. Once when chatting with fellow scientists over lunch in 1950, Fermi asked if the universe is so vast, with so many galaxies and planets that could hold life, “Where is everybody”?—meaning all the other life forms that should be out there.
This was the origin of “Fermi’s Paradox,” that the universe is vast enough and old enough that we should have made contact with another civilization, but we have not. “Out of Fermi’s Paradox comes a bunch of different solutions,” Hughes says, ranging from the difficulty of interstellar travel to the idea that they are already here in the form of UFOs.
Composer Austin Wintory
“Wintory doesn’t exactly say this,” Hughes says, “but one of those solutions is that every time a society develops to where they can destroy themselves, they do. You can hear the doom [in the music], so it’s kind of a warning.”
The composer provided his own epigraph for Fermi’s Paradox in his program note, poetically describing the paradox that Fermi saw: “Our eyes turn to the sky and we see a nearly endless sea of stars and galaxies. . . . With eyes and ears aimed outward, it’s logical that we’d catch glimpses of life and peoples everywhere.
“But we see only overwhelming darkness. We hear total silence. Ours is an existence of oppressive loneliness.
“Reality is at once beautiful and terrifying,” he concludes; “lonely, yet of one.”
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Devin Patrick Hughes and the Boulder Symphony
“Genius”
Boulder Symphony, Devin Patrick Hughes, conductor
7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan 30, Boulder Jewish Community Center
Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K550
Cindy McTee: Einstein’s Dream
Clay Allen: And Yet It Moves (World Premiere)
Austin Wintory: The Fermi Paradox (Colorado Premiere)
7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 31, First Presbyterian Church, Boulder
Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K550
Clay Allen: And Yet It Moves (World Premiere)
Austin Wintory: The Fermi Paradox (Colorado Premiere)
Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2, First Movement, Jessica Zhang, piano
Boulder Symphony and Boulder Chorale join forces for the Stabat Mater
By Peter Alexander May 9, 2019 at 9:30 p.m.
Photo courtesy of Boulder Symphony
Antonín Dvořák has written some of the most, and least, familiar works in the classical music repertoire.
On the one hand are the “New World” Symphony, the Cello Concerto—both written in the United States—and a handful of other pieces that are immediately recognizable to most concertgoers. And on the other hand are many pieces almost never heard outside of the composer’s native Bohemia, including most of Dvořák’s operas and almost all of his sacred vocal music.
Among the latter is the Stabat Mater, a large-scale religious cantata for chorus, orchestra and four soloists, based on the 13th-century sacred hymn text “Stabat mater dolorosa” (Grieving mother, standing at the cross). Now the Boulder Symphony and the Boulder Chorale have joined forces to bring Boulder audiences a piece that conductor Vicki Burrichter calls “an underrated masterpiece.”
Burrichter, who is artistic director of the Boulder Chorale, will conduct the performances Saturday and Sunday, May 11 and 12.
Nostalgia, a fast ride, and the feeling of the sea are on the program Nov. 17
By Peter Alexander Nov. 15 at 2:10 p.m.
Everyone thinks of home as Thanksgiving approaches.
Boulder Symphony
As it happens, “Home” is the subject of the next concert by the Boulder Symphony, but despite the time of year, it is not about the holidays. The title refers to one of the pieces on the program, a new work by Sarah Kirkland Snider. The title, Hiraeth, is an untranslatable Welsh word that encompasses nostalgia for home, as well as longing and sadness.
Devin Patrick Hughes
Devin Patrick Hughes, conductor of the Boulder Symphony, first heard Snider’s music when it was played by the Detroit Symphony. “Snider is a really active composer,” he says. “She’s very young but at the same time she’s already been played around the world.”
Snider is currently in Boulder visiting the College of Music at CU.
In addition to Snider’s 26-minute piece, the program will also include John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine, an energetic and stimulating concert opener that has practically become a staple of major orchestras’ repertoire since its premiere in 1986; and one of the best known works for orchestra, Debussy’s La Mer, a three-movement evocation of the sea.
Snider grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, but she wrote Hiraeth when she received a commission from the North Carolina Symphony to write a piece about her family’s historic ties to the state. Her conception of the piece took a darker turn when her father—her living connection to North Carolina—died suddenly after she received the commission.
Sarah Kirkland Snider
“My musical ideas were now refracted through the lens of grief,” she writes in her program notes for the score. “The material grew darker, my thinking about the piece more complex. . . . Ultimately, Hiraeth is both elegy and personal meditation, steeped in the hazy, half-recollected textures and sensations that surround a memory.” (You may read her full program notes here.)
Snider’s score was originally conceived as a partner to a film score. The Boulder Symphony will not show the film, but Hughes believes the music stands well on its own. “I don’t think you need anything to go with it,” he says. “It’s very episodic, it’s very operatic. She brings you into this world and doesn’t let you out—in a good way!”
Hughes says that the Adams fanfare was selected specifically to introduce the Snider piece. “We were, ‘Well, what do you need to get home, fast?’” he says. “You couldn’t be more descriptive in the title [as to] exactly what it’s about. It literally takes you on that ride.”
The Adams score is fast and exciting—and more difficult than it sounds, he says. “John Adams is notoriously difficult in that he sounds so easy, but it’s funny how the simpler you get, sometimes the most difficulty enters with the precision that is needed. It’s hard for the brass placing the rhythms, and especially getting it up to the speed that Adams is asking for.”
The first half of the concert follows the theme of “Home,” but that idea is not evident in La Mer. Hughes says that the concert “needs to have a theme, but then you have the artistic side. You want all the music to be able to stand on its own merits.” And the Debussy, he adds, does fit into the program in a specifically musical way.
“This program is all about precision,” he says. “Debussy has this ethereal, elusive, cloudy, unfocused quality musically, because it’s French and it’s picture painting, but to make that happen, it needs the utmost precision. The colors don’t happen until you line it up, which is easier said than done”.
Because of the “unfocused quality” of the music not everyone hears the same thing in La Mer. Some people may hear the waves, others might hear the wind passing over the sea, and some might not hear the sea at all, but that’s all right with Hughes. “That’s what makes [the music] so great,” he says. “It can mean anything to anybody.
“Debussy is not trying to create sights or sounds. He’s evoking how he feels from the ocean.” And of course, evoking those feelings still requires the precision Hughes was talking about. “It’s a challenge,” he says.
“We’ve done Mahler and full operas and [Stravinsky’s] Rite of Spring, but I’d say this is our most challenging concert.”
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“Home”
Boulder Symphony, Devin Patrick Hughes, conductor
7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 17
First Presbyterian Church, 1820 15thSt., Boulder
John Adams: A Short Ride in a Fast Machine Sarah Kirkland Snider: Hiraeth (Colorado Premiere)
Debussy: La Mer
Dianne Reeves will be at Macky Auditorium Dec. 16. Photo courtesy of CU Presents
The musical banquet that is the holiday season this year brings us “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” “Holiday Memories,” “Fire and Ice,” and Diane Reeves.
Read more about Centennial State Ballet’s performance of The Nutcracker, and holiday concerts by Ars Nova Singers (“Fire and Ice”), Diane Reeves at Macky Auditorium (“Christmastime is Here”), Boulder Chorale (“All Things Bright and Beautiful”), The Longmont Symphony (Candlelight Concert), and a special performance for dementia patients and caregivers by the Boulder Symphony (“Holiday Memories”) in Boulder Weekly.
Fire and Ice: Christmas with Ars Nova 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 9, Heart of Longmont United Methodist Church, 350 11th Ave., Longmont
4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 10, Sgt. Paul Community of Faith, Denver
7:30 p.m. Thursday & Friday, Dec. 14 & 15, St. John’s Episcopal Church, 1419 Pine St., Boulder Tickets
Centennial State Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker Centennial State Ballet
7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 15
2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 16
1 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 17 Tickets
Diane Reeves: Christmastime is Here 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 16
Macky Auditorium Tickets, or call 303-492-8008
All Things Bright and Beautiful Boulder Chorale, Vicki Burrichter, artistic director, with Chamber Singers, Children’s Chorale, and Sheryl Renee, guest artist vocalist
4 p.m. Saturday & Sunday, Dec. 16 & 17, First United Methodist Church, 1421 Spruce St, Boulder. Tickets
Two standard works and a world premiere are on the program
By Peter Alexander
Devin Patrick Hughes had some tough choices to make.
The conductor of the Boulder Symphony wanted to do a concert celebrating music inspired by Shakespeare, but there is so much to choose from. How to choose just one concert’s worth?
Devin Patrick Hughes and the Boulder Symphony (courtesy of the Boulder Symphony)
In the end he settled on two familiar 19th-century scores — Mendelssohn’s music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture — and one new work, a setting of Sonnet 54 commissioned from CU graduate Elizabeth Comninellis. The three works make up the program for “Shakespeare’s Potion,” to be performed Saturday, Nov. 18.
Both the Mendelssohn and the Tchaikovsky scores marked important milestones in the composers’ careers. Mendelssohn wrote the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream when he was 17. Tchaikovsky was 30 but had not yet received recognition as a composer when Romeo and Juliet was first performed in 1870. Like Mendelssohn’s Overture, is was the first piece to gain acclaim for the composer.
Mendelssohn: Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream Christiana McMullen, soprano
Chelsea Laggan, mezzo
Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture Elizabeth Comninellis: World Premiere, setting of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 54
Elizabeth Comninellis, vocal soloist
World premiere, Berlioz’s fever dream and Liszt’s evocation of doom
By Peter Alexander
Devin Patrick Hughes wants to be a doorman for classical music.
The conductor of the Boulder Symphony has a mission to break down barriers that might keep people from coming to symphony concerts. “We believe that classical music speaks to everybody,” he says for both himself and the orchestra.
Photo courtesy of Boulder Symphony Orchestra
“You need a doorman, somebody standing there showing you in, welcoming you into an environment that’s comfortable,” he says. “We feature local composers and performers as much as possible. I think those things help show people the door in.”
Cody Garrison
That mission is evident in the Boulder Symphony’s next concert, “Day of Reckoning,” to be performed Saturday, April 8. The soloist will be Cody Garrison, a local pianist who will be making his first concerto appearance with an orchestra. There will be the world premiere of As Lightening Flashes by Elizabeth Anne Comninellis, a recent University of Colorado Boulder graduate. And her score includes a solo for concertmaster Yin-Feng Keynes Chen, another CU graduate who lives in the Boulder area.
Hughes has chosen a particularly accessible program for classical newbies: Berlioz’s Romantic fever-dream, Symphonie Fantastique, which he says “has everything;” Liszt’s fiery Todtentanz (Dance of Death) for piano and orchestra; and Comninellis’s new work, which Hughes expects to be “a big smash with our audience.”
The concert will be “just an incredible experience, especially for people that think classical music is hoity-toity,” Hughes says.
And if it’s your first visit to the symphony, he’s ready to hold the door for you.
Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Boulder Symphony offer similar themes for Mother’s Day
By Peter Alexander
Chloe Trevor. Kate L.Photography
This Mother’s Day weekend it’s all about nature for Boulder’s classical musicians.
The weekend kicks off Friday night with conductor Bahman Saless and the Boulder Chamber Orchestra performing a concert titled “Mother Nature” in Broomfield (7:30 p.m., Broomfield Auditorium). The concert, which also features violinist Chloe Trevor, will be repeated Sunday evening in Boulder (7:30 p.m., Seventh-Day Adventist Church).
Between those performances, conductor Devin Patrick Hughes and the Boulder Symphony will offer “Nature’s Voice” on Saturday evening (7 p.m., First Presbyterian Church), with guest soloist Gal Faganel, cello.
Friday and Sunday the Boulder Chamber Orchestra will present, somewhat curiously, the only piece overtly about nature: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, the “Pastoral Symphony,” depicting an afternoon’s walk through the countryside. The other works on the program—the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, with Trevor playing the virtuoso solo part, and the Pavane by Gabriel Fauré—don’t have any apparent connection to nature.
For the Boulder Symphony Saturday evening, it is the composers rather than the pieces that suggested the title “Nature’s Voice.” The major works will be Sibelius’s Third Symphony and Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with Faganel as soloist. Opening the concert will be the world premiere of Everything All at Once by Jonathan Sokol.
Candlelight Concert
Sharps & Flatirons 