Eric Whitacre’s Murmur features violinist Anne Akiko Myers

By Peter Alexander July 13 at 9 a.m.

Peter Oundjian often speaks in superlatives.

The music director of the Colorado Music Festival (CMF) says that the next two weeks of the festival (July 15–July 25) includes one of the composer’s “greatest pieces,” an overture that is “absolutely exquisite,” maybe “the most beautiful melody ever written,” and “an exquisite symphony” that is “as close to perfection as you can imagine!” 

You might think he loved the music he will conduct.  

Such enthusiasm tends to be contagious, and usually extends to both musicians and audiences. To find out for yourself, go to the festival’s Web page for tickets. (The full program of concerts for those dates is listed below.)

The next Festival Orchestra concert on Thursday and Friday evenings (7:30 p.m. July 17 and 6:30 p.m. July 18) features a work co-commissioned by the CMF from composer Eric Whitacre, who is best known for his choral music. Oundjian explained that he met with Whitacre in Los Angeles, “and we had a wonderful chat. I asked him what he was up to, and he already had this plan to write something for (violinist) Anne Akiko Meyers. At that point we said, ‘Let’s do it at the festival!’

“It’s a short, very tender piece, only for strings. It ended up being a memorial to everyone who lost so much in the fires (in Los Angeles the past January). So it’s a very touching piece.”

The program opens with Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, one of the most loved pieces of American concert music. “That’s still one of (Copland’s) great pieces,” Oundjian says. “It epitomizes what we think of as the great middle-20th-century American music.”

After intermission, the program features two works inspired by Shakespeare, and two very different pairs of lovers. First is Berlioz’s Overture to the opera Béatrice et Bénédict, based on the taunting, bickering “merry war” between the two characters in the comedy Much Ado about Nothing. That will be followed by Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy Overture inspired by the tragic teenaged lovers of Romeo and Juliet.

“The second half is one of my favorite little moments (of the summer), because it’s two completely contrasting couples,” Oundjian says. “The Berlioz is absolutely exquisite. And you might think you’ve heard (Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet) too many times, and then you hear it again, and Oh My God! Is it the most beautiful melody every written?”

On the following Sunday, guest conductor Maurice Cohn will lead the orchestra with South Korean/German cellist Hayoung Choi playing Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme. One of Tchaikovsky’s most popular orchestral works, the Variations were inspired by the style of Mozart. Also on the program is Gli uccelli (The Birds), a suite for small orchestra that, like the Tchaikovsky, was inspired by music of an earlier age—in this case pieces evoking the sounds of birds from the 17th and 18th centuries.

Another guest conductor, Ryan Bancroft of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, will lead the CMF orchestra at the end of the following week (7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 24, and 6:30 p.m. Friday, July 25). South Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son will play Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor on a program that also includes the Fairy Tale Poem by Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, a musical fantasy based on a children’s story.

Gubaidulina’s score portrays the tale of a piece of chalk that dreams of drawing castles and gardens, in spite of being confined to writing words and numbers in a school classroom. At the end, the dream comes true when a boy carries the last little piece of chalk home in his pants pocket.

The program concludes with a more deeply serious Russian work, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10. Like many of the composer’s works, the symphony contains esoteric musical symbols, including a musical anagram on letters of the composer’s name, and another musical anagram spelling ELMIRA, which the composer himself noted is similar to a theme from Mahler’s bleak Lied von der Erde (Song of the earth).

Oundjian returns to conduct the Festival Orchestra on Sunday, July 27. Chinese classical guitarist Xuefei Yang will play Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concerto de Aranjuez. Oundjian and the orchestra will play the Dances of Galánta, based on folk dances by the Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály, and Schubert’s early Symphony No. 5.

“Schubert 5 is an exquisite symphony,” Oundjian says. “Nobody plays Schubert symphonies except maybe the ‘Unfinished,’ but Schubert 5—ah! It’s as close to perfection as you can imagine. If you think about how often pianists play the piano sonatas, or string quartets play the quartets, or the Trout Quintet, the symphonies kind of get ignored.”

Not ignored is the Concerto de Aranjuez, arguably the most popular concerto for classical guitar. “I love Concerto de Aranjuez” is Oundjian’s judgment. “We haven’t done it in years, so it’s time. And an amazing guitarist, Xuefei Yang. Oh my god what a musician!”

Between the Festival Orchestra concerts there will be Tuesday chamber music concerts by the Brentano String Quartet with music by Schubert and Brahms (7:30 p.m. July 15), and CMF musicians with music by Mozart and Dvořák (7:30p.m. July 22). The full programs and ticket information are listed below.

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Colorado Music Festival, Peter Oundjian, music director
Tuesday, July 15–Sunday, July 25
All performances in Chautauqua Auditorium

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

Tickets to all concerts available through the CMF Web page.