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April 24, 2024

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Seicento Baroque Ensemble explores music from the birth of the Baroque

Artistic Director Evanne Browne conducts her last program with Seicento

By Peter Alexander April 24 at 6:20 p.m.

Evanne Browne

Evanne Browne, the first and the fourth director of Boulder’s Seicento Baroque Ensemble, will perform some of her favorite music for her last performances with the group, Friday through Sunday in Denver, Boulder and Longmont (April 26–28; details below).

Browne has announced that she will retire as Seicento’s artistic director following the concerts, which mark the end of the ensemble’s current season. A search is under way for her successor.

Browne founded Seicento in 2011 then left the group when she moved to the east coast in 2017. Two conductors later, she returned to Colorado, and has led the group for the past two years. She says the program was planned in advance and not specifically chosen for her last concert with Seicento. It might well have been, though, as the early years of the Baroque are Browne’s specialty. 

“This is the era that I truly love—the early Italian Baroque,” she says. “This program is a passion of mine (and) was my specialty in my performing years.”

The music she is referring to comes from the period around 1600. The music of the Renaissance had mostly been written for choirs, but starting around 1600 music was written for solo singers with accompaniment of a bass line and simple chords played by keyboard or other stringed instruments. The emphasis in the solo singing was on expression of the text, with vocal lines that required extensive ornamentation.

“It is very virtuosic,” Browne explains. “It really is an approach that where, you have to fill in the blanks.”

To help promote understanding of the style, Browne has been working with four apprentice artists who will be featured on the program, sopranos Ann Jeffers and Andrea Weidemann, and mezzo-sopranos Emily Anderson and Gabrielle Razafinjatovo. 

“I’ve done a lot of that kind of music as a soloist,” Browne says. “It is very virtuosic, and my goal in having the apprentice artists program (was) to pass that knowledge on.”

Because much of the expression in the early Baroque was supplied by ornaments that were not written out, that was where Browne started with the apprentice artists. She started by teaching the most common ornaments, and suggested recordings they should listen to. “They learned the cadential ornaments [for endings of phrases],” she explains. “Then we started filling in thirds, and filling in fourths, and it was so much fun to see them go, ‘Oh!’”

William Simms with theorbo
cornettos

To make an interesting program for both solo artists and the Seciento chorus, Browne selected both solo pieces in a style called “monody”—ornamented solo voice with continuo accompaniment that will be sung by the apprentice artists—and music from the period for the full chorus, including madrigals and a mass setting by Frescobaldi. There are also instrumental pieces played by local performers on Baroque instruments and three guest artists—William Simms on theorbo (a large stringed lute that can play chordal accompaniments), Chuck Colburn on cornetto (a fingered wind instrument with a trumpet-like mouthpiece), and Webb Wiggins on harpsichord.

Browne singles out two portions of the program that bring together the Seicento chorus and the other performers. “Things that I think are spectacular are our set of variations on a tune, sometimes called ‘La Monica’,” she says. “This tune is anonymous, (and) appears in the early 1500s. It appears in France, it appears in Italy, it appears in England, and different composers take that same tune and set it for different instruments.”

Frescobaldi

The set is based around music by Frescobaldi that incorporates the tune within a choral mass. Seicento’s set begins with a unison performance of the tune, followed by the mass with different instrumental versions of the tune interspersed between the movements. “The Mass is gorgeous, it’s a double choir mass,“ Browne says. 

Between movements, she explains, “William Simms is going to play variations on theorbo that were written by Piccini, our cornet player is going to do ornamentation on his own that shows what a performer would have done at the time, and then the violins have a Sonata by Marini that’s also a set of variations. I love this set!”

The final piece on the program, Venga dal ciel migliore (Come from the best heaven) by Giovanni Rovetta, also brings performers together. “That’s a highlight for me because it brings the violins and the soloists and the choir and all the continuo instruments (together), and the cornetto player’s going to be playing. 

“It’s from that transitional time when a piece of music has choral sections that are punctuated by solo sections. The solo sections have all of the ornamentation, a lot of written out runs, and very challenging technical parts, and then the choir comes in and kind of repeats what they said.”

Browne emphasizes how the musical changes at the beginning of the Italian Baroque are still familiar to us today. “We’ve been calling this kind of a revolution in music,” she says. “This is when we change to the melody accompanied by harmonies, which is a big change from Renaissance music.”

Browne and Seicento at a performance earlier this season. Photo by Emily Bowman.

Ultimately, the importance of the “revolution” was in creating a texture and style of music that continues to this day. In fact, any time you turn on the radio you will hear a melody accompanied by harmonies, in popular songs, in jazz, in show tunes—almost anything you hear today, 

As Browne wrote in her press release, “A lead melody supported by harmony and a prominent bass line is still the primary format of today’s music, from classical to jazz to rock and roll.”

And it all started around 1600.

# # # # #

“Prima Melodia: Birth of Baroque”
Seicento Baroque Ensemble, Evanne Browne, conductor
With sopranos Ann Jeffers and Andrea Weidemann, and mezzo-sopranos Emily Anderson and Gabrielle Razafinjatovo, Seicento apprentice artists.
William Simms, theorbo, Chuck Colburn, cornetto, and Webb Wiggins, harpsichord, guest artists

  • Monteverdi: Movete al mio bel suon
  • Sigismondo d’India: Cruda Amarilli
  • Cipriano de Rore: Ancor che col partire
  • Riccardo Rognoni: Ancor che col partire
  • Alessandro Grandi: Laetamini vos o caeli
  • Monteverdi: Quel sguardo sdegnosetto
  • Francesca Caccini: Maria, dolce Maria
  • Monteverdi: O come sei gentile
  • Girolamo Frescobaldi: Toccata Settima in D minor, Book 2

Variations on a Melody: “Aria della Monica”:

  • Anonymous: Madre, non mi far monaca (unison)
  • Frescobaldi: “Kyrie” from Missa sopra l’aria della Monica (chorus)
  • Alessandro Piccinini: Corrente sopra l’Alemana (theorbo)
  • Frescobaldi: “Gloria” from Missa sopra l’aria della Monica 
  • Une jeune fillette (embellishments improvised on cornetto)
  • Frescobaldi: “Sanctus” and “Agnus Dei” from Missa sopra l’aria della Monica
  • Biagio Marini: “Sonata sopra la Monaca” (two violins and continuo)
  • Luzzasco Luzzaschi: Toccata in e minor
  • —O dolcezz’ amarissime d’amore
  • Giulio Caccini: Amor, io parto
  • Nicolò Corradini: Spargite flores
  • Giovanni Rovetta: Venga dal ciel migliore

7:30 p.m. Friday, April 26, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Denver
7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 27, Mountain View Methodist Church, Boulder
3 p.m. Sunday, April 28, United Church of Christ, Longmont

TICKETS, including live stream of Friday’s performance

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April 23, 2024

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CU Eklund Opera presents “American Stories by American Women”

Two short, supernatural operas by Amy Beach and Missy Mazzoli

By Peter Alexander April 23 at 6:30 p.m.

The CU Eklund Opera Program offers American history this weekend, seen through a surreal and supernatural lens.

Two striking operas by American women, both based on important moments in history, form a double bill that will be performed Thursday through Sunday at the Music Theatre in the Imig Music Building (April 25–28; details below). Presented together under the title “American Stories by American Women,” they are Cabildo by Amy Beach (1867–1944) and Proving Up by the living composer Missy Mazzoli. In addition to their historical basis, both operas are ghost stories, but the similarities end there. 

Cabildo is located in New Orleans during the War of 1812 and features the pirate Pierre Lafitte (brother of Jean) and his true love, Lady Valerie, both of whom appear in a dream. In a totally different vein, Proving Up takes place on the harsh Nebraska frontier shortly after the homestead act of 1862, where the fictional Zegner family is struggling to survive while haunted by their dead daughters.

Guest stage director Sara E. Widzer

The operas will be directed by guest director Sara E. Widzer, a member of the faculty at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and intimacy director and consent consultant for Los Angeles Opera. She has directed opera throughout the United States as well as for companies in Asia. CU faculty member Nicholas Carthy will conduct.

The program originated when Carthy discovered that Amy Beach—a composer that he admires—had written an opera. It was only in manuscript, but he  eventually got a copy. A printed edition has now been published, which Carthy is editing based on the manuscript.

“Beach always wanted to write an opera, but she was afraid of it never being performed because (operatic) forces are too big,” Carthy says. “So she wrote a deliberately small opera, seven people (in the orchestra). And it still didn’t get performed.”

The first performance took place in 1949, four years after Beach’s death. After another 40 years, it finally became known and was produced by Central City Opera in 2017. 

Amy Beach. Photographer: Bachrach

“She was such a fascinating creature,” Carthy says of Beach. “She was an absolute feminist and a suffragette, and she was a member of the Boston Six (a group of composers around the turn of the 20th century), but her husband said she had to be a Boston matriarch and so she couldn’t teach, and she only performed twice a year.”

At that time she was known as “Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.” After her husband died in 1910, she began performing and publishing as “Amy Beach,” and had a substantial career as a pianist. Among her better known works are her Piano Concerto and her “Gaelic” Symphony. 

The plot of Cabildo revolves around the pirate Pierre Lafitte and his participation in the Battle of New Orleans. Lafitte fought on the side of major general (later President) Andrew Jackson, for which Lafitte was pardoned. In the opera, Lafitte is mysteriously freed from prison, perhaps by Valerie’s ghost who appears in a dream, making their love the central theme of the story.

As Widzer explains, “at the end of the opera, Mary (the character who dreams of Lafitte and Valerie) says, ‘We don’t have America because of the War of 1812 and General Jackson. We have America because of the importance of love’.”

Switching from New Orleans to the Nebraska frontier of the 1860s, Mazzoli’s opera is the bleak tale of a family trying to establish a homestead under a law that required a sod house, five years of successful harvests and a glass window in order to claim their land. Based on a short story by  Karen Russell, the opera dramatizes the struggles of the Zegner family to “prove up” and receive their land grant. 

Missy Mazzoli at the Kennedy Center for the premiere of Proving Up. Photo by Ser Amantio di Nicolao.

In the opera, the glass window is both a powerful symbol and a central dramatic element. In reality, the homestead act resulted in many people being displaced from the land. “Mazzoli wrote the opera in repose to the housing crisis of 2008,” Widzer explains. 

“When you look at it through the sense of loss and uncertainty—it’s not just a housing crisis. It’s the crisis of 2008 because we lost so many arts organizations and so many people trying to figure out how to save their lives.”

“The music is absolutely fantastic,” Carthy says. “What the music really succeeds in doing is creating a past, a present and a future at the same time. The music has a timelessness, and it has episodes where it comes into focus.”

In her director’s role Widzer sees characters in the music beyond the singers. “We have weather,” she says. “Mazzoli composes weather, Mazzoli composes time. Mazzoli composes the supernatural, loss, excitement.”

While Cabildo has a set that refers to a specific place—New Orleans—the set and staging for Proving Up are abstract. “(The opera) travels through so many locations, to do a traditional set wouldn’t make sense. It blurs reality past, present, supernatural. And the family is so disconnected in their attempt to be whole it just pulls farther and farther apart.”

A common element that ties the production to the Nebraska frontier, where pioneers lived in sod houses, is dirt. “We’re dealing with dirt,” Widzer says. “Sometimes, it’s dust in our show, sometimes it’s the grave of the daughters, sometimes it’s on people’s faces.”

The obvious differences in the two operas give the student singers opportunities to explore different kinds of music and drama. “One of the most important things that we’re always doing, is that you see how the students develop, and how they take on incredibly difficult things,” Carthy says.

“They change the drama and the drama changes them—which is the way it should be.”

# # # # #

“American Stories by American Women”
CU College of Music Eklund Opera Program
Nicholas Carthy, music director, and Sara E. Widzer, guest stage director

  • Amy Beach: Cabildo
  • Missy Mazzoli: Proving Up

7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 25, Friday, April 26 and Saturday, April 27
2 p.m. Sunday, April 28
Music Theater, Imig Music Building

TICKETS

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April 17, 2024

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Grace Notes: Short Operas and Beethoven Symphonies

Boulder Opera’s “Operatizers,” Boulder and Longmont symphonies’ Beethoven 3 and 9

By Peter Alexander April 17 at 4:30 p.m.

The Boulder Symphony will present Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3—known as the “Eroica”—along with Grieg’s Piano Concerto and the “Lullaby” for string orchestra by George Gershwin Friday evening (7:30 p.m. April 19; details below).

Devin Patrick Hughes will conduct. Soloist for the Grieg Concerto will be Canadian pianist Lorraine Min, who has toured and performed extensively in North and South America, Europe and Asia. 

Originally written as a composition exercise on the piano, Gershwin’s “Lullaby” was arranged by the composer for string quartet. He later incorporated the tune into his 1922 musical, Blue Monday. The show was not a success, and it was not until 1967 that it became better known in performances by the Juilliard String Quartet. Today, performances by full orchestral string sections are common.

Grieg composed his Piano Concerto over the summer of 1868, during a vacation in the village of Søllerød, now part of København, Denmark. Although Grieg was never fully satisfied with the score, the concerto has remained one of his most popular pieces. A review of the premiere praised the concerto as “all Norway in its infinite variety and unity,” and fancifully described the  second movement as “a lonely mountain-girt tarn that lies dreaming of infinity.”

Beethoven’s Third Symphony is one of those musical works that are often described as a turning point in music history. It is nearly twice as long as any previous symphony, and indeed heroic in scope and feeling.

Beethoven’s title page to his Third Symphony, with “Bonaparte” forcefully scratched out

When he wrote it, Beethoven famously titled the symphony “Bonaparte” in honor of Napoleon, but scratched out the dedication in his manuscript when the French general crowned himself emperor. It was published in 1806 with the title “Heroic Symphony . . . composed to celebrate the memory of a great man.”

In place of a traditional slow introduction, Beethoven starts the symphony with two brash chords and spins out a lengthy movement starting with only the notes of the tonic E-flat chord. The second movement is an intense funeral march, a much more dramatic and powerful movement than his audience would have expected. In place of the normal minuet, Beethoven composed a rambunctious scherzo. 

In these first three movement, the realm of the symphony has been expanded. The finale is more typical of the times, a set of variations on a theme from Beethoven’s ballet The Creatures of Prometheus. But even here, the number of variations, a fugue on the theme and a section of development represent an extension beyond the normal variation finale of the time. Again, Beethoven expanded the scope of the symphony.

# # # # #

Boulder Symphony, Devin Patrick Hughes, conductor
With Lorraine Min, piano

  • Gershwin: “Lullaby” for string orchestra
  • Grieg: Piano Concerto in A minor
  • Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, op. 55 (“Eroica”)

7:30 p.m. Friday, April 19
Grace Commons Church

TICKETS

# # # # #

Boulder Opera opens the door on “North American storytelling” with “Operatizers,” a program of five short operas by composers from American master Samuel Barber to contemporary operatic star composer Jake Heggie to Ft. Collins-based composer/songwriter Ilan Blanck.

Subjects of the opera include a parody of television soap operas to various meditations on modern love. Performances Saturday and Sunday (7 p.m. April 20 and 3 p.m. April 21 at the Diary Arts Center) will feature a “Maestro’s Reception” at intermission where audience members can meet cast members and directors and ask questions about the productions. 

Composer Ilan Blanck

The five operas and their plots are described on the Boulder Opera Web page:

  • Avow by Mark Adamo imagines a conflicted bride, her avid mother, the haunted groom, the ghost of his father, and a celebrant who really should make better efforts to remember which ceremony he’s performing.
  • At the Statue of Venus by Jake Heggie tells the story of an attractive woman waiting in a museum by the statue of the goddess of love to meet a man she has never seen before. Will he like her? Will she like him? We all know Mr. Right doesn’t exist – or does he?
  • A Hand of Bridge by Samuel Barber consists of two unhappily married couples playing a hand of bridge, during which each character has a brief aria expressing his or her inner desires.
  • Gallantry by Douglas Moore is parody of hospital soap operas with commercial interruptions.
  • Spare Room with a Shag Rug by lan Blanck is written in English and Spanish, plus a touch of Yiddish, paying homage to the composer’s own Mexican-Jewish heritage.

# # # # #

“Operatizers”
Boulder Opera Company

  • Mark Adamo: Avow
  • Jake Heggie: At the Statue of Venus
  • Samuel Barber: A Hand of Bridge
  • Douglas Moore: Gallantry
  • Ilan Blanck: Spare Room with a Shag Rug

7 p.m. Saturday, April 20
3 p.m. Sunday, April 21
Dairy Arts Center

TICKETS, including add-on tickets for the Maestro’s Reception at intermission

# # # # #

The Longmont Symphony Orchestra (LSO) and conductor Elliot Moore conclude their cycle of all nine Beethoven symphonies Saturday (7 p.m. Vance Brand Civic Auditorium; details below) with the massive Ninth Symphony, one of the symphonic icons of the 19th century.

The Longmont Chorale joins the LSO for this performance. Soloists will be soprano Dawna Rae Warren, mezzo-soprano Gloria Palermo, tenor Javier Abreu and bass-baritone Michael Leyte-Vidal. The LSO has performed the full Beethoven cycle over the past five seasons, starting in April, 2018.

Vaughan Williams wrote his Serenade to Music, based on a text by Shakespeare, as a tribute to conductor Henry Wood. Scored for orchestra and 16 vocal soloists, it was later arranged for orchestra with four soloists and chorus. Since the first performance in 1938, it has been loved by singers and audiences both for the sheer beauty of the vocal writing and the harmonies.

Elliot Moore

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the first by a major composer with chorus in addition to orchestra, is one of the most performed and most loved works in the classical repertoire. It was composed in 1822-24, and first performed in Vienna May 7, 1824. 

The orchestra was led by Austrian composer and violinist Michael Umlauf with Beethoven, stone deaf by that time, standing at his side. In one famous anecdote, the composer was unable to hear the cheers of the audience at the end of the performance and the alto soloist, Caroline Ungar, had to take him by the hand and turn him around to see the enthusiasm of the listeners.

The choral last movement uses a text by German poet Friedrich Schiller that celebrates the brotherhood of men: “All men shall become brothers, wherever the gentle wings [of joy] hover. . . . Every creature drinks in joy at nature’s breast.” Because of this message of universal love, the symphony has been performed for many special occasions in history, including the original opening Wagner’s Bayreuth Festspielhaus (festival hall) and for its reopening after World War II, in 1989 to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall, and for the opening of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Japan, and other ceremonial occasions.

Performances of the Ninth Symphony are almost always considered special occasions, and almost always sell out. In addition to its popularity, the symphony has influenced composers from Dvořák to Bartók, and especially the symphonies by the Austrian composer Anton Bruckner.

# # # # #

Beethoven Cycle: Symphony No. 9
Longmont Symphony, Elliot Moore, conductor
With the Longmont Chorale, Nathan Wubbena, conductor 
Soprano Dawna Rae Warren, mezzo-soprano Gloria Palermo, tenor Javier Abreu and bass-baritone Michael Leyte-Vidal

  • Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music
  • Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor (“Choral”)

7 p.m. Saturday, April 20
Vance Brand Civic Auditorium

TICKETS (Note: This concert is close to selling out. Availability of tickets cannot be guaranteed.)

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April 10, 2024

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Ars Nova features guest composer and conductor

Joan Szymko will lead her own works in Boulder and Cherry Hills Village

By Peter Alexander April 10 at 5:15 p.m.

Composer Joan Szymko has set to music poems by several of the leading poets of our times, including Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry. 

A conductor as well as composer, Szymko will lead Boulder’s Ars Nova Singers in performing her own works Friday in Boulder and Saturday in Cherry Hills Village (7:30 p.m. April 12 and 13; details below).

Joan Szymko

As a composer, Szymko does not limit her choice of texts to widely honored, prize-winning poets. As she herself points out, she also has set poems from the middle ages and by grade school students. Stressing the breadth of her inspiration, she has written, “My goal is to compose music that invites the audience in while challenging the notion that accessibility and musical integrity are incompatible concepts. 

“I have composed choral music to be performed with actors, poets, Taiko drummers, modern dancers, aerialists and accordion players. I have set texts by fourth graders and Pulitzer Prize winners, medieval mystics and contemporary poets. I am drawn to texts that invoke divine grace, speak to the universal yearning for good and that nurture a compassionate heart.”

Szymko grew up in Chicago and studied choral music at the Chicago Musical College at Roosevelt University and the University of Illinois at Urbana. She currently lives in Portland, Ore., where she served on the choral music faculty at Portland State University. She recently retired as artistic director of Portland’s Aurora Chorus, and holds workshops with choirs around the United States and abroad.

Her works have been commissioned by groups ranging from professional choruses to church and community choirs. They have been published by Oxford University Press, Walton Music, Roger Dean Publishing, and other leading publishers of choral music. 

The program that Ars Nova will present features Szymko’s “It is Happiness,” based on poems by Oliver including the much loved “Wild Geese,” as well as Berry’s popular “Peace of Wild Things,” a text by Teresa of Avila, and other diverse sources.

# # # # #

“Bloom”
Ars Nova Singers, Joan Szymko, guest conductor
With the CU Treble Choir and instrumental soloists

  • Joan Szymko: Vivos Voco (I call out to the living; text by Julian of Norwich)
  • —“How Did the Rose” (text by Kim Stafford)
  • —Lo Lefached  (Be not afraid; text by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov)
  • —Nada te turbe (Let nothing disturb you; text by Teresa of Ávila)
  • —Invitation to Dance  (texts by Hafiz, adapted by Daniel Ladinsky)
  • —Where is the Door to the Tavern?
  • —Until
  • —The God Who Only Knows Four Words
  • —Ubi Caritas (Where charity is)
  • —It is Happiness (poetry by Mary Oliver)
  • —Be It Therefore Resolved (poetry by Kim Stafford)
  • —The Peace of Wild Things (poetry by Wendell Berry)
  • —Look Out (poetry by Wendell Berry)
  • —It Takes a Village
  • —We are All Bound Up Together (text by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper)

7:30 p.m. Friday, April 12
First United Methodist Church, Boulder

7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 13
Bethany Lutheran Church, Cherry Hills Village

TICKETS including livestream of Saturday’s performance

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March 22, 2024

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Alison Moritz looks back and ahead

New artistic director at Central City has experience and hopes for CCO

By Peter Alexander March 22 at 6:20 p.m.

Alison Moritz’s career in opera started with a hot-air balloon.

The new artistic director of Central City Opera (CCO), Moritz saw her first opera in St. Louis when she was nine. It was Offenbach’s La belle Hélène, a very Parisian spoof of the the story of Helen of Troy. At nine, the innuendo did not make much of an impression. 

“I think the sexual politics went over my head,” she says. “I was just impressed by the hot-air balloon onstage!”

Alison Moritz: Destined for opera?

Balloon or no balloon, she might have been destined for a career in opera. That first experience really clicked with someone who says she was “an indoor kid [who] loved everything artistic. I was really obsessed with story and picture and music.”

Her first ambition was to be a film animator. “I did see an opera when I was nine, and the whole world just made sense to me,” she explains. “It just felt so magical and exceptional, but also incredibly familiar.”

That early sense of familiarity soon led to a near obsession with opera. “When I was in 8th grade I saw my first production of Traviata and I went back and saw it five times! My parents went with me to the first two performances, and after that they would drop me off in the parking lot and say, ’See you three and a half hours.’ 

“I used to say I had to work in opera because I couldn’t afford to see opera as much as I wanted to. I had to find a way to sit in—I never get tired of it.”

Her path into directing was not something that she saw from the outset, however. “Initially, it was not clear what my contribution [to opera] could be,” she says. “When you’re not a singer, at the time I was growing up, there were fewer roles for women in production, there were fewer roles for women in leadership.”

Moritz attended Washington University in St. Louis, where she studied music and art history. She did some work in art administration, and production work backstage, but she thought that might be a hobby and she would work in another field. An internship with Opera America gave her insight into the American opera scene, and while living in New York she attended all the opera and theater that she could afford in standing room.

A turning point came when a friend who went to some performances with her, but did not work in opera, told Moritz, “The way you think about this is someone’s job.”

“That was the first time that I thought maybe I could do this,” she says. “I was really lucky—I went back to school to get  a degree in opera stage direction at the Eastman School of Music. When I arrived there I knew a lot about opera but I had very little experience. And I’m proudly grateful that they saw potential in me, and fostered that.”

From Eastman her career as a stage director has only grown. Today, she can claim directing credits from Lyric Opera of Kansas City, the Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Omaha, Ravinia, Tanglewood, Portland Opera and Opera Colorado, among many others. 

Moritz says that she approaches her work principally through the music. “My job as a director is to really help contemporary audiences see what’s so special about the music,” she says. “It’s really key for the director to bring the story and the visuals and the relationships amongst people and ideas together, so that we’re making a case for these beautiful documents. That’s always been my approach.”

She believes that growing up a Midwesterner—“in a flyover state,” she says—affects her perspective on opera. “I’ve never had the point of view that the only great opera in America is in the largest coastal companies. They’re incredibly important, but to be able to produce things locally and regionally I think is important, and fundamental to what makes Central City such an exciting place to work and to watch opera.

“The other Midwestern thing about me is I’ve always been creative, but through the lens of pragmatism. I know the cost of wood when we’re building the set. We’ve got to make some nitty-gritty decisions in order to be able to make great art. The Midwesterner in me is always looking to see how long will this take to rehearse, how many days do we need to do X, Y and Z, and that keeps me pretty grounded.”

For the coming summer, Moritz already has long established engagements at Cincinnati and Glimerglass in upstate New York, but after this year her new job will mean she has to forego summer directing jobs outside Central City. “This year there’s a little bit of a time-share, [but] I’m really confident that I’ll be able to spend meaningful time with the audiences at the top of the mountain,” she says. “For future seasons, I will be at Central City the entire summer.”

Central City Opera House. Photo by Ashraf Sewailam.

Looking ahead, Mortiz envisions creating cooperative relationships with other opera companies where she might have directing work outside of the Central City season. “I’m excited about the prospect of creating more co-productions [with other companies] and being able to bring the best of American opera here to Central City,” she says. “I’m really optimistic and excited about the future. I’m really happy to have my boots on the ground and to get to work. 

“We’re all very excited to re-imagine and to dream and continue creating a great atmosphere at Central City for both artists and audiences.”

NOTE: Information Central City Opera’s summer 2024 festival season can be found on the CCO Web page.

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March 19, 2024

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GRACE NOTES: Prominent violinists and a sold-out Ugly Duckling

Vadim Gluzman, Ray Chen and the Colorado Symphony in Boulder and Longmont 

By Peter Alexander March 19 at 4:06 p.m.

The Boulder Bach Festival (BBF) will present the Ukrainian-Israeli violinist Vadim Guzman in a program that spans centuries, from J.S. Bach to Arvo Pärt.

The final concert of BBF’s 2023–24 season, Gluzman’s performance occurs on Bach’s birthday, at  4 p.m. Thursday, March 21 (Dairy Arts Center; details below). He will perform with the BBF CORE (COmpass Resonance Ensemble) and be joined by BBF music director Zachary Carrettin for Bach’s Double Violin Concerto.

Known for his wide repertoire, Gluzman has premiered works by Sofia Gubaidulina, Michael Daugherty and Pēteris Vasks, among others. His recordings have won numerous awards, including Gramophone magazine’s Editor’s Choice, and Disc of the Month from The Strad, BBC Music Magazine and other publications. He is currently distinguished artist-in-residence at the Peabody Conservatory. He performs on the 1690 ‘ex-Leopold Auer’ Stradivari, on extended loan through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.

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“Old and New Dreams”
Boulder Bach Festival CORE with Vadim Gluzman and Zachary Carretttin, violin

Program includes:

  • J.S. Bach: Violin Concerto in A minor, S1040
  • Arvo Pärt: Passacaglia
  • J.S. Bach: Concerto in D minor for two violins, S1043

4 p.m. Thursday, March 21
Gordon Gamm Theater, Dairy Arts Center

TICKETS

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The CU Presents Artist Series will feature violinist Ray Chen, who is billed as “redefining what it means to be a classical musician in the 21st century,” together with Hispanic-American pianist Julio Elizalde in a concert program combining serious and lighter works Thursday ( 7:30 p.m. March 21 in Macky Auditorium; details below).

The major works on the program are Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 7 in C minor, op. 30 no. 2, and J.S. Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E major for solo violin, S1006. Filling out the program are encore material pieces, starting with Tartini’s showpiece the “Devil’s Trill” Sonata. After the two heavier works, Chen and Elizalde will wrap up the program with Antonio Bazzini’s brilliant “Dance of the Goblins,”  Fritz Kreisler’s arrangement of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dance No. 2, and their own arrangement of “Spain” by Chick Corea.

Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 7 is part of a set published in 1803 as “Sonatas for the pianoforte with the accompaniment of violin.” This label reflects an earlier time, when domestic music-making often featured female pianists, who were expected to have more time to practice than their male partners on violin, and who therefore could master more difficult parts. In the case of this Sonata, each movement opens with the piano and the violin part, while it is not insignificant, often follows the lead of the piano. Unusually for a piece named “sonata,” the Sonata No. 7 is in four movements, and the key of C minor marks it as an often dramatic and stormy work.

Bach’s Third Partita is a suite of dances, preceded by a Preludio. It is the last of his set of Six Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, one of the pinnacles of the solo violin repertoire. In the bright key of E major, it is one of the most cheerful of the set. That is particularly true of the Preludio, a perpetual-motion movement that is one of Bach’s most familiar pieces. Apparently Bach was himself fond of this movement, which he re-used in a version for organ and orchestra in his Cantata No. 29.

Violinist Ray Chen

Chen came to wide attention in the music world when he won first prize in both the Yehudi Menuhin and Queen Elizabeth violin competitions, in 2008 and ’09 respectively. He is known for his use of social media to reach a wider audience, including as a co-founder of the Tonic Website that allows young musicians to practice and learn together.

Born in Taiwan and raised in Australia, he was accepted at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute at the age of 15. He plays the 1714 “Dolphin” Stradivarius violin on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation and once owned by Jascha Heifetz. 

Pianist Julio Elizalde has been performing as a recital partner with Chen and violinist Sarah Chang for nearly ten years. A native of the San Francisco Bay area, he is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he is currently on the faculty, and the Juilliard School. He has collaborated with several living composers including Osvaldo Golijov, Stephen Hough and Adolphus Hailstork.

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Ray Chen, violin, and Julio Elizalde, piano

  • Giuseppe Tartini: Sonata in G minor (“Devil’s Trill”; arr. Fritz Kreisler)
  • Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 7 in C minor, op. 30 no. 2
  • J.S. Bach: Partita No. 3 in E major for solo violin, S1006
  • Antonio Bazzini: La Ronde des Lutins (“Dance of the Goblins”), op. 25
  • Dvořák: Slavonic Dance No. 2 in E minor, op. 72 (arr. Fritz Kreisler)
  • Chick Corea: “Spain” (arr. Elizalde and Chen)

TICKETS

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Members of the Colorado Symphony will visit the Longmont Museum’s Stewart Auditorium Saturday (March 23) of present a bilingual concert that tells the story of “The Ugly Duckling.”

The interactive performance in English and Spanish, dubbed a “Mini Música,” will incorporate storytelling, singing and dance. It will be accompanied by a 16-piece orchestra made up of members of the Colorado Symphony.

The performances at 10 and 11:30 a.m. are free, but both are already full with advance reservations.

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“The Ugly Duckling” Mini Música
Members of the Colorado Symphony

10 and 11:30 a.m. Saturday, March 23
Stewart Auditorium, Longmont Museum

SOLD OUT

CORRECTION on March 19: the word ”Música,” which had inadvertently dropped out, was restored in the penultimate paragraph of the story about Colorado Symphony’s performance of “The Ugly Duckling.”

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Longmont Symphony’s Mahler performance is SOLD OUT

“Mahler at the Museum,” Saturday, March 16

By Peter Alexander March 13 at 5:25 p.m.

The Longmont Symphony and conductor Elliot Moore will present the last of their concerts at the Longmont Museum’s Stewart Auditorium for the 2023–24 season, a sold-out “Mahler at the Museum” performance, Saturday (March 16).

The program features a chamber version of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde for orchestra with alto (or baritone) and tenor soloists. Based on German translations of Chinese poems, the score was completed in 1909, near the end of the composer’s life. Although Mahler called it “A Symphony for Tenor, Alto (or baritone) Voice and Orchestra,” he did not give it a number as a symphony, supposedly because he feared that when he wrote his Ninth it would be his last symphony, as had been the case with Beethoven. 

Ironically, his next symphony, Number 9, was in fact the last symphony he completed.

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“Mahler at the Museum”
Longmont Symphony, Elliot Moore, conductor
With Abigail Nims, mezzo-soprano, and Matthew Plenk, tenor

  • Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde (chamber version)

7 p.m. Saturday, March 16
Stewart Auditorium, Longmont Museum

SOLD OUT

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March 5, 2024

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Takács Quartet features music by Zimbabwean/ Japanese composer Nokuthula Ngwenyama

Haydn and Dvořák complete program for March 10 and 11

By Peter Alexander March 5 at 5:08 p.m.

The violist and composer Nokuthula Ngwenyama burst onto the classical musical scene in 1993, when she won the Primrose International Viola Competition at the age of 16.

Nokuthula Ngwenyama

Ngwenyama followed that distinction by winning the Young Concert Artist International Auditions the following year, and later an Avery Fisher Career Grant. An American of Ndebele (Zimbabwean) and Japanese descent, she attended the Coburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles and the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. She later attended the Paris Conservatory as a Fulbright Scholar.

With concerts Sunday and Monday (March 10 and 11; details below), the Takács Quartet brings her Flow to Boulder audiences on a program that also includes works by Haydn and Dvořák. The performance will be presented for an in-person audience and by streaming with tickets available here.

The Takács presented the premiere of Flow in Berkeley last fall and have made it a part of their touring repertoire since. Flow was commissioned by the Takács and the presenter Cal Performances after their second violinist, Harumi Rhodes, got to know Ngwenyama at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont.

The quartet’s request was for a piece “inspired by the natural world.” Taking the request very seriously, Ngwenyama writes in her program notes that she “researched a wide array of subjects,” including “the life cycle, carbon reclamation, environmental protection, animal communication, starling murmurations, our last universal common ancestor (LUCA), black hole collisions and the sub-atomic realm.”

In conclusion, she writes, “Everything in nature flows and develops through time. Flow can be expressed mathematically, psychologically, physically, visually, and, now, via string quartet.  . . . Enjoy and go with the flow, we only know what we know.” Her extensive notes include NASA diagrams of the expansion of the universe over 13.77 billion years.

Flow is in four movements, arranged in an essentially traditional order: Prelude, Lento, Quark Scherzo, and Finale. The progression of movements is loosely linked in Ngwenyama’s notes to the development of the universe through time.

Takács Quartet. Image by Amanda Tipton Photography

Haydn’s “Sunrise” Quartet is among the composer’s last works in a genre that he created and defined. It was published in 1797, the fourth in a set of six quartets, opus 76. The title comes from the beginning of the first movement, with a sustained chord and a rising line in the first violin that suggests the sun rising above the horizon. That musical idea is developed throughout the movement, which is followed by the usual slow movement, a minuet and an energetic finale.

Sometimes called the “Slavonic Quartet,” Dvořák’s Quartet in E-flat major was written for and dedicated to violinist Jean Becker and the Florentine Quartet, a professional ensemble active in the composer’s time. Dvořák had attracted attention with the publication of his Slavonic Dances for two pianos, and Becker specifically asked for a quartet in the same style, based on folk-dance idioms. 

The most conspicuously “Slavonic” elements are heard in the second movement which is labelled “Dumka,” a type of movement derived from Ukrainian folk music that alternates between melancholy and exuberant sections; and the finale, which uses a rapid Czech dance called the skočná.

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Takács Quartet

  • Haydn: String Quartet in B-flat major, op. 76 no. 4 (“Sunrise”) 
  • Nokuthula Ngwenyama: String Quartet Flow 
  • Dvořák: String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat major, op. 51

4 p.m. Sunday, March 10
7:30 p.m. Monday, March 11
Grusin Music Hall

In-person and streaming TICKETS HERE

NOTE: Minor typos corrected March 7.

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February 29, 2024

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Boulder Chamber Orchestra strings present “Virtuosity!” with Richard O’Neill

Takács Quartet violist plays music by Telemann and Piazzolla Saturday

By Peter Alexander Feb. 29 at 11:07 p.m.

Violist Richard O’Neill has a wide-ranging background, both geographically and musically.

Richard O’Neill

For example, when he plays as soloist with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra Saturday (7:30 p.m. March 2; details below), he polished one of his pieces by playing with members of Germany’s distinguished early-music ensemble Musica Antiqua Köln, and the other he researched near the docks in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The first would be the Concerto in G major for viola by the prolific Baroque composer Georg Philipp Telemann; the other is the “Grand Tango,” originally for cello, by Argentine bandoneon player and band leader Astor Piazzolla. Other works on the program, featuring the BCO strings under music director Bahman Saless, are Valse Triste by early 20th-century Czech composer Oskar Nedbal, and Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge (Great fugue), originally the finale of the composer’s String Quartet in B-flat, op. 130.

Two more different composers than Telemann and Piazzolla would be hard to imagine. And yet, O’Neill says, they are not incompatible. “They’re very contrasting, probably on polar opposite ends of the musical timeline,” O’Neill says. “But they share some commonalities—most of all the spirit of the dance.”

The Telemann is the first known true viola concerto, and it is a piece that O’Neill plays often. “I think it’s a gorgeous, amazing piece,” he says.

Georg Philipp Telemann

O’Neill recorded the concerto in 2008 when he was asked to make a recording with members of Musica Antiqua Köln. It was definitely a learning experience for O’Neill, giving him an opportunity to work with a Baroque-style bow that has much less tension on the bow hairs, and to improvise in Baroque music. 

The latter did not come naturally, he admits. “I remember them asking me, ‘play a cadenza, be free! Do whatever you like!’” O’Neill says. “I did something, and it was free for sure! I was stopped and it was like, ‘Who are you, Yo-Yo Ma?’ But it was all said with a smile.

“One thing I learned, things were a lot different when performers and composers were the same person. And it was amazing how prolific (Telemann) was. A lot of times you look at the score and it’s very bare, but in some ways it has everything you need—you just have to understand what you’re going to do.”

His approach to Piazzolla’s music was very different. O’Neill first heard Piazolla’s music when he was a 15-year-old student in Las Vegas, and the Cuarteto Latinoamericano played Piazzolla’s “Four, for Tango.” “I was completely blown away!” he says.

“I had never heard anything like this. It was so rhythmic, so fun, the instruments were doing all of these cool, weird effects like percussive effects and (playing) behind the bridge. I was, ‘what is going on there?’ I found the Kronos (Quartet) recording and listened to it all the time. I fell in love with Piazzolla.”

Astor Piazzolla

Later he had the chance to study Piazzolla’s musical origins up close. He was in Buenos Aires, and saw an opportunity to learn more. “I wanted to see what the tango was about,” he says.

“I went down to the docks (in Buenos Aires), where the Argentinian tango was originally from. I was shocked to find out it wasn’t the Parisian version of tango, which is Romantic and dignified. It was actually really rough.  I went to a few tango shows in cafes, but it was mainly the vibe of Buenos Aires that changed me.”

Piazzolla originally wrote the “Grand Tango” for the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, but the viola arrangement that O’Neill plays fits the instrument very well. “Piazzolla wrote a lot of the (original cello) part very high,” he explains—meaning he can play it at the same pitch on the viola. 

O’Neill loves both pieces he is playing on BCO’s program, but it is the Piazzolla that gets him excited. “The music is just so incredible and evocative,” he says. “It’s almost like it’s so rhythmic that you can’t help being swept away by it.”

Nedbal’s Valse triste is from the ballet Pohadka o Honzov (known in English as the Tale of Simple Johnny). It was composed in 1902 for orchestra, but Nedbal later arranged the Valse for string quartet, in which form it has become especially popular. Trained as a violinist and a composition student of Dvořák, Nedbal was principal conductor of the Czech Philharmonic 1896–1906. 

When Beethoven wrote his String Quartet in B-flat in 1825, he provided an unusual finale: an extensive double fugue that takes up to 16 minutes in performance. That movement was criticized at the time for its complexity and for being “a confusion of Babel.” Since then, however, its standing has risen, to the point that Stravinsky famously said that it “will be contemporary forever.”

Beethoven’s publisher was afraid that such a difficult finale would hinder sales of the quartet, so Beethoven wrote a shorter movement that appeared with the String Quartet in B-flat. He then published the Grosse Fuge separately in 1827. Today it is hailed as one of the composers greatest compositions.

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“Virtuosity!”
Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Bahman Saless, conductor
With Richard O’Neill, viola

  • Oskar Nedbal: Valse Triste
  • Telemann: Concerto in G for viola and orchestra
  • Astor Piazzolla: Grand Tango
  • Beethoven: Grosse Fugue, op. 133

7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 2
Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 345 Mapleton, Boulder

TICKETS

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February 28, 2024

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Baroque music and jazz brought together by Seicento

“Improvisation in Baroque and Jazz,” March 1 and 2

By Peter Alexander Feb. 28 at 10:45 a.m.

Evanne Browne, conductor of Boulder’s Seicento Baroque Ensemble, is the daughter of jazz musicians—“jazz pianist mom and a bass player dad,” she says. “There was a lot of American songbook music going on in our house all the time.”

Evanne Browne

It might seem like a long way from jazz and the American songbook to Bach, Monteverdi, and the other specialities of Seicento. But as a trained early music performer, Browne believes the two musical styles are closer than you might think. And her next concert with Seicento will demonstrate that.

The concert, titled “Embellish! Improvisation in Baroque and Jazz” (7:30 p.m. Friday in Longmont and Saturday in Golden; details below), features Baroque music by Couperin, Monteverdi and others, mixed together with jazz by Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker, and even some pops and Broadway numbers (see full program below). In addition to the Seicento choir, performers will be violin and gamba player Tina Chancey, a jazz ensemble led by bassist Mark Diamond, and Seicento apprentice artists.

The inspiration for the program comes from the fact that in the early Baroque a lot of written music was sketchy, often only a bass part and one or two melody lines. Performances could vary, much as performances of jazz standards very from one artist or combo to another. There were traditional bass lines and chord progressions for dances that were filled in differently by different composers, much as the traditional 12-bar blues can be filled in differently by different performers.

“I’ve been thinking for a long time that when you look at charts for jazz and there’s melody and chords, and when you look at a basso continuo part for keyboard (in Baroque music) and there’s a bass line and chords, those things are similar,” Browne explains. “I just kind of started going down the list of what else was similar.”

Since jazz charts and Baroque scores—especially for the early operas by Monteverdi and others—left a lot to be filled in by performers, in both cases fans of the music distinguish between different versions, or realizations, of specific pieces. Another parallel that Browne found was that rhythms are often not played exactly as they are written, but are made more “swingy,” especially for dance music.

Seicento Baroque Ensemble and conductor Evanne Browne. Photo by Emily Bowman.

In the Baroque era, there was a convention in France called “notes inegales” (unequal notes), where notes on the beat were lengthened and the notes between the beats were shortened, to make the rhythms more pointed. This is not unlike the jazz tradition of “swinging” what are written as even notes. In jazz, Browne says, “you don’t play them ‘straight.’ People would think you were crazy if you did that. It’s exactly what notes inegales are in French.

“In dance music, the need for movement is something that turns duple into triplets and makes that more universally pleasing to us as listeners or performers.”

Claudio Monteverdi

As the music from the Baroque period and from jazz and popular idioms alternate on the program, there is one pairing that Browne particularly likes. “The Lamento della ninfa by Monteverdi and ‘Hit the Road, Jack’ are striking together,” she says. In Monteverdi, “we have this four-note bass line that is repeated, and this beautiful lament. Then going right into ‘Hit the Road Jack,’ it’s the same bass line—it’s interesting how that chord progression can be used expressively to emote what is being said.”

Browne has selected other pieces that demonstrate similarities in the structure of Baroque arias and jazz songs, with a slower and explanatory introduction that sets up the situation, followed by the main tune that expresses emotions. They both represent turning points in music, one the rise of dramatic music and opera in early 16th century Italy, and the other the rise of jazz and widely available popular dance music recordings in early 20th-century America.

In addition to examples that have a serious point to make, Browne also selected some parings on the program just because they are fun. Among the latter would be Monteverdi’s duet Bel Pastor dalcui bel guardo (Beautiful shepherd from whose beautiful gaze), which is a conversation between a shepherdess who keeps asking a shepherd if he really loves her, and that is paired with a song from Fiddler on the Roof where Tevye asks his wife Golde, “Do you love me?”

“So here’s these two (pieces)—we haven’t recovered from two centuries of learning about humanity,” Browne says. “We’re still insecure in love! So I thought that was a fun one.”

In fact, the word Browne uses most in describing the program is fun. “It’s a fun program,” she says. more than once.

“I think the audience will be laughing and tapping their toes.”

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“Embellish! Improvisation in Baroque and Jazz”
Seicento Baroque Ensemble, Evanne Browne, director
With Tina Chancey, viola da gamba and violin, and jazz ensemble led by Mark Diamond

  • Louis Couperin: Prélude non mesuré (Unmeasured prelude)
  • Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington: “Take the A Train” (arr. Gordon Prugh)
  • Marin Marais: Fantasie from the Suite in A minor, Book III
  • Anon: Madre, non mi far monaca (Mother, don’t make me a nun)
  • Giralamo Frescobaldi: Missa sopra Aria della Monaca, Kyrie (Mass on La monaca)
  • Thomas “Fats” Waller: “Honeysuckle Rose”
  • Charlie Parker: “Scrapple from the Apple”
  • Frescobaldi: Così mi disprezzate (So you despise me?)
  • Diego Ortiz: Recercada segunda (Second ricrercar)
  • Claudio Monteverdi: Lamento della ninfa (The nymph’s lament)
  • Percy Mayfield: “Hit the Road, Jack”
  • Monteverdi: Come dolce oggi l’auretta (How sweet is the breeze today)
  • Don Raye and Hughie Prince” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”
  • Monteverdi: Si dolce è’l tormento (The torment is so sweet) (choir, solo and jazz)
    —Bel Pastor dalcui bel guardo (Beautiful shepherd from whose beautiful gaze)
  • Jerry Bock: “Do You love me?” from Fiddler on the Roof
  • Jimmy McHugh: “On the Sunny Side of the Street”

7:30 p.m. Friday, March 1
First Congregational Church, Longmont

 7:30 p.m. Saturday March 2
Calvary Church, Golden

TICKETS  

NOTE: The spelling of conductor Evanne Browne’s name was corrected 2/28. The correct spelling of her last name is Browne.