Boulder Symphony celebrates Día de los Muertos; BCO presents Vivaldi and Pergolesi
By Peter Alexander Oct. 29 at 9:40 p.m.
“The Creative Spirit,” the Fall Curiosity Concert of the Boulder Symphony, will be presented Saturday (3 p.m. Nov. 2) at Grace Commons.
The Boulder Symphony and director Devin Patrick Hughes will present two Curiosity Concerts as part of their 2024–25 season, one each in the fall and the spring. Curiosity Concerts are designed as interactive, educational experiences for family audiences. They typically use humorous characters, trivia and original stories to entertain as well as educate the audiences.
The Fall Curiosity Concert, lasting 45 minutes, will celebrate La Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Joining the Symphony for portions of the concert will be the Niwot High School Mariachi Ensemble and the Longmont Youth Symphony.
The performance will tell the tale of a ghostly composer who reunites with a musical partner for the premiere of their final composition, only to discover that the piece was never finished. They turn to the audience for help completing the song before the ghostly composer vanishes again.
The program will feature not only the imaginary composer’s new work but also familiar tunes including Radiohead’s “Creep,” Kate Bush’s “Running up the Hill” and “La Llorana” (The weeping woman), a Mexican folk song based on the legend of a woman weeping over the loss of her children, or her lover. The song has often been used for Día de los Muertos festivities.
The performance will also include music from the standard classical orchestra repertoire, including Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and Arturo Márquez’s Dánzon No. 2.
# # # # #
Fall Curiosity Concert: The Creative Spirit
Boulder Symphony, Devin Patrick Hughes, conductor
With the Niwot High School Mariachi Ensemble and Longmont Youth Symphony
3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2, Grace Commons
# # # # #
The Boulder Chamber Orchestra (BCO) will present an all-Baroque program Saturday featuring violinist Zachary Carrettin, director of the Boulder Bach Festival playing concertos by Vivaldi, for violin solo and with other strings (7:30 p.m. Nov. 2 at the Boulder Adventist Church; details below). Other soloists for two of the concertos will be members of the BCO.
Also featured on the program are soprano Jennifer Ellis Kampani and mezzo-soprano Gabrielle Razafinjatovo performing the Stabat Mater of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. The concert will be conducted by Bahman Saless, music director of the BCO.
Published as Op. 3, L’estro armonico is a set of 12 concertos by Vivaldi for stringed instruments. The set was published in Amsterdam in 1711, making it the first set of Vivaldi’s concertos to be printed. The concertos are organized in four sets of three concertos each, with each set containing first a concerto for four violins with strings; second for two violins, cello and strings; and third for solo violin and strings.
The concertos were probably written for performance by students at the Ospedale della Pietà, the orphanage/music school where Vivaldi was employed as music teacher. Later the published edition was widely circulated in Europe and the concertos were performed as both church music and secular chamber pieces. At least six of the concertos were arranged in various settings by J.S. Bach.
The BCO performance will present two of the solo violin concertos with Carrettin as soloist, as well as one each for two violins and cello, and for four violins, with Carrettin joined by members of the orchestra as additional soloists.
Pergolesi wrote his Stabat Mater in 1736, weeks before his untimely death at the age of only 26. The manuscript was preserved at the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino in Italy, which was the site of brutal battles in World War II. After being nearly destroyed, the abbey was rebuilt after the war.
While many works attributed to Pergolesi were in fact written by others, due to the survival of the original manuscript the Stabat Mater is known to be his. The title literally means “The mother was standing.” The text is a 13th-century hymn to the Virgin Mary, describing her suffering during the crucifixion of Jesus. The hymn has been set by many European composers from the 15th century to the current day.
# # # # #
“L’estro armonico“
Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Bahman Saless, conductor
With Zachary Carrettin, violin; Brune Macary, Annamaria Karacson, Kina Ono, and Ava Pacheco, violins; Joey Howe, cello; Jennifer Ellis Kampani, soprano; and Gabrielle Razafinjatovo, mezzo-soprano
- Vivaldi: Four concertos from L’estro armonico (The harmonic inspiration)
—Concerto No. 9 in D major for violin, RV230
—Concerto No. 11 in D minor two violins and cello, RV565
—Concerto No. 6 in A minor for violin, RV 356
—Concerto No. 10 in B minor for 4 violins, RV580 - Pergolesi: Stabat Mater
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2, Boulder Adventist Church
Sharps & Flatirons 