Music for winds from the BCO, quartets and quintet from the Takács Quartet
By Peter Alexander Jan. 10 at 1:45 p.m.
The Boulder Chamber Orchestra (BCO) will present a program of French music for piano and winds for its third Mini-Chamber program of the season Saturday (7:30 p.m. Jan. 11; details below).
The orchestra’s current artist-in-residence, pianist Jennifer Hayghe, will be joined by members of the BCO to perform works by Vincent d’Indy, Albert Roussel, Francis Poulenc, Florent Schmitt and Louise Farrenc.
BCO artist in residence Jennifer Hayghe
The program that was curated by Hayghe offers an opportunity to hear pieces and composers that are little known to American audiences. French music in particular is less often programmed here than German and Austrian works. The least familiar, and the earliest of the composers is Farrenc, who lived in the 19th century. A successful concert pianist, she became the first woman to hold a permanent position at the Paris Conservatory, which she maintained for 30 years, from 1842 to 1872.
All the other composers lived and worked in the 20th century. The most familiar is probably Poulenc, who died in 1963. Known for his opera Dialogues des Carmélites (Dialogue of the Carmelites), his Organ Concerto and his choral Gloria, he also wrote a large number of pieces for chamber ensembles.
The other three composers—d’Indy, Roussel and Schmitt—were active in the first half of the 20th century. Offering a rare taste of a time and place that rarely shows up in concert programs in the U.S., Mini-Chamber 3 is a welcome opportunity for the chamber music audience to expand their horizons beyond the routine.
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Boulder Chamber Orchestra Mini-Chamber 3 Jennifer Hayghe, artist in residence, piano With Rachelle Crowell, flute; Brittany Bonner, one; Kellan Toohey, clarinet; Kaori Uno-Jack, bassoon; and Devon Park, horn
The Takács Quartet will be joined by pianist Margaret McDonald to present one of the preeminent chamber works of the 19th century, Brahms’s Quintet in F minor for piano and strings.
The program will also feature Beethoven’s early String Quartet No. 1 in F major, op. 18 no. 1—actually the second quartet of the set to be written—and the String Quartet no. 1 by Stephen Hough, which was written for the Takács.
Hough’s quartet was first written to be heard alongside the Ravel String Quartet and Ainsi la nuit (Thus the night), a string quartet by the French composer Henri Dutilleux. Hough subtitled the quartet “Les Six Rencontres” (The six re-encountered), a reference to a group of early 20th-century composers active in France that did not include either Ravel or Dutilleux. Hough wrote that the subtitle “has in it a pun and a puzzle: the six movements as an echo of ‘Les Six,’ although there are no quotes or direct references from those composers; and ‘encounters’ which are unspecified.”
Margaret McDonald, guest pianist with the Takács Quartet
The six movements of the quartet have titles that indicate places, presumably in the Montparnasse district of Paris, where an encounter with a composer from “The Six” might have occurred: On the boulevard, in the park, at the hotel, at the theater, in the church and at the market. The Takács Quartet premiered “Les Six Rencontres” in Costa Mesa, Calif., Dec. 8, 2021.
One of the best known major pieces of chamber music from the 19th century, Brahms F minor Piano Quintet evolved through several forms before being finished as a quintet. It was first written as string quintet, a version that the composer later destroyed, and then as a duet for two pianos, and finally as a quintet for string quartet with piano. All of this stretched over six years, prior to the Quintet’s premiere in 1868.
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Takács Quartet With Margaret McDonald, piano
Beethoven: String Quartet in F Major, op. 18 no. 1
Stephen Hough: String Quartet No. 1, “Les Six Rencontres” (The six re-encountered)
Johannes Brahms: Piano Quintet in F Minor, op. 34
4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 12 7:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 13 Grusin Music Hall
The Academy University Hill presents free concert Sunday
By Peter Alexander Nov. 26 at 5:40 p.m.
A musical trio assembled for the occasion—called, fittingly, “The Ad Hoc Trio”—will perform three works by Brahms and Mozart on a free concert at The Academy University Hill Sunday (7 p.m. Dec. 1; details below).
The retirement community does not charge admission for performances held in their Chapel Hall at 883 10th St. in Boulder, but audience members are asked to RSVP in advance HERE.
Sunday’s performers will be CU Boulder College of Music faculty member Erika Eckert, viola; Boulder resident Stephen Trainor, clarinet; and Grinnell College (Iowa) faculty member Eugene Gaub, piano. They will play a trio by Mozart and two sonatas by Brahms, one each performed by viola with piano, and clarinet with piano.
In 1890 Brahms had decided to give up composition, but the following year he heard the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld. He was so impressed with Mühlfeld’s playing that he changed his mind and wrote two sonatas for him, as well as a trio and quintet with clarinet. The last chamber music Brahms wrote, the sonatas effectively opened the door for later composers’ sonatas for clarinet and piano.
After completing the sonatas, Brahms later arranged them for viola instead of clarinet, making minor alterations to fit the instrument. These versions are rightly known as sonatas for viola and piano, but it is rare to hear both instruments playing these works on the same program. Eckert and Trainor decided to split the two op. 120 sonatas between them, so that the audience has a rare opportunity to hear both instruments in some of Brahms’ most notable chamber music.
Mozart wrote his “Kegelstatt” Trio for his piano student Franziska von Jaquin and the clarinet virtuoso Anton Stadler, for whom he also wrote the Clarinet Concerto and other works. Mozart took the viola part with his two friends in the first performance of the trio, in von Jacquin’s home in 1786. The name “Kegelstatt” means the place where skittles, one of Mozart’s favorite games, is played.
The Ad Hoc Trio Erika Eckert, viola; Stephen Trainor, clarinet; and Eugene Gaub, piano
Brahms: Sonata for clarinet and piano in F minor, op. 120 no. 1 —Sonata for viola and piano in E-flat major, op. 120 no. 2
Mozart: Trio in E-flat major for clarinet, viola and piano, K498 (“Kegelstatt”)
7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 1 Chapel Hall, Academy University Hill 883 10th St., Boulder
Mini Chamber concert in Boulder and Groovin’ in Longmont
By Peter Alexander Nov. 19 at 11:40 p.m.
The Boulder Chamber Orchestra (BCO)will present “Mini-Chamber 2,” the second of its chamber music programs for the 2024–25 season, Saturday (7:30 p.m. Nov. 23; details below).
The program features guest pianist Adam Żukiewicz performing quintets for piano and strings by Brahms and Théodore Dubois with members of the BCO string sections. Żukiewicz appeared on a Mini-Chamber concert last spring, and will be the soloist with the orchestra when they perform in New York in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall next spring.
Dubois was a prominent French composer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After winning the Prix de Rome in1861, he became organist and choirmaster at several churches in Paris and was professor of harmony at the Paris Conservatory 1871–91 and composition until 1896. He became director of the Conservatory in 1896, but had to resign from the position over his hostility to the adventurous student works of Ravel.
Adam Żukiewicz
Dubois was as conservative in his compositions as he was as a leader of the Conservatoire. He wrote orchestral chamber and choral works. most of which have disappeared from the standard repertoire, while his theoretical books are still used for teaching.
Brahms wrote in Piano Quintet in F minor over a number of years, first as a string quintet, then as a sonata for two pianos. The first version dates to 1861, and the final form, the Quintet for piano and strings, was completed in 1864 and premiered in 1868. Widely considered one of the great works of chamber music from the 19th century, it comprises four movements that last around 45 minutes in performance.
A native of Poland, Żukiewicz has studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, and holds a doctorate from the University of Toronto, where he also served on the faculty. He won first prize both the 2011 Canada Trust Music Competition and the 2012 Shean Piano Competition in Canada, and was a medalist at several other contests. Since 2018 he has been a judge for the Steinway Piano Competition.
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Boulder Chamber Orchestra: Mini-Chamber 2 Adam Żukiewicz, piano, with members of the BCO
Théodore Dubois: Piano Quintet in F major
Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor, op. 34
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 23 Boulder Adventist Church
The Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra will repeat its “Groove” concert, first presented at Planet Bluegrass in September, next Monday at the Dickens Opera House in Longmont (6:30 p.m. Nov. 25).
The concert is one in the Boulder Phil’s new “Shift” series, designed to bring the orchestra’s musicians into informal spaces and present them in smaller groups. Each program in the “Shift” series will be presented first at Planet Bluegrass in Lyons, and then taken to smaller venues in Longmont and Boulder.
“Groove” features the Boulder Philharmonic String Quartet, principal players from each of the orchestra’s string sections. The program includes music by pop sensations from Lizzo to Taylor Swift alongside pieces by living composers including Philip Glass and Jessie Montgomery. And neither a pop sensation nor living, Vivaldi shows up on the program with one piece as well.
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“Groove” Boulder Philharmonic String Quartet: Ryan Jacobsen and Hilary Castle-Green, violin; Stephanie Mientka, viola; and Amanda Laborete, cello
Takashi Yoshimatsu: Atomic Hearts Club Quartet, Movement I
Justin Bieber: “Peaches” (arr. Alice Hong)
Dinuk Wijeratne:Two Pop Songs on Antique Poems: “Letter from the afterlife”
Carlos Simon: “Loop”
Michael Begay: “Forest Fires”
Lizzo: “ Good As Hell” (arr. Alice Hong)
Jessie Montgomery: “VooDoo Dolls”
Philip Glass: String Quartet No. 3: VI “Mishima/Closing”
Taylor Swift: “All Too Well” (arr. Alice Hong)
Wijeratne: Two Pop Songs on Antique Poems: “I will not let you go”
Ed Sheeran: “Shape of You” (arr. Alice Hong)
Due Lipa: “Dance the Night” (arr. Zack Reaves)
Jessica Meyer: “Get into the NOW”: III. “Go Big or Go Home”
Vivaldi: Summer: Movement III (arr. Naughtin)
6:30 pm. Monday, Nov. 25 Dickens Opera House, Longmont
Events presented by The Academy, Boulder Bach and Boulder Chamber Orchestra
By Peter Alexander Oct. 16 at 10:33 a.m.
The Academy, University Hill will present pianist Eugene Gaub and violinist Nancy McFarland Gaub performing in their Chapel Hall Friday evening (7 p.m. Oct. 18; details below).
Their performance of works by Beethoven and César Franck will be free, but audience members are asked to RSVP in advance. Eugene Gaub will perform Beethoven’s late Piano Sonata No. 28 in A major op. 101, and together they will perform Franck’s Sonata in A major for violin and piano.
Eugene Gaub is emeritus professor of music at Grinnell College in Iowa, where he taught music theory and courses in music history from 1995 to 2022. A graduate of the Juilliard School, he holds a doctorate and performer’s certificate from the Eastman School of Music.
The manuscript of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 28
Throughout her career, violinist and composer Nancy McFarland Gaub has performed as a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician in the U.S., Europe and Africa. She also was an artist-in-residence and taught violin and chamber music at Grinnell College for 25 years.
Composed in 1816, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 28 is considered the beginning of his third and final period of composition. The composer himself called the sonata “a series of impressions and reveries.” When he wrote the sonata he was almost totally deaf, only able to communicate with friends through the notebooks that he kept for the remainder of his life. This isolation may be the reason that, like the other late sonatas, No. 28 creates a sense of intimacy.
Franck wrote his Violin Sonata in 1886 as a wedding gift for the violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. The public premiere of the sonata, given by Ysaÿe with the pianist Marie-Léontine Bordes-Pène has become something of a legend. It was the last piece on a long program given at the Museum of Modern Painting in Brussels. By the time the performers started the Sonata, it was already dusk, but the museum did not allow artificial light. Ysaÿe and Bordes-Pène had to complete the performance from memory in the darkened room.
From that auspicious beginning, the Sonata has become one of the most revered sonatas for violin and piano, and one of Franck’s best known works.
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Eugene Gaub, piano, and Nancy McFarland Gaub, violin
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 28 in A major, op. 101
César Franck: Sonata in A major for violin and piano
7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18 Chapel Hall, The Academy University Hill, Boulder
The Boulder Bach Festival will present its COmpass REsonance (CORE) ensemble and guest artists in a program of music by relatively little known Baroque composers Saturday at the Dairy Arts Center (4 p.m. Oct. 19 in the Gordon Gamm Theater; details below).
Featured artists will be the festival’s director, violinist Zachary Carrettin and 10-string guitarist Keith Barnhart, a member of the CORE ensemble. They will be joined by Chris Holman, harpsichord; Joseph Howe, cello; and guest artist soprano Mara Riley.
With little known composers, the program provides an opportunity to explore an intriguing and idiosyncratic segment of music history. The performers will play and sing music of the early Baroque period, in a style known as the stile moderno (modern style) that represented a striking departure from the music of the late Renaissance.
Many of the composers included on the program were themselves virtuoso performers, and their works expanded the possibilities of both instrumental and vocal music. The composers on the program are Alessandro Stradella, Nicola Matteis, Marco Uccellini, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Giuseppi Maria Jacchini, Silvia Leopold Weiss and Tarquinio Merula.
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“Passion and Poetry“ Boulder Bach Festival CORE Ensemble, Zachary Carrettin, music director/violinist With Keith Barnhart, 10-string guitar; Chris Holman, harpsichord; Joseph Howe, cello; and Mara Riley, soprano
Works by Alessandro Stradella, Nicola Matteis, Marco Uccellini, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Giuseppi Maria Jacchini, Silvia’s Leopold Weiss and Tarquinio Merula
4 p.m. Saturday, October 19 Gordon Gamm Theater, Dairy Arts Center
Boulder Chamber Orchestra’s Mini-Chamber I, their first concert of chamber music for the 2024–25 season, will feature music by Beethoven, British composer Frank Bridge, and French composer Lili Boulanger Saturday (7:30 p.m. Oct. 19 at the Boulder Adventist Church; details below).
The program is the first in a series of four Mini-Chamber performances that will be presented by the Boulder Chamber Orchestra (BCO). Three of the performances, including Oct. 19, will feature the BCO’s artist in residence for the current season, pianist Jennifer Hayghe. For the first program she will be joined by orchestra members Sarah Whitnah, violin, and Andrew Brown, cello, for a program of music for piano trio.
English composer Frank Bridge is remembered today mostly as the teacher of Benjamin Britten, who honored the older composer with his “Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge” for strings. Bridge wrote three sets of miniatures for piano trio, from which Hayghe has chosen four pieces for this program. They were written for one of Bridge’s violin students, but critics have suggested that they are too sophisticated to be considered “student works.”
The younger sister of the music teacher Nadia Boulanger, Lili died at the tragically young age of 24. The first female winner of the Prix de Rome composition prize, Lili showed precocious musical talent as young as four, when she accompanied her older sister to classes at the Paris Conservatoire. Her music has recently become better known.
Jennifer Hayghe
Written in 1918, D’un matin de printemps (Of a spring morning) was one of the last works she completed. It was written in versions for solo violin, flute, and piano, for piano trio, and for orchestra.
One of the most tuneful and frequently performed of Beethoven’s works, the Piano Trio Op. 97 is known as the “Archduke Trio.” It was dedicated to Archduke Rudolph of Austria, later the Archbishop of Olomouc (Olmütz) and a Catholic Cardinal. An amateur pianist, Rudolph was a patron and composition student of Beethoven, who dedicated several major works to him, including his Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”) and the Missa Solemnis.
The Trio was composed 1810–11, toward the end of Beethoven’s so-called “heroic” middle period of compositions. Written at a time when the composer was in unusually good spirits, the Trio has none of the angst or fierce drive of his Fifth Symphony and other music we associate with the more rebellious aspect of his character. It is composed in a traditional but expansive four-movement sonata form.
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Mini-Chamber I Jennifer Hayghe, piano, with members of the BCO
Frank Bridge: Miniatures for Piano Trio, Nos. III–IV–V–VIII
Lili Boulanger: D’un matin de printemps (Of a spring morning)
Beethoven: Piano Trio in B-flat major, op. 97 (“Archduke”)
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19 Boulder Adventist Church
Longmont Symphony, Ars Nova Singers launch 2024-25 seasons
By Peter Alexander Oct. 1 at 4:55 p.m.
The Longmont Symphony Orchestra (LSO)and conductor Elliot Moore open “Sound in Motion,” their 2024–25 concert season, Saturday evening (7 p.m. Oct. 5; details below) with two American works and a orchestral showpiece.
Breaking from the pattern of previous seasons, the opening night concert will be held at the Longmont High School Auditorium. An abbreviated version of the same program will be presented Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. at Frederick High School.
All remaining LSO concerts during the season, including the Christmas-season Nutcrackers, will be held in the usual venue of Vance Brand Civic Auditorium.
Pianist Spencer Myer
Soloist for the Longmont HS performance will be pianist Spencer Myer, a faculty member at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, who will play George Gershwin’s Concerto in F for piano. The program begins with the Overture to another American masterpiece, Bernstein’s musical stage work Candide. Ending the program is Ravel’s familiar orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Bernstein’s Candide was originally composed in 1956 for Broadway, although today it is considered an operetta rather than a musical. The original show was not a success on dramatic grounds, in spite of the brilliant music Bernstein wrote, including the popular coloratura soprano aria “Glitter and Be Gay.” Various revisions of the original show have included textual contributions by lyricist Richard Wilbur plus Lillian Hellman, Stephen Sondheim, Dorothy Parker, John LaTouche and Bernstein himself.
Today the operetta is gaining ground among opera companies, but regardless of its fluctuating fate, the Overture has been a popular program number from the beginning. Full of brilliant flourishes, delightful tunes and heady syncopations, it is the ideal concert opener.
Gershwin’s Piano Concerto was commissioned by the conductor Walter Damrosch, who attended the Feb. 12, 1924 premiere of Rhapsody in Blue. The very next day Damrosch contacted Gershwin to ask him for a piano concerto, which he was able to complete over a period of three months in the summer of 1925.
Audiences have always liked the concerto, which is today considered one of the essentials of the American music repertoire. The score incorporates jazz elements, but is much closer to the traditional format of a concerto with orchestra than is the Rhapsody. It appears on concert programs, has been featured in films, has been recorded by numerous pianists, and has even been featured in ice skating routines.
The program closes with the Mussorgsky/Ravel Pictures at at Exhibition, one of the best known and most loved showpieces for orchestra.
The program for the performance in Frederick will include the Overture to Candide and Pictures at an Exhibition only.
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Opening Night Longmont Symphony Orchestra, Elliot Moore, conductor With Spencer Myer, piano
Leonard Bernstein: Overture to Candide
George Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F
Mussorgsky: Pictures at at Exhibition (arr. Ravel)
7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 5 Longmont High School Auditorium
Encore performance: 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 6 Frederick High School Auditorium (same program minus the Gershwin Concerto)
Boulder’s Ars Nova Singers embark on a season of “Contrasts” this weekend with a concert titled “Here/There.”
The opening concert, “Here/There,” will be presented Sunday at the Diary Arts Center in Boulder (4 p.m. Oct. 6; details below). The program features music from here and there not only geographically—that is, from different parts of the world—but also chronologically, from both the present (here) and the past (there). Featured composers include Henry Purcell, Anton Bruckner, Benjamin Britten, and György Ligeti, as well as contemporary women composers Sheena Phillips and Dale Trumbore.
Ars Nova Singers. Conductor Thomas Morgan kneeling front left.
Conductor Tom Morgan wrote in a news release, “Dark and light, motion and stasis, intimate and universal, deeply familiar and refreshingly new—our season searches for the balance point in all of these.” In addition to “Here/There,” the season includes concerts titled “Light/Shadow,” “Lost/Found,” “Science/Fantasy” and “Time/Eternity” (see the full season HERE).
Although the choir’s name—Ars Nova, or “new art”—refers in history to a musical style from the 14th century, the group has specialized in a broader range of music, specifically the Renaissance and the 20th and 21st centuries. For this program there is no music from the Renaissance, but the old is represented by “Music for a While” by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell (1659–1695).
There is a rare—for Ars Nova Singers—piece from the late Romantic period, Anton Bruckner’s Os justii (The mouth of the righteous) composed in 1879. A sacred motet setting of a text from Gregorian chant, it was written for the choirmaster at St. Florian Abbey, one of the largest monasteries in Austria.
Other works on the program range from the early 20th century—Ravel’s Trois beaux oiseaux (Three beautiful birds)— right up to today with works by the living American composers Frank Ticheli, Jake Runestad and Dale Trumbore, among others (full program listed below).
The performance, a benefit celebrating the past and future of Ars Nova Singers, will be preceded by a 3 p.m. reception in the Dairy Arts Center lobby.
Ars Nova Singers bill themselves as “an auditioned vocal group specializing in a cappella music of the Renaissance and the 20th/21st centuries” that aims “to delight, inspire, and enlighten our audiences.”
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Here/There Ars Nova Singers, Thomas Morgan, conductor
Henry Purcell: “Music for a While”
Dale Trumbore: “Love is a sickness”
Bruckner: Os justi (The mouth of the righteous)
Ravel: Trois beaux oiseaux (Three beautiful birds)
Luigi Denza: “Call Me Back” (arr. Morgan)
György Ligeti: Lux aeterna (Eternal light)
Sam Henderson: “Moonswept”
Sheena Philips: “Circle of Life”
Sarah Quartel: “Sing, My Child”
Frank Ticheli: “Earth Song”
Jake Runestad: “Let My Love Be Heard”
Britten: “Advance Democracy”
4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 6 Gordon Gamm Theater, Dairy Arts Center
BCO launches 20th anniversary season that will take them to Carnegie Hall
By Peter Alexander Oct. 1 at 2:50 p.m.
About 20 years ago, Bahman Saless was standing in a church basement, getting ready to conduct his first concert ever.
“We started with just an idea, and I had never conducted before. We only had two professional players (in the orchestra) and didn’t know who was going to come. It was a complete surprise—it was standing room only!”
Bahman Saless leading the Boulder Chamber Orchestra
That successful idea, which became the Boulder Chamber Orchestra (BCO), celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, starting with a concert at the Boulder Adventist Church Sunday (7:30 p.m. Oct. 6; details below) and culminating with with a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York May 18 (7:30 p.m.; details HERE).
To open the anniversary year, Saless decided to write a piece celebrating Colorado, titled Ode to the Rocky Mountains. Although he has rarely programmed his own music before, he had several years of experience writing and scoring film music in Hollywood before he started the BCO. “I did a lot of (uncredited) trailers for Hollywood films at Universal Studios,” he says.
To start the season, “I thought what’s better than something that celebrates Colorado?” Saless says. “I wrote a little piece that’s based on the two Colorado state songs, ‘Where the Columbine Grow’ and ‘Rocky Mountain High.’ It has five episodes that represent our own experience every time we go to the mountains.”
In the space of about five and half minutes, its five episode are: “Entering the Boulder Valley off Highway 36, heading West to the Mountains,” “Resting by the Brook in the Meadow,” “Playful Wildlife Amidst the Columbine,” “The Grand Landscape is to Behold,” and “Homeward Bound.”
The remainder of the opening concert program is all Beethoven: The Violin Concerto, featuring Edward Dusinberre of the Takács Quartet as soloist, and the Seventh Symphony. The concerto was chosen because Dusinberre had played with the orchestra before, and he suggested Beethoven for this concert. “He did the Brahms Concerto with us last year, and he did Mozart the previous year, so he’s going through the concerti,” Saless says.
Violinist Edward Dusinberre
Saless is especially thrilled to perform the Beethoven Concerto with Dusinberre. “It’s one of these pieces that I am very picky about who I would perform it with,” he says. “I think it requires a certain amount of maturity, no matter how good technically someone is. To play it with Ed is like a dream come true!”
As for the Seventh Symphony, Saless selected it to go on the Carnegie Hall program and then decided to open the season with it as well. “I wanted to do something (in New York) that I thought we could do really well, and would fit the programming (for the opening concert),” he says. “I thought, what could we do that I would feel comfortable, because I connect to it. If I’m going to go to Carnegie Hall and my legs are going to be shaking of nervousness, I need something that I could literally do in my sleep. So I picked Seven.”
He also wants the players to be comfortable. “If you’re going to perform in Carnegie Hall, you want a piece that you’ve already done during that season,” he says. “(That means) a smaller amount of preparation (later), and everybody feels less nervous.”
He also thinks you have to be a little bit crazy to perform the Seventh Symphony, but, he says, “I qualify!” Often noted for its dance-like rhythms, the Seventh Symphony is almost obsessive in repeating those rhythms. Saless calls it “borderline personality disorders in music, obsessive and frenetic.”
The powerful slow movement alternates a series of chords that underlay a mournful melody in a minor key with a bright theme in major. “It’s like (Beethoven) is trying to write a piece that is not a funeral march but sounds like one,” Saless says. “It’s kind of conflicted, and I find that very interesting.”
Saless faced a logistical complication in planning the season. As much as possible, he wanted to have the same players during the season as in New York. But he had to schedule around rehearsals and performance of the Colorado Ballet, because so many of his best players were also in their orchestra.
“I have to literally set up my schedule based on Colorado Ballet,” he says. BCO’s musicians, like all orchestras in Boulder, are free-lance players and Colorado Ballet pays very well. And every ballet production has numerous rehearsals and performances, all of which had to be scheduled around.
The New York appearance was made possible by a sponsor who was willing to underwrite both the orchestra and piano soloist Adam Żukiewicz playing in New York. Żukiewicz, who appeared on one of the BCO’s Mini-Chamber Concerts in January, and returns for another chamber concert Nov. 23 (7:30 p.m.; see the BCO season schedule HERE) will play a concerto with the orchestra in Carnegie Hall.
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“Titanic Journey” Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Bahman Saless, conductor With Edward Dusinberre, violin
Bahman Saless: Ode to the Rocky Mountains
Beethoven: Concerto in D major for violin and orchestra —Symphony No. 7 in A major
Symphony by Florence Price is the “American anchor” of programs Saturday and Sunday
By Peter Alexander Sept. 25 at 11:25 a.m.
The Boulder Symphony opens a new season this weekend with what conductor Devin Patrick Hughes calls “a very America-centric concert.” Performances at the Gordon Gamm Theater of the Dairy Arts Center will be at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday (full program and details below).
Boulder Symphony and conductor Devin Patrick Hughes
The most obviously American work on the program—in effect the American anchor to the concert—is the Symphony No. 1 by Florence Price. A prodigy who gave her first piano performance at the age of four and later attended the New England Conservatory, Price was the first African American woman to have music played by a major symphony.
Completing the program are two works by European composers with American connections: The Slavonic Dance No. 1 by Dvořák, who lived in the United States in the 1890s and whose “New World” Symphony inspired Price and other African American composers at the turn of the 20th century; and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, which was premiered in the U.S.
Soloist for the concerto will be Artem Kuznetsov, 2024 winner of the the International Keyboard Odyssiad & Festival in Ft. Collins. The Boulder Symphony has maintained a close relationship with the competition for a number of years by annually presenting the winner on one of their concerts.
Born in Arkansas, Price moved north during the “great migration” of the 1920s and settled in Chicago. She studied composition and organ and worked as an organist for silent films. In 1933 her First Symphony was premiered by the Chicago Symphony at the Century of Progress World’s Fair.
Florence Price (photo colorized)
“Florence Price is the quintessential American composer,” Hughes wrote in an email. “Her music takes from the melting pot of our culture, from spirituals and gospel, and blends them with the great European masters to create a unique American voice.”
Her total output includes four symphonies, a piano concerto, two violin concertos, and other works for orchestra, in addition to choral, vocal and piano pieces. In 2009 dozens of works by Price were discovered at her summer home, which had been abandoned for many years. Among this collection were the two violin concerto and the Fourth Symphony—works that would have been lost had the manuscripts not been found.
The First Symphony is in the traditional four movements. Price drew on her African-American heritage with pentatonic, spiritual-like melodies and a lively, syncopated third movement. Titled “Juba Dance,” it evokes a dance and rhythmic accompaniment performed by African slaves throughout the New World.
Another important influence is Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony, “From the New World.” Not only are both works in E minor, Price scholar Rae Linda Brown wrote that “an examination of Price’s symphony reveals that she had thoroughly studied Dvorak’s score.”
Among the most popular of Dvořák’s works, the two sets of Slavonic Dances were originally composed for piano four hands and later set for orchestra by the composer. It was the publication of the first set for piano four hands in 1878, facilitated by Brahms, that established Dvořák as an important and recognized composer. The first dance is a Furiant, an energetic Bohemian dance marked by shifting accents and alternating duple and triple time.
Dvořák’s connection to the American theme of the concert is through his years living in New York and his 1893 visit to the Czech village of Spillville in Iowa. His interest in African American and other American musical styles was very influential at the time.
As Hughes wrote, “Dvořák is at the crossroads of European and American voices. His symphonic work and educational initiatives in America in the 1890s paved the way for a new American school that recognized the importance of African American folk music as the future of an American school.”
Pianist Artem Kuznetsov
Tchaikovsky wrote his First Piano Concerto in 1874-75. He hoped that the great Russian virtuoso Anton Rubinstein would play the premiere, but Rubinstein criticized the score when he saw it. As a result the premiere was played by the German pianist Hans von Bülow in Boston. Rubinstein later took back his criticism of the concerto and promoted it through performances. Today it is one of the best known piano concertos.
Continuing the American connection among the composers, Tchaikovsky came to the United States and conducted on four concerts in Carnegie Hall, including the hall’s opening night May 5, 1891—shortly before Dvořák arrived in the U.S.
A native of Balashov, Russia, Kuznetsov has won several international competitions in addition the International Keyboard Odyssiad. He holds Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. He has performed across the United States, in Russia, Germany and the Netherlands.
The weekend’s concerts are the first in a series of three orchestral programs to be performed by the Boulder Symphony at the Dairy Arts Center, each including a work by an American composer. The season culminates in May with performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, presented in collaboration with Kim Robards Dance; you may see details on the orchestra’s Web page, along with information on their Curiosity Concerts for young people.
The Boulder Symphony also offers a music academy that is open to all talented students regardless of ability to pay. “Boulder Symphony created our Music Academy so every child could have access to musical instruments and instruction,” Hughes wrote. “Those who contribute to our scholarship program give the dream and promise of a lifetime of music-making to all kids in Boulder County.”
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Boulder Symphony, Devin Patrick Hughes, conductor With Artem Kuznetsov, piano
Dvořák: Slavonic Dance No. 1 in C major, op. 46 no. 1, “Furiant”
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor
Florence Price: Symphony No. 1 in E minor
2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 29 Gordon Gamm Theater, Dairy Arts Center
Programs outside the norm, from the 18th to the 21st centuries
By Peter Alexander Sept. 18 at 10:05 p.m.
The Boulder Bach Festival (BBF) and guest artists will take audiences back to 18th-century Venice in a program entitled “Anonimo Veneziano” (Anonymous Venetian) 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21, at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder.
The program, with the BBF’s music director/violinist Zachary Carretin and the COmpass REsonance ensemble (CORE Ensemble), will feature violinist Nurit Pacht from NewYork, harpsichordist Chris Holman from Cincinnati, and theorbist Keith Barnhart, an historical plucked instruments specialist who is also the BBF’s educational coordinator.
Nurit Pacht
The program opens with the famous Adagio attributed to 18th-century Italian composer Tomaso Albinoni and featured in many film scores. In fact, the Adagio was composed by 20th-century Italian musicologist Remo Giazotto. A scholar of Albinoni’s music Giazotto claimed that the Adagio was based on a fragment of an Albononi trio sonata that he found on a manuscript that has since mysteriously disappeared.
The remainder of the program will be filled out with genuine Albinoni works, the complete Sinfonie e Concerti a cinque (Sinfonias and concertos for five instruments), op. 2, that were published in Venice in 1700. This important collection is rarely performed complete. The BBF performance, which will be played without intermission, is expected to take approximately 75 minutes.
Pacht holds a degree in historical performance from the Juilliard school and is known as a specialist in both music by living composers, including works written for her, and music of the Baroque. She was a top prize winner in the Irving Klein International Music Competition in California, the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition in Switzerland, and the Kingsville International Music Competition in Texas. She has toured widely in Europe and the United States. She teaches privately in New York City.
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“Anonimo Veneziano” Boulder Bach Festival CORE Ensemble, Zachary Carrettin, conductor/violinist With Nurit Pracht, violin, Chris Holman, harpsichord, and Keith Barnhart, theorbo
Remo Giazotto: “Adagio in G minor by Tomaso Albononi”
Tomaso Albinoni: Sinfonie e Concerti, op. 2
4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21 Dairy Arts Center Gordon Gamm Theater
The Boulder Chamber Orchestra’s (BCO)chamber concert titled “Mixed Timbres,” postponed from last April due to the power outage caused by high winds, will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21, in the Boulder Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
The concert will feature the BCO’s 2023-24 artist-in-residence, pianist Hsing-ay Hsu, performing with two members of the orchestra—cellist Julian Bennett and clarinetist Kellan Toohey. All four works on the program use the ensemble of piano, clarinet and cello, a mix of timbres that has a limited but interesting repertoire.
Hsing-ay Hsu
Beethoven’s Op. 11 is one of the earliest works for the combination. It is sometimes known as the “Gassenhauer Trio,” taken from the popularity of the theme that Beethoven uses for variations in the final movement. In Vienna, a Gassenhauer (from Gasse, an alleyway) referred to a simple song that was so popular that it was heard all over town. The theme Beethoven used was taken from a popular music theater work, L’amor marinaro (Seafaring love) by Joseph Weigl.
Brahms’s Trio op. 114 is one of four chamber works the composer wrote for the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld in the last years of his life. Brahms’s admiration for Mühlfeld’s playing was reflected in the comment of one of the composer’s friends who wrote that in the Trio, “it is as though the instruments were in love with each other.”
Like Brahms’s Trio, Fauré’s D minor Trio was one of his last compositions. Although Fauré originally planned the Trio for piano, clarinet and cello, it was published as a traditional piano trio, with violin in place of the clarinet. The BCO performance of the first movement restores the instrumentation that Fauré first imagined for the trio.
Emily Rutherford’s “Morning Dance” for piano, clarinet and cello was commissioned by Toohey in 2017. A native of Colorado, Rutherford is a graduate of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif., and the Longy School of Music in Los Angeles.
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“Mixed Timbres” Hsing-ay Hsu, BCO Artist in residence, piano With Boulder Chamber Orchestra members Kellan Toohey, clarinet, and Julian Bennett, cello
Gabriel Fauré: Piano Trio in D minor, I. Allegro ma non troppo
Beethoven: Trio in B-flat major for piano, clarinet and cello, op. 11
Brahms: Trio in B-flat for piano, clarinet and cello, op. 114
The Sphere Ensemble, a 14-member string ensemble, will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the premiere of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in 1924 with performances of their own all-strings arrangement of the Rhapsody.
The program, presented Saturday in Boulder and Sunday in Denver (Sept. 21 and 22; details below), will also include works by other jazz musicians including James P. Johnson, Hazel Scott and Winton Marsalis. Also on the program are arrangements of music from the Squirrel Nut Zippers, The Turtles and Andrew Bird; and pieces by Shostakovich, Stephen Foster and the classical-era composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, among others.
Sphere Ensemble
In addition to the live performances, a live stream will be available from 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21 through 10 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 29.
This kind of eclectic programming, mixing sources and genres, is typical of the Sphere Ensemble, often in arrangements made by members of the ensemble. The “About” page on their Website explains, “We prioritize music by composers that are often overlooked in classical music programs. . . . From classical to classic rock, from baroque to hip hop, Sphere always chooses music that excites us.”
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“Bridges” Sphere Ensemble
Aldemaro Romero: Fuga con Pajarillo
Dmitri Shostakovich: Prelude and Fugue in D-flat Major (arr. Chris Jusell)
Stephen Foster: “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair” (arr. Alex Vittal)
Squirrel Nut Zippers: The Ghost of Stephen Foster (arr. Sarah Whitnah)
Andrew Bird: Orpheo Looks Back (arr. Sarah Whitnah)
C.W. Gluck: Orfée et Eurydice, Danses des Ombres Heureuses
Brenda Holloway: You’ve Made Me So Very Happy (arr. David Short)
The Turtles: Happy Together (arr. Dave Short)
James Price Johnson: Charleston (arr. Alex Vittal)
Hazel Scott: “Idyll” (arr. Sarah Whitnah)
Wynton Marsalis: “At the Octoroon Balls” —“Rampart St. Rowhouse Rag”
George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue (arr. Alex Vittal)
The Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra will have a new series of intimate performances during the 2024-25 season, designed to bring their musicians into more informal spaces and give audiences the opportunity to hear them in smaller groups.
The repertoire will be a little different from the Macky concerts, too, featuring music by pop sensations from Lizzo to Taylor Swift alongside pieces by living composers including Philip Glass and Jessie Montgomery. And just for fun, they might throw in some Vivaldi as well.
These concerts, collectively the “Shift” series, will feature several different programs, each presented first at Planet Bluegrass in Lyons and then taken to small venues in Longmont and Boulder. The first program, played by a string quartet of principal players from the orchestra, opens next Wednesday at Planet Bluegrass (7 p.m. Sept. 25; details below). Titled “Groove,” it will be repeated at the Dickens Opera House in Longmont at 6:30 p.m.Monday, Nov. 25.
Wildflower Pavilion at Planet Bluegrass, Lyons
The second program, also for string quartet, is titled “Americana: Redefined” and will be presented in October and February. A third program featuring a brass quintet from the orchestra, “Brass & Brews,” will be presented in October and April; see the Boulder Phil Web page for details on all currently scheduled performances.
Mimi Kruger, the Boulder Phil’s executive director, said, “The idea is that people can get to know our musicians and these composers and connect in a different way. These are obviously smaller venues, but also a little bit more casual.”
She said that discussions about ways to showcase the individual musicians of the orchestra led them to look for new venues. “The idea came up to launch it through Planet Bluegrass (because) they have a series at the Wildflower Pavilion,” she said. “We’re doing all three there, but we also wanted to take them to other venues, so the first two will get repeated at Dickens Opera House in Longmont—that’s a great little place!”
The Phil’s Web page says pretty much the same thing, in more promotional language: “The Shift Series lifts the facade of the stereotypical orchestral concert . . . in unique venues along the Front Range.”
Kruger recommends watching for future announcements, as further performances are under consideration, featuring the orchestra’s woodwind players.
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“GROOVE” Boulder Philharmonic string players: Ryan Jacobsen and Hilary Castle-Green, violin; Stephanie Mientka, viola; and Amanda Laborete, cello
Takashi Yoshimatsu: Atomic Hearts Club Quartet, Movement I
Justin Bieber: “Peaches” (arr. Alice Hong) 3’
Dinuk Wijeratne:Two Pop Songs on Antique Poems: “Letter from the afterlife”
Carlos Simon: “Loop”
Michael Begay: “Forest Fires”
Lizzo: “Good As Hell” (arr. Alice Hong)
Jessie Montgomery: “VooDoo Dolls”
Philip Glass: String Quartet No. 3: VI “Mishima/Closing”4’
Taylor Swift: “All Too Well” (arr. Alice Hong)
Wijeratne: Two Pop Songs on Antique Poems: “I will not let you go”
Ed Sheeran: “Shape of You” (arr. Alice Hong)
Due Lipa: “Dance the Night” (arr. Zack Reaves)
Jessica Meyer: “Get into the NOW”: III. “Go Big or Go Home”
Premiere by Gabriela Lena Frank, Concerto by Joan Tower showcase the Festival Orchestra
By Peter Alexander July 22 at 12:15 a.m.
The Colorado Music Festival Orchestra and conductor Peter Oundjian hit the jackpot last night (July 21) with a program of three pieces by women composers.
All three works, by Florence Price, Gabriela Lena Franck and Joan Tower, were performed memorably. Both living composers—Frank and Tower—were present and spoke to the audience.
The concert opened with Price’s Adoration, a piece that she originally wrote for organ in 1951 and that here was performed in a setting for string orchestra. Played tenderly by the Festival Orchestra strings, it is almost too soothing and gentle to serve as an opener. Oundjian and the players thoroughly embraced the mood, creating a comforting start to a program that soon turned adventurous.
Frank’s Kachkaniraqmi (“I still exist” in the Quechua language of her Peruvian forebears) was commissioned by CMF as a concerto for string quartet and string orchestra, written for Boulder’s Takács Quartet and the CMF Orchestra. As an introduction by Oundjian, Frank and Takács violinist Harumi Rhodes spelled out, the commission emerged from a suggestion by CMF contributor and long-time patron Chris Christoffersen for a concerto for the Takács, and then from a friendship between Frank and Rhodes.
Gabriela Lena Frank
Kachkaniraqmi is a piece of great imagination and creativity. Frank refuses to cozy up to the listener with easy tunes and catchy ideas. In fact, Kachkaniraqmi sounds like no other piece I have heard, but it makes great use of string timbres and textures. It opens with highly individual, sometimes quirky gestures for the solo violist and orchestral violas before moving into a fuller texture. At places, the strings sound like a single instrument, leaping across a large range from top to bottom, and at other times like a large organ moving in full orchestral chords.
The middle section, or second movement, presents a rushing, incessant forward drive. All texture and motion, this portion of the concerto is not hummable, but identifiable musical ideas can be followed as they are passed from section to section over an unrelenting rhythmic foundation. This driven middle section settles into a more contemplative final portion that explores different techniques of string playing to create a startling range of sounds and gentling moods as the music moves toward silence.
Kachkaniraqmi is a remarkable creation, an intriguing piece that I expect will reveal more and more as one listens to it again and again. I hope that the Takács will take the score well beyond Boulder and introduce it to the wider musical world.
The concert concluded with a stunningly complex and difficult piece, Joan Tower’s Concerto for Orchestra. Composed in 1991 for the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony and St. Louis Symphony, it has had modest success in the intervening 33 years. “This piece should be played everywhere!” Oundjian said in his introductory comments, standing onstage with the composer.
Joan Tower
Tower noted that it is a difficult piece to conduct—on top of being very difficult to play—which may be one barrier, but the CMF Orchestra’s performance showed what musical fireworks it sets off when played at the highest level. Clearly, Oundjian had mastered all the shifting meters and tricky rhythms, and the CMF players responded with a virtuoso display.
As expected, there are many solos in the course of the score’s 25+ minutes, for horn, for English horn, for tuba, but more stunning are the intricate passages for whole sections—trumpets, woodwinds, a tricky motive passed up and down from trumpets to horns and back. Often played at a breakneck pace, these are the most virtuosic passages of the concerto, and they were played with precision and confidence by the CMF orchestra.
Other noteworthy moments included a cello section solo that gives a lyrical contrast to the more driving and excitable portions of the score, with the cellos at times divided into parts to create full chords, and at other times reduced to two eloquent solo players. A later softening and lowering of temperature allows two violinists to come forward, before the rhythmic frenzy starts again.
As Tower promised, the percussion players are kept busy, running from instrument to instrument, culminating with a viciously fast running beat by several drums that requires extreme concentration to keep together. This exciting moment, played with perfect precision, leads to a final crashing chord—and inevitably, wild enthusiasm from the audience.
They were still cheering as I gathered my things and snuck out the side door.
Under Oundjan’s leadership, the CMF has established itself as a forward-looking summer festival that all Boulder should support. His thoughtful programming, his embrace of living composers, and the commissioning of new pieces are admirable and exciting. A concert of works by three women, two of them present for the performance, is a perfect illustration of his vision of the festival. On this occasion, it was brilliantly realized.
Correction: Misspellings of string as “sting“ in paragraph six and viciously as “viscously” in paragraph 12 corrected 7/22.
Guest soloists and a Mahler symphony bring 2024 festival to a close
By Peter Alexander July 18 at 3:20 p.m.
The remaining two weeks of the Colorado Music Festival (CMF) will see a series of guest artists—soloists, conductors and chamber musicians—and culminate with a Mahler symphony.
Peter Oundjian, artistic director of the Colorado Music Festival. Photo by Geremy Kornreich.
Ending the summer with Mahler has become a tradition at CMF. “It’s quite conscious,” artistic director and conductor Peter Oundjian says. “We did the Third (Symphony), we did the Fifth. The season of ’21 we ended with Beethoven, because couldn’t have a Mahler symphony”—due to onstage seating restrictions during COVID—but otherwise, Oundjian has made Mahler the preferred festival finale.
Before the season-ending concert Aug. 4, CMF still has intriguing programs of both orchestral and chamber music. Next Tuesday (7:30 p.m. July 23; full programs listed below), the Robert Mann Chamber Music Series continues with a concert by members of the Festival Orchestra. The program will include one of the most loved pieces by Mendelssohn, his String Octet in E-flat, written when the composer was only 16.
Danish String Quartet. Photo by Caroline Bittencourt.
One week later on July 30, the guest chamber group the Danish String Quartet closes the chamber music series with a diverse program of pieces and movements both familiar and unfamiliar. The Danish Quartet, known for creative programming, was originally scheduled in 2021, but due to COVID restrictions had to wait for the 2022 festival.
This summer’s program opens with the minuet from Joseph Haydn’s late quartet Op. 77 no. 2, followed by Three Pieces for String Quartet by Stravinsky and Three Melodies by the 17th-century blind Celtic harpist Turlough O’Carolan. An early divertimento by Mozart and the Third String Quartet by Shostakovich complete the program.
Awadagin Pratt
Pianist Awadagin Pratt will be the guest soloist for the Festival Orchestra concerts July 25 and 26. The first African-American pianist to win the Naumburg International Piano Competition, Pratt has had a protean career, performing with most major American orchestras, appearing on six continents, at the White House by invitation from presidents Clinton and Obama, and on Sesame Street.
Described in the Washington Post as “one of the great and distinctive pianists of our time,” Pratt is known for highly individual artistry and concert dress. A pianist of prodigious technique, he plays a wide ranging repertoire. For his appearance with Oundjian and the Festival Orchestra, Pratt will play a Keyboard Concerto by J.S. Bach and Rounds for piano and string orchestra by Jessie Montgomery. The program will also feature a staple of the large orchestra repertoire, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade.
Gemma New. Photo by Anthony Chang.
Two guest artists and a guest conductor will be featured on the Chamber Orchestra concert July 28. Conductor Gemma New, hailed as “one of the brightest rising stars in the conducting firmament” by the St. Louis Post Dispatch, is a native of New Zealand where she leads the New Zealand Symphony. She comes to Colorado on her way to conduct the BBC Proms in London Aug. 16.
The program will feature the piano duo of Christina and Michelle Naughton as guest soloists, performing Mozart’s Concerto in E-flat Major for Two Pianos, K365. Other works on the all-Mozart program are Eine kleine Nachtmusik and the “Haffner” Symphony, No. 35 in D major.
The next Festival Orchestra concert brings another outstanding soloist to Chautauqua: violinist Augustin Hadelich, who has become a CMF favorite since his first appearance at the festival in 2018. He appeared from Oundjian’s home by live stream during the COVID-canceled 2020 season, and returned as artist-in-residence in 2021.
Augustin Hadelich. Photo by Suxiao Yang.
This season he will play the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (Aug. 1 and 2) on a program that also includes Two Mountain Scenes by Kevin Puts and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 in D minor. The latter, Oundjian says, “is for a lot of people Dvořák’s true masterpiece.
“Obviously the Ninth Symphony (the ‘New World’) is fantastic and the Eighth is so exquisitely beautiful, but Seven is the piece that made him famous. The premiere in London (1885) was kind of an epic moment for him. I have conducted it in a lot of different places, and orchestras love to play it. They know how magnificent it is.”
Puts’s Two Mountain Scenes was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and Bravo Vail! “It’s a real showpiece for orchestra, quite original but not forbidding,” Oundjian says. “You’d think living in Colorado it would be performed more often. It’s a wonderful piece!”
The final concert of the 2024 festival, Sunday, Aug 6, features the final guest artist, soprano Karina Gauvin. A Canadian soprano who has performed with orchestras from San Francisco to Rotterdam, she will sing Ravel’s Shéhérazade and the final movement of the festival-closing Fourth Symphony of Mahler. And in another form of delight, the concert will open with Johann Strauss Jr.s spirited Overture to Die Fledermaus.
Karina Gauvin. Photo by Michael Slobodian.
Following the pattern of ending the festival with Mahler, it was the Fourth that generated the rest of the program. Oundjian says that work “is in some ways the most fascinating narrative of all (of Mahler’s) symphonies. It’s like poetry. It also has a chamber quality that is very different from all the other Mahler symphonies.
“There’s something both playful and heavenly about the first movement, and something devilish about the second movement, with its falsely tuned violin that represents the devil. And typical of Mahler scherzo movements, where you have trio sections that are very beautiful and elegant. And then a slow movement, you think, ‘OK, this is the most beautiful music that’s ever been written’!”
The finale the gives the whole symphony the character of childish delight. A setting of a poem describing life in heaven, with everyone living “in sweetest peace” and enjoying endless banquets, it is one of Mahler’s most beguiling movements. It is, Oundjian says, a “wonderful image of heaven in this child-like voice, speaking to us from another place.
“I wanted to put (Ravel’s) Scheherazade with the Fourth Symphony. I think Scheherazade is staggering, with orchestration, the colors, harmonies, the way he uses the vocal line and shapes the vocal line. It’s just magnificent. And then to start it with Fledermaus is pure heaven!”
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Colorado Music Festival, Peter Oundjian, music director Remaining concerts, July 23–Aug. 4, 2024 All performances in Chautauqua Auditorium
Robert Mann Chamber Music Series Colorado Music Festival musicians
Joseph Haydn, String Quartet in C Major, op. 20 no.
Claude Debussy, Sonata for flute, viola and harp
Felix Mendelssohn, String Octet in E-flat Major, op. 20
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 23
Festival Orchestra Concert Festival Orchestra, Peter Oundjian, conductor With Awadagin Pratt, piano
J.S. Bach: Keyboard Concerto in A major, S1055
Jessie Montgomery: Rounds for piano and string orchestra (2022)
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 25 6:30 p.m. Friday, July 26
Festival Chamber Orchestra Concert Chamber Orchestra, Gemma New, conductor With Christina and Michelle Naughton, piano duo
Mozart: Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K525 —Concerto in E-flat Major for Two Pianos, K365 —Symphony No. 35 in D major, K385 (“Haffner”)
6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 28
Robert Mann Chamber Music Series Danish String Quartet
Joseph Haydn: String Quartet, op. 77 no. 2: III, Andante
Stravinsky: Three Pieces for String Quartet
Turlough O’Carolan: Three Melodies
Mozart: Divertimento in F major, K138
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3 in F major, op. 73
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 30
Festival Orchestra Concert Festival Orchestra, Peter Oundjian, conductor With Augustin Hadelich, violin
Kevin Puts: Two Mountain Scenes (2007)
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D Major, op. 35
Dvořák: Symphony No. 7 in D minor, op. 70
7:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 1 6:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 2
Festival Finale Concert Festival Orchestra, Peter Oundjian, conductor With Karina Gauvin, soprano
Sharps & Flatirons 