Well shaped performance of “the greatest First Symphony”
By Peter Alexander July 11 at 12:24 a.m.
The world premiere of an engaging concerto for saxophone by American composer Joan Tower topped the bill at the Colorado Music Festival last night (July 10).
The Festival Orchestra was conducted by CMF music director Peter Oundjian, with Steven Banks as saxophone soloist. Tower was present for the premiere performance of her new score, and spoke briefly before the performance.
Titled Love Returns, the score is derived from a piece for solo piano titled Love Letter that Tower wrote in memory of her late husband after his death in 2022. Poignant, well constructed and emotionally coherent, Love Returns should become part of the concert repertoire for saxophone.
The first of the work’s six movements starts tenderly, with beautiful string sounds providing a warm embrace for the soloist. Over the next three movements, the music grows in intensity, reaching an uneasy high point built from nervous swirls in the saxophone. The Fifth movement is a solo cadenza, developing jumpy fragments of scales.
A virtuosic series of edgy passages leads into the final movement, where the nervous swirls loosen and return to the calm of the work’s opening. This creates a perceptible expressive arc, while the gentle ending suggests a moment of acceptance before the music settles into silence.
With a sweet tone and flawless technique, Banks gave an exemplary performance. The fluidity of his rapid passagework was remarkable, and he moved smoothly through all the shifts of mood and style. He has the ability to fade to silence in even the highest register. If recorded, his performance would create the standard for this valuable new work.
The concert opened with Aaron Copland’s Outdoor Overture, a strongly profiled work written for students at the High School of Music and Art in New York. To recognize the work’s origin, Oundjiuan turned over the podium to the CMF’s young assistant conductor Stefano Boccaci, who lead a bracing performance.
Copland’s alternating sections of vigor and delicacy were well marked. As appropriate for a school piece, all sections of the orchestra have opportunities to step forward. The bright trumpet solos of principal Jeffrey Work were acknowledged at the end, but every section earned recognition.
The concert ended with Brahms Symphony No. 1, which Oundjian likes to call “the greatest first symphony ever written.” Before the performance, he also noted that Brahms took 21 years to complete the symphony, during which time he progressed from a callow young musician to an experienced composer of international rank.
Oundjian and the Festival Orchestra gave a well shaped, controlled performance. The tense introduction to the first movement promised the drama to come. Throughout the engrossing first movement, the music surged from the tiniest pianissimos to full Brahmsian fortes. Oundjian convincingly varied the tempo to match the expressive needs of the score.
The slow second movement was carefully played but never came alive. The third movement projected relaxed good cheer, especially in the strolling music played by the woodwinds. Drama came to the fore again in the finale, which Oundjian built carefully to the climax. I heard bravos and cries of “Oh My God” at the end, signaling how well the symphony reached the audience.
The program will be repeated at 6:30 tonight (July 11) at the Chautauqua Auditorium. Tickets are available through the CMF Web Page.
Hélène Grimaud plays Brahms, Steven Banks premieres sax concerto by Joan Tower
By Peter Alexander July 1 at 11:34 a.m.
The 2025 Colorado Music Festival (CMF) does NOT open with Scheherazade or the Russian Easter Overture, but fans of composer Rimsky-Korsakov should be pleased anyway.
Music director Peter Oundjian says that the first piece on Thursday’s Opening Night concert (7:30 p.m. July 3), Stravinsky’s Feu d’artifice (Fireworks), “sounds like Rimsky-Korsakov on slight uppers.”
CMF music director Peter Oundjian at Chautauqua
That’s intriguing but not surprising: Stravinsky studied with Rimsky-Korsakov, and wrote Feu d’artifice in 1908 as a wedding present for his teacher’s daughter. Calling it “a short orchestral fantasy,” Stravinsky piled on all the brilliant orchestral colors he could muster.
“It’s a fun, wonderful, four-and-a half-minute opening to a season,” Oundjian says. The “Opening Night” Concert will be repeated Sunday at 6:30 (July 6).
Pianist Hélène Grimaud
After all the musical rockets have been fired, the program continues in a more serious vein with Brahms’s First Piano Concerto in D minor, performed by French virtuoso Hélène Grimaud. The second half of the program is given over to Ravel, honoring the 150th anniversary of his birth, with the Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé and Bolero.
Like all of the CMF concerts this summer, both performances will be in the Chautauqua Auditorium. The full schedule for the first two weeks is listed below.
Grimaud was originally scheduled to play Gershwin’s Piano Concerto, but Oundjian was happy when she said she would rather play Brahms. “I’ve conducted her with that piece several times, and it’s absolutely extraordinary,” he says. “When she said she’d prefer to play the Brahms, I thought OK, it adds real weight, and it’s not a long program anyway.
“(Grimaud) is a very strong musical personality (who plays) with unbelievable color and the most excellent sense of rubato and expressive freedom. I have always thought her playing deeply moving, so I’m thrilled.”
It’s a stretch from the somber weight of the Brahms to the orchestral brilliance of Ravel, but to Oundjian that is part of the plan. “We always want to create wider contrasts,” he says.
“Ravel’s Second Suite (from Daphnis and Chloe) is lush and beautiful and unique to Ravel. And then to do Bolero—it’s a lesson in orchestration, which is just phenomenal. The use of the saxophone and the trombone—it’s an amazing piece!”
Joan Tower
The second Festival Orchestra concert, Thursday and Friday, July 10 and 11, features the world premiere of Love Returns for saxophone and orchestra by Joan Tower. A long-time personal friend of Oundjian, Tower has been featured at CMF before, including the premiere of A New Day for cello and orchestra in 2021 and a performance of her Concerto for Orchestra last summer.
Steven Banks
Love Returns was written for saxophonist Steven Banks, whom Oundjian describes as “one of the most exquisite musicians I’ve ever met. He’s got so many colors—he makes the saxophone sounds like a flute, like a trombone. And he has impeccable musical taste and limitless technique.”
The score was inspired by a piano piece that Tower wrote in memory of her late husband. “It’s a very important piece for her,” Oundjian says. “It’s very exciting, but also very tender. She and (Banks) have become fast friends.”
The program opens with Copland’s Outdoor Overture, written as part of a campaign called “American Music for American Youth,” which aimed to generate new music for use in schools. Copland’s music is included this summer in honor of the 125th anniversary of his birth.
Brahms at the time of his First Symphony
The final piece on the program will be Brahms again, in this case his First Symphony. “The Symphony is exquisite, so powerful—probably the greatest First Symphony ever written,” Oundjian says. He also observes that it was written by a composer who was “young, very handsome, blue-eyed, blond-ish—not the Brahms we imagine as this bearded, sedate individual.”
The symphony has a special place in Oundjian’s life. When he was a student, the imposing German conductor Herbert van Karajan “came to give a masterclass at Juilliard,” he explains. “I was concertmaster of the orchestra and he made me conduct. He was two feet from me!
“I knew that he had asked me to conduct because he wanted to demonstrate that less is more. Conducting students were really trying to show what they had, and he knew that I would not over conduct. He was very complimentary about my conducting. Karajan encouraging me at a very young age was important to me when I was 39 and I couldn’t play the violin any more”—the point in his career when Oundjian turned to conducting
There are tickets available for two other concerts in the first weeks of CMF: a chamber music concert at 7:30 Tuesday, July 8, featuring CMF musicians, and an all-Mozart program under guest conductor Chloé van Soeterstède with violinist Benjamin Beilman at 6:30 the following Sunday, July 13 (full programs below). The annual Family Concert, part of the opening weekend, is sold out.
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Colorado Music Festival, Peter Oundjian, music director Thursday, July 3–Sunday, July 13 All performances in Chautauqua Auditorium
Opening Night Festival Orchestra, Peter Oundjian, conductor With Hélène Grimaud, piano
Stravinsky: Feu d’artifice (Fireworks)
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2 —Bolero
7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 3 6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 6
Family Concert—SOLD OUT Festival Orchestra, Shira Samuels-Shragg, conductor
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Maestro
10:30 a.m. Sunday, July 6
Chamber Music Concert Colorado Music Festival musicians
Schubert: String Trio in B-flat major, D471
Prokofiev: Quintet in G minor, op. 39
Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, op. 60
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 8
Festival Orchestra Concert Peter Oundjian, conductor With Steven Banks saxophone
Copland: An Outdoor Overture
Joan Tower: Love Returns for saxophone and orchestra (world premiere)
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C minor, op. 68
7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 10 6:30 p.m. Friday, July 11
An Evening of Mozart Festival Orchestra, Chloé van Soeterstède, conductor With Benjamin Beilman, violin
Mozart: Overture to Don Giovanni —Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K219 (“Turkish”) —Overture to Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) —Symphony no. 34 in C major, K338
6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 13
Tickets to all concerts except the Family Concert available through the CMF Web page.
The Colorado Music Festival (CMF) has announced its summer schedule of concerts at the Chautauqua Auditorium in Boulder.
Chautauqua Auditorium. Photo by Geremy Kornreich
The season of 19 concerts will culminate with performances of two different ninth symphonies: Beethoven’s masterpiece, featuring the “Ode to Joy” finale, July 31 and August 1; and Mahler’s Ninth Aug. 3. Both are their composer’s last completed symphony, which has given a special mystique to the number of the “Ninth Symphony.”
Other highlights during the summer include appearances by outstanding solo artists, including pianist Hélène Grimaud playing the Gershwin Concerto in F on the opening night concert July 3 and 6; saxophonist Steven Banks playing the world premiere of Joan Tower’s Love Returns for saxophone and orchestra; and violinist Anne Akiko Meyers playing Eric Whitacre’s Murmur, a CMF co-commission written for her.
Two birth anniversaries will be celebrated during the summer: Ravel’s 150th, with performances of Daphinis et Chloé, Suite No. 2 and Bolero on the opening concert program, and Aaron Copland’s 125th with a performance of Appalachian Spring on July 17 and 18 and AnOutdoor Overture on July 11.
Some younger, rising artists will be featured this summer. Classical guitarist Xuefei Yang will perform Rodrigo’s popular Concierto de Aranjuez July 27. Violinist Benjamin Beilman and conductor Chloé van Soeterstède will appear on an all-Mozart program July 13. Cellist Hayoung Choi and conductor Maurice Cohn will perform July 20, and pianist Yeol Eum Son will appear with conductor Ryan Bancroft July 24 and 25.
This year’s Family Concert, presented at 10:30 a.m. July 6, will be an orchestral mystery, “Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Maestro.” Shira Samuels-Shragg will conduct the program, in which all of the musicians are suspects and Sherlock Holmes must investigate each of the instrument families.
All of the CMF’s summer concerts and programs are listed below. Tickets to the 2025 Festival will be available for purchase beginning March 4. For information or to purchase tickets for the 2025 festival, visit the CMF Web page, or call the Chautauqua box office at 303-440-7666.
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Colorado Music Festival, Peter Oundjian, music director 2025 Summer Season All performances in Chautauqua Auditorium
Peter Oundjian and the CMF Orchestra. Photo by Geremy Kornreich, 2023
Opening Night Festival Orchestra, Peter Oundjian, conductor With Hélène Grimaud, piano
Stravinsky: Feu d’artifice (Fireworks)
Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2 —Bolero
7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 3 6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 6
Family Concert Festival Orchestra, Shira Samuels-Shragg, conductor
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Maestro
10:30 a.m. Sunday, July 6
Chamber Music Concert Colorado Music Festival musicians
Schubert: String Trio in B-flat major, D471
Prokofiev: Quintet in G minor, op. 39
Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, op. 60
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 8
Festival Orchestra Concert Peter Oundjian, conductor With Steven Banks saxophone
Copland: An Outdoor Overture
Joan Tower: Love Returns for saxophone and orchestra (world premiere)
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C minor, op. 68
7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 10 6:30 p.m. Friday, July 11
An Evening of Mozart Festival Orchestra, Chloé van Soeterstède, conductor With Benjamin Beilman, violin
Mozart: Overture to Don Giovanni —Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K219 (“Turkish”) —Overture to Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) —Symphony no. 34 in C major, K338
6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 13
Chamber Music Concert Brentano String Quartet
Schubert: Quartet in A minor, D804 (“Rosamunde”)
Anton Webern: Five Movements for String Quartet, op. 5
Brahms: String Quartet No. 3 in B-flat major, op. 67
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 15
Festival Orchestra Concert Peter Oundjian, conductor With Anne Akiko Meyers, violin
Copland: Appalachian Spring
Eric Whitacre: Murmur (CMF co-commission)
Ravel: Tzigane
Berlioz: Overture to Béatrice et Bénédict
Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture
7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 17 6:30 p.m. Friday, July 18
Festival Orchestra Concert Maurice Cohn, conductor With Hayoung Choi, cello
Respighi: Gli uccelli (The birds)
Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme, op. 33
Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C major, op. 21
6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 20
Chamber Music Concert Colorado Music Festival musicians
Nico Muhly: Doublespeak (2012)
Mozart: Quintet for piano and winds in E-flat major, K452
Dvořák: String Quintet No. 3 in E-flat major, op. 97
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 22
Festival Orchestra Concert Ryan Bancroft, conductor With Yeol Eum Son, piano
Sofia Gubaidulina: Fairytale Poem (Märchenpoem, 1971)
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, op. 37
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10
7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 24
6:30 P.M. Friday, July 25
Festival Orchestra Concert Peter Oundjian, conductor With Xuefei Yang, guitar
Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 1 in D major, op. 11
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 29
Festival Orchestra Concert Colorado Music Festival orchestra and the St. Martin’s Festival Singers Peter Oundjian, conductor With Lauren Snouffer, soprano; Abigail Nims, mezzo-soprano; Issachah Savage, tenor; and Benjamin Taylor, baritone
Michael Abels: Amplify (CMF co-commission)
Beethoven: Elegischer Gesang (Elegiac song), op. 118 —Symphony No. 9 in D minor, op. 125
7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 31 6:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 1
Festival Finale Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, Peter Oundjian, conductor
Commissioned work by Hannah Lash July 22, all Joan Tower program July 25
By Peter Alexander July 20 at 12:10 a.m.
Hannah Lash always wanted to be a composer.
“One of my earliest memories was that the reason I wanted to take violin lessons was that I wanted to be a composer,” she says. “So I had that thought in my head from a very early age.”
Hannah Lash. Photo by Karjaka Studios
Mission accomplished. Lash started on Suzuki violin, later studied piano and harp, and now teaches composition at Yale. Her new piece Forestallings was co-commissioned by the Colorado Music Festival, where it will be premiered Thursday (July 22) by the Festival Orchestra and conductor Peter Oundjian.
The same program will feature Kevin Puts’s Concerto for Marimba with guest soloist Ji Su Jung and Oundjian’s arrangement of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor. The Lash score matches well with Beethoven, since it was originally planned as part of the 2020 Beethoven bicentennial.
In fact, Forestallings was commissioned by CMF and the Indianapolis Symphony to accompany Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2. “I was really happy about that, because I really like that symphony,” Lash says. “It’s underplayed, and I’m really happy when it’s performed. It was fun to find some way of having a relationship to (the symphony).”
Her score does not quote Beethoven, but “gesturally it has touch points,” she says. “The first gesture of the first movement has a great deal to do with Beethoven. Then it goes in very different directions. These moments of opening a window between me and Beethoven were important to me.”
Ji Su Jung
Puts has written that his Concerto for Marimba “reflects my love for Mozart’s piano concertos,” with the influence “mostly in the relationship between the soloist and orchestra.” Listeners may also hear a strong kinship to lyrical moments of Mozart’s concertos.
Soloist Jung is a rare musician who started studying percussion as a young child. Born in South Korea, she later came to the United States to study at the Peabody Conservatory and Yale University.
The Lash premiere is part of a concert series that CMF is calling “Music of Today.” The series opens with the St. Lawrence String Quartet on Tuesday (July 20), playing the String Quartet No. 1 by American composer John Adams as well as works by Haydn and Debussy (see full programs below). Adams’s First Quartet was inspired by the St. Lawrence Quartet, to whom it is dedicated. “I was reminded how much the sound of the string quartet is like elevated human discourse,” he wrote. “It’s like speech brought to the highest level.”
Like the Lash, Adams’ quartet was influenced by Beethoven—in this case scherzo movements from two late quartets. While writing the quartet, Adams was also listening to the quartets of Ravel and Debussy, the latter of which closes the St. Lawrence program.
Friday’s “Music of Today” concert (July 23), titled “Kaleidoscope,” comprises entirely music by living composers, with an emphasis on percussion. Jung will be featured again as soloist, along with pianist Christopher Taylor, along with CMF string players and percussionists. The diverse program ranges from the Piano Quintet No. 2 by William Bolcom to Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert (Part IIC), as well as several pieces for percussion
The final event of “Music of Today” will be a concert on Sunday (July 25) devoted to the music of American composer Joan Tower, including the world premiere of A New Day for cello and orchestra. This program grew from Oundjian’s long friendship with Tower. “Joan is an old friend of mine,” Oundjian says. “She was really dying to write a cello concerto.”
Joan Tower. Photo by Bernie Mindrich
To fulfill that wish, CMF commissioned the work that became A New Day, and chose for soloist Alisa Weilerstein, whom Oundjian has known virtually her entire life. Member of a musical family, and another child musician, Weilerstein started playing cello at the age of four.
A New Day is in part an expression of Tower’s gratitude for every day of life. “As we get older, we begin to treasure and value every day that is given us,” she writes in program notes. “This feeling becomes even stronger when we are able to get past 90. I am not quite there yet, but my husband Jeff is and the closer I get to his passing, the more I treasure every new day.”
Other works on the all-Tower program will be No. 5 in her series of fanfares “For the Uncommon Woman”; Made in America, her setting of “America the Beautiful”; and Duets, an orchestral piece built on duets between individual players in the orchestra.
The next week at CMF opens with a concert in the festival’s Robert Mann Chamber Music series. The program comprises two works by Beethoven, the Quintet for piano and winds and the Septet, played by members of the CMF Orchestra (Tuesday, July 27).
Thursday and Friday, July 29 and 30, see the return of CMF resident artist Augustin Hadelich to play Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with Oundjian and the Festival Orchestra. The program also features two works that are distinctly less known than the Beethoven concerto: Carl Maria von Weber’s Overture to his magic opera Oberon, and the robust and engaging Dances of Galánta by Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály. Both are works I would welcome more often on orchestral programs.
Finally, the concert on Sunday, Aug. 1 will present more underplayed works, as well as two guests of significant interest. Saxophonist Steven Banks will play the Glazunov Saxophone Concerto and the Concertino da Camera for saxophone and 11 instruments by Jacques Ibert; and longtime CMF supporter and Boulder businessman Chris Christoffersen will narrate Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait.
Also on the program are Copland’s popular Fanfare for the Common Man, which inspired Tower’s fanfares; and Oundjian’s arrangement of a movement from the Second String Quartet of Florence Price, an important early 20th-century African-American composer who is being rediscovered today.
This concert is one of Oundjian’s favorites of the 2021 festival. “I love that program,” he says.
“Steven Banks is incredible. He’s a miraculous musician—honestly, every single note he plays, he’s really charismatic.”
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Colorado Music Festival Schedule July 20–Aug. 1 All concerts in Chautauqua Auditorium
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 20 St. Lawrence String Quartet
Haydn: String Quartet in D major, op. 20 no. 4
John Adams: String Quartet No. 1
Debussy: String Quartet in G minor, op. 10
7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 22 Peter Oundjian, conductor, with Ji Su Jung, marimba
Hannah Lash: Forestallings (CMF Co-commission)
Kevin Puts: Concerto for Marimba
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 14, op. 131 (orchestrated by Peter Oundjian)
7:30 p.m. Friday, July 23 “Kaleidoscope” CMF Orchestra strings and percussion, with Christopher Taylor, piano, and Ji Su Jung, marimba
Nebojsa Zivkovic: Trio per Uno
Nico Muhly: Big Time for String Quartet and Percussion
Peter Klatzow: Concert Marimba Etudes
Derek Bermel: Turning
Keith Jarrett: The Köln Concert (Part IIC)
Leigh Howard Stevens: Rhythmic Caprice
William Bolcom: Piano Quintet No. 2
6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 25 Music of Joan Tower Peter Oundjian, conductor, with Alisa Weilerstein, cello
Joan Tower: Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 5
Joan Tower: Made in America
Joan Tower: Duets
Joan Tower: A New Day for cello and orchestra (world premiere)
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 27 Colorado Music Festival Orchestra members
Beethoven: Quintet for piano and winds in E-flat major, op. 16
Beethoven: Septet in E-flat major, op. 20
7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 29 6:30 p.m. Friday, July 30 Peter Oundjian, conductor, with Augustin Hadelich, violin
Carl Maria von Weber: Overture to Oberon
Zoltán Kodály: Dances of Galánta
Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D major, op. 61
6:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 1 Peter Oundjian, conductor, with Steven Banks, saxophone, and Chris Christoffersen, narrator
Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man
Florence Price: String Quartet No. 2 (Movement 2)
Alexander Glazunov: Saxophone Concerto in E-flat major, op. 109
Jacques Ibert: Concertino da Camera
Copland: Lincoln Portrait
The full calendar for the 2021 CMF season can be seen here. Tickets may be purchased through the Chautauqua Web page. Because health restrictions are subject to change over the summer, be sure to check the CMF 2021 tickets FAQ page.
Sharps & Flatirons 