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July 18, 2025

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From American ballet to Shakespearean lovers

Anne Akiko Meyers plays moving new work by Eric Whitacre at CMF

By Peter Alexander July 18 at 1:20 a.m.

The Colorado Music Festival Orchestra presented a program of deeply expressive music last night (July 17), including a new work for violin and string orchestra by the American composer Eric Whitacre.

Chautauqua Auditorium. Photo by Geremy Kornreich.

The program, under the direction of music director Peter Oundjian, featured the violinist Anne Akiko Meyers as soloist. In addition to Whitacre’s The Pacific Has No Memory, Meyers gave a polished and captivating performance of Ravel’s virtuoso showpiece Tzigane.

The concert opened with Aaron Copland’s beloved Appalachian Spring. Written for the Martha Graham Dance Company, the music features kaleidoscopic changes of mood, from moments of quiet contemplation to moments of exuberant energy. These are more than changes of feeling; the music should reflect—or better yet—activate movement.

Oundjian and the Festival Orchestra ably captured that spirit. The quiet moments projected a delicate calmness of spirit. The hushed opening was a little hurried, but elsewhere the shifts of mood were well marked, the animated passages bursting with energy. In their solos, the winds played with great delicacy—especially the fluid clarinet solos of principal Louis DeMartino.

Anne Akiko Meyers

After the Copland, Meyers came on the stage for Tzigane, a colorful exploration of Roma fiddle tunes. From the first note, Meyers opened the floodgates of expression. Her identification with the music’s passionate spirit was reflected in her facial expressions and her dancing movements as she played. The performance was pure entertainment on the highest level.

Meyers introduced Whitacre’s piece by telling of her personal experience during the January fires in Southern California, when she and her family had to evacuate their Pacific Palisades home. Whitacre’s score memorializes the terrible losses in those fires.

In writing the music, he was inspired by the film The Shawshank Redemption, in which a character dreams of a beach on the Pacific Ocean, which he says “has no memory.” Whitacre used that thought as the source of the music’s title, The Pacific Has No Memory, and to symbolize the washing away of harsh memories. 

The music is suffused in a feeling of loss, but also consolation. In its gentle beauty, the score formed an oasis of calm at the center of the concert. No doubt reflecting her own sense of loss, Meyers gave a performance of deep expressivity.

After intermission, Oundjian has chosen works from the 19th-century that portray lovers from Shakespeare, but of wildly divergent types. First was the Overture to Béatrice and Bénédict by Berlioz. Based on Much Ado About Nothing, Berlioz’s opera follows the mad adventures of two lovers who engage in happy disputes and cheerful sparring, before finding a happy ending.

The music is flighty, protean in its moods and extreme in its contrasts. Oundjian and the Festival Orchestra embraced all the fickle leaps and bounds of the score, making it come vividly to life. As always, the Festival Orchestra negotiated the most extreme contrasts of volume, including the faintest pianissimos.

This is French music at its most effervescent, something I wish we heard more of in Boulder. And if you want to know the source of Berlioz’s uniquely mercurial style, listen to Rameau—something you are sadly unlikely to hear in the concert hall.

The second Shakespearean subject does not have a happy ending: Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy Overture Romeo and Juliet. Incorporating what Oundjian considers “one of the most beautiful melodies ever,” this one of the most eminent of war horses. But more than the love theme, memorable as it is, Tchaikovsky’s music expresses the conflict between the families, the street brawl, Juliet’s funeral procession, and the fateful blow of tragedy.

From the breathless emotion of adolescent infatuation, the love theme builds into struggle, then into transfiguration, and what one hopes is sorrowful realization and reconciliation. All of that is present in the music, and in the performance by the Festival Orchestra. In all—familiar works well played, a new work beautifully introduced, a brilliant soloist—this was one of the most invigorating concerts I have heard at CMF. 

The program will be repeated at 6:30 tonight (July 18) at the Chautauqua Auditorium. Tickets are available HERE.

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February 27, 2025

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Boulder Chamber Orchestra features “Boulder Celebrities”

Violinist Ed Dusinberre and violist Richard O’Neill will play Mozart

By Peter Alexander Feb. 27 at 5:15 p.m.

The Boulder Chamber Orchestra (BCO) traces the history of classical music on their next concert (7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 1; details below), with a concerto grosso from the Baroque era, music from the heart of the classical style, and a symphony pointing the way to the early Romantic era.

The concert under conductor Bahman Saless will feature violinist Edward Dusinberre and violist Richard O’Neill from the Takács Quartet playing Mozart’s exquisite Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola with orchestra. Two of the superstars of the classical music world, Dusinberre and O’Neill are hailed in the concert’s title as “Boulder Celebrities.”

Edward Dusinberre

Works framing the Mozart are the Concerto Grosso in F major attributed to Handel, and Schubert’s Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major. All three are bright and cheerful works, giving the entire concert an uplifting spirit.

With its two soloists, the Mozart stands as the centerpiece of the program. Dusinberre and O’Neill know each other well, having played together in the Takács since the latter joined the group five years ago. In addition to their work in the quartet, they both have concert and recording careers as soloists and both have won a classical music Grammy. 

Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante is one of the composer’s most loved pieces, and one that O’Neill has played many times. “For some violists it’s the reason they play the viola,” he says. “It’s such an amazing work, and it has been a lifetime dream for me, visiting it through different stages of my life. (There is) the joy of playing it over the years with different orchestras and different violinists, each having their own distinct views on the piece.”

He says he learns from every violinist he plays it with, but this is his first time with Dusinberre. And it’s a special experience playing with someone he knows so well from their work together in the Takács. 

“Part of the magic of being in a string quartet is that you spend so much time with your colleagues, and you get to know them under many different circumstances,” O’Neill says. “I’ve played (the Mozart) with brilliant soloists, but this time with Ed we’ve been able to dig into the more psychological aspects of the music, because we already know each other’s playing pretty well.”

Richard O’Neill

In other words, O’Neill and Dusinberre were able to skip past the early stages of getting to know a musical partner and get down to details right away. The quartet just returned to Boulder from a tour, but they were able to rehearse Mozart together on the road, O’Neill says. Now, “I’m really looking forward to working with the orchestra and Bahman (Saless),” he says.

One thing he urges the audience to tune into with the Sinfonia Concertante is how the two solo parts relate to one another. “Mozart pairs the violin and viola like they’re operatic characters,” he explains. “It’s like a conversation.

“The person that talks first often frames the way the conversation will go. In the first movement,  the violin says, then the viola says, and then the violin says and the viola says. There’s a lot of playful discussion, and then in the recapitulation—the viola says it first!”

The concerto grosso was a form common in the Baroque period, featuring a small group of soloists with orchestra. The Concerto Grosso in F features two oboes with a string orchestra. The soloists will be guest artist Ian Wisekal and BCO member Sophie Maeda. 

The Concerto is “attributed to Handel” because publishers of the time often printed and sold works that had been pirated, or changed the name of the composer, making authenticity uncertain. In the case of this concerto—which is certainly an authentic representative of the Baroque style—it has appeared under Handel’s name and as an anonymous composition.

Schubert wrote his Fifth Symphony in 1816, when he was 19 years old. It is the most classical of Schubert’s symphonies, having been written for a smaller orchestra, with one flute and no clarinets, trumpets or timpani. Schubert was infatuated with Mozart’s music, and wrote in his diary ”O Mozart, immortal Mozart!”

At the time he was unemployed, hanging out with a group of young artists, poets and musicians. The first reading of the symphony was given by this circle of friends in a private apartment, with the first public performance occurring 13 years after Schubert’s death.

The music of the symphony is often described as “Mozartian” in its gracefulness and melodiousness. It conforms closely to the standard four-movement structure of the classical period, with a minuet movement in third place. At the same time, the harmonic palette suggests the Romantic style to come, particularly in Schubert’s works of the remaining 12 years of his life.

But regarding the program’s title, the question of classical musicians being genuine “celebrities” might be debatable—but if it’s possible it would be in Boulder, where the Takács Quartet routinely sells out two performances of every program. 

Superstars or celebrities, Grammy winners both, Dusinberre and O’Neill are always worth hearing.

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“Boulder Celebrities”
Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Bahman Saless, conductor
With Edward Dusinberre, violin, and Richard O’Neill, viola

  • Handel: Concerto Grosso in F major, op. 3 no. 4
  • Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major for violin and viola with orchestra, K364
  • Schubert: Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D485

7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 1
Boulder Adventist Church, 345 Mapleton Ave.

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February 12, 2025

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GRACE NOTES: Brahms 2nd twice and drummers, all on Saturday

Boulder and Longmont symphonies at home, Kodo at Mackey

By Peter Alexander Feb. 12 at 11:15 a.m.

The Boulder Symphony joins with the Niwot High School Symphony Orchestra for a performance of the spirited Danzón No. 2 of Arturo Márquez Saturday and Sunday (Jan. 15 and 16; details below) at the Dairy Arts Center.

Other works on the program, performed by the Boulder symphony, will be a Concerto for Violin titled “Paths to Dignity” by Lucas Richman, featuring violinist Mitchell Newman; and Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 in D major. Devin Patrick Hughes will conduct.

Richman has had an extensive career as a conductor. He currently leads the Bangor Symphony Orchestra in Bangor, Maine, and was previously music director of the Knoxville Symphony in Tennessee. He has also conducted scores for a number of films, including the Grammy-nominated score for The Village. 

Mitchell Newman

As a composer, he wrote Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant based on poetry by Jack Prelutsky, which the Longmont Symphony presented with Prelutsky in 2018. His Violin Concerto “Paths to Dignity” was inspired by the lives of homeless people and composed for Newman, a longtime advocate for the homeless and member of the violin section of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. 

The concerto has four movements that share a seven-note motive representing the word “DIGNITY.” The first movement, titled “Our Stories,” uses various instruments to represent homeless persons who are answered in turn by the violin. The second movement, “Fever Dreams/Move,” describes the disturbed dreams of a veteran suffering from PTSD who is living on the streets.

The third movement, “Shelter for My Child,” uses a musical representation of the Hebrew word “Tzadek,” which means “justice.” The finale, “Finding Home,” reiterates the “Tzadek” motive and concludes with variations on the “DIGNITY” theme.

An activist in bringing music to underserved communities, Newman was named a mental health hero by the California State Senate, and founded “Coming Home to Music,” a program that brings classical music to the homeless. He retired from the L.A. Phil in 2020 and currently teaches at Temple University.

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“Harmony for Humanity”
Boulder Symphony, Devin Patrick Hughes, conductor
With Mitchell Newman, violin
Featuring the Niwot High School Symphony Orchestra

  • Arturo Márquez: Danzón No. 2
  • Lucas Richman: “Paths to Dignity” Concerto for Violin
  • Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D major

7:30 p.m. Saturday Feb. 15, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 16
Dairy Arts Center

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Also on Saturday, the Longmont Symphony Orchestra (LSO) offers a program titled “The Light after the Storm” (7 p.m. Feb. 15, details below) in which a vivid musical storm, the last of the Four Sea Interludes from the opera Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten, leads to the sunny skies of Brahms’s Second Symphony.

Clancy Newman. Photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco

Between these two contrasting works on the program is the Cello Concerto of Sir Edward Elgar, which will be performed by Clancy Newman. The LSO will be conducted by Elliot Moore.

Britten was inspired to write Peter Grimes while he was in exile from England as a conscientious objector living in the United States during World War II. While in the U.S., he read George Crabbe’s narrative poem The Borough, which describes a village on the east coast of England and its colorful inhabitants. The poem inspired Britten not only to write an opera based on the solitary Grimes, one of Crabbe’s most distinctive characters, but also to return to England. He finished the opera after his return, in 1943.

Peter Grimes was premiered to great acclaim in June 1945, shortly after the end of the war in Europe. The Four Sea Interludes—“Dawn,” “Sunday Morning,” “Moonlight” and “Storm”—are taken from the interludes Britten wrote to fill scene changes during the opera, and they contain some of the most vividly descriptive music he ever composed.

Written shortly after World War I, the Cello Concerto was Elgar’s last completed major work. The first performance was under-rehearsed and considered a failure, but later the Concerto became one of the staples of the cello repertoire. It achieved a higher level of popularity when it was famously recorded by cellist Jacqueline du Prè in 1965.

A composer and a cellist, Newman has appeared with the LSO once before, in November, 2023.  The winner of the International Naumburg Competition in 2001 and an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2004, he has performed as a soloist, with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Musicians from Marlboro.

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“The Light after the Storm”
Longmont Symphony, Elliot Moore, conductor
With Clancy Newman, cello

  • Benjamin Britten: Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes
  • Elgar: Cello Concerto
  • Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D major

7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 15
Vance Brand Civic Auditorium, Longmont

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Kodō, the renowned taiko drumming ensemble from Japan, will present a program from their current “One Earth Tour 2025” at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 15, at Macky Auditorium.

The performance is part of the Artist Series from CU Presents. Limited seats are available.

The Japanese word “kodo” has a double meaning that reflects the group’s ethos. It can mean “heartbeat,” which suggests the primal role of rhythm, but as written with different characters, it means both “drum” and “child.” The program title “Warabe” also refers to a child or children, or can refer to children’s songs. Or as the group’s program notes state, the performers are “forever children of the drum at heart.”

The “Warabe” program refers back to the repertoire and the aesthetics of the earliest incarnation of Kodō, when they were first formed out of another drumming ensemble in the 1980s. After several years of touring, they founded a village on Sado Island, off the west coast of Japan near the city of Niigata. Since their three sold-out performances at the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles, Kodō has been recognized as a global phenomenon.

Today Kodō has its own cultural foundation and a North American organization known as  Kodō Arts Sphere America. In addition to their world-wide performances, they present workshop tours that open the world of taiko drumming to ever larger audiences.

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Kodō: One Earth Tour 2025
“Warabe”
Kodō, Yuichiro Funabashi, director
Dance arrangements by Koki Miura

  • Yuta Sumiyoshi: Koe
  • Miyake (arr. by Kodō)
  • Masayasu Maeda: Niwaka
  • Motofumi Yamaguchi: Hae
  • Sumiyoshi: Uminari
  • Koki Miura: Shinka
  • Maeda: Okoshi|Reo Kitabayashi: Dokuso
  • Ryotaro Leo Ikenaga: Inochi
  • Kenta Nakagome: O-daiko (arr. Kodō)
  • Yatai-bayashi (traditional, arr. Kodō)

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 15
Macky Auditorium

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January 13, 2025

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Michael Butterman returns to Boulder Phil

Concert features world premiere, Bluegrass violin concerto, “New World” Symphony

By Peter Alexander Jan. 13 at 12:30 a.m.

Michael Butterman returned to the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra yesterday (Jan. 12) to conduct an interesting and worthwhile program, having missed the fall season due to cancer treatments.

Newly bald from chemo therapy, Butterman was welcomed by the Macky Auditorium audience with cheers and applause. He led the full program with his usual energy.

First was the world premiere of Wind, Water, Sand by Stephen Lias, inspired by Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes National Park. It is the third national park-inspired piece by Lias premiered by the Phil, after Gates of the Arctic (2014) and All the Songs that Nature Sings (Rocky Mountain, 2017). Unlike those works, Wind, Water, Sand does not have images to accompany the score. Lias has explained that he wanted this work to spur the listener’s imagination, instead of being linked to specific images of the park.

He also said the music expresses the flow of the three elements that created the park—the wind, the water, and the sand. There are closely related musical ideas that flow at various speeds, just as the three elements flow at different rates within the park.

The score opens with energetic ideas that are wonderfully evocative of motion. The intricate, rippling quality of these opening gestures suggest the wind flowing over the dunes, or the ripples of the stream that runs alongside the dunes. Thereafter, the orchestral sound is colorful and suggestive, but rarely specific enough to signal wind or water. 

The bustling opening gives way to a greater stillness, punctuated by outbursts of sound that I found evocative more of a summer storm than any of the three elements. Exciting contributions from the percussion animate this section, along with dramatic gestures from the brass that evolve into something that seems grander than sand dunes. 

Whatever one imagines, the piece is well structured from beginning to end. With its busy opening, its central section that grows in grandeur, and a return to the opening soundscape, it creates a satisfying whole.

People around me talked of the score having a cinematic quality—I heard mentions of Indiana Jones and Studio Ghibli; clearly the music struck home. On the basis of its musical qualities alone, Wind, Water, Sand deserves a future in concert halls.

Next Butterman introduced violinist Tessa Lark, who performed a piece written for her by Michael Torke. Titled Sky: Violin Concerto, it combines the structure and musical drama of the classical concerto with musical styles that reflect Lark’s fiddling skills from her native Kentucky.

Lark occupied the concerto’s unique sound world like it was home—which in a way it is. She played the dazzling first movement with fire and a Bluegrass virtuosity that elicited spontaneous applause between movements. The wistful second movement—as it is labelled in the score—presents a series of meditative ideas skillfully knit together. And the final movement, now “spirited,” gave Lark the chance to play flashy fiddling licks with energy and bravura. 

The performance was not always ideally balanced in Macky’s uneven acoustic, but that seemed not to detract from the listeners’ enjoyment. Lark’s energetic body language, including bends and emphatic stomps, added to the overall excitement. The audience called Lark back for an encore that combined her country singing skills with down-home fiddling. 

The concert concluded with another piece from America, if not by a living American: Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” Butterman and the orchestra gave an expressive performance, marked by strategic variations of tempo. If a little more than I would like, these touches marked out the expressive contours of the familiar symphony. 

The best moment was provided by the brass chorale at the outset of the second movement, resonant and reverent. The movement also featured an eloquent English horn solo on the famous “Goin’ Home” theme that was later adopted into a pseudo-spiritual by one of Dvořák’s pupils. Butterman tore into the final movement at a speedy pace, but again used strategic variations of tempo to outline the expressive contours. 

The winds played strongly throughout, giving the symphony a muscular core, but occasionally overpowering the strings. All the wind solos were well played, including the treacherous horn solos and lovely contributions from the flute and clarinet. 

CORRECTION 1/13: The composer Stephen Lias’ name was incorrectly listed as Michael in the first version of this review.

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November 14, 2024

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“Evening of Romance” in Vance Brand Auditorium

Longmont Symphony hosts violinist Andrew Sords Saturday

By Peter Alexander Nov. 14 at 9:24 p.m.

The Longmont Symphony Orchestra (LSO) returns to its long-time home venue, Vance Brand Civic Auditorium at Skyline High School, at 7 p.m. Saturday (Nov. 16; details below) for their second concert of the 2024–25 season.

Conductor Elliot Moore with the Longmont Symphony Orchestra

The opening concert on Oct. 7 was in the Longmont High School Auditorium while Vance Brand Auditorium was under repair. Saturday’s concert, titled “An Evening of Romance,” will be conducted by Elliot Moore, the LSO’s music director. Featured soloist Andrew Sords will perform Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy.

Other works on the program will be Mendelssohn’s Overture The Hebrides (also known as Fingal’s Cave); Debussy’s impressionist tone poem Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the afternoon of a faun); and the Suite from Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss. The concert will be preceded at 6 p.m. by a pre-concert talk by Moore.

Entrance to Fingal’s Cave, Staffa

The Concert Overture The Hebrides is one of Mendelssohn’s most popular works. It was inspired by Mendelssohn’s 1829 visit to the island of Staffa off the coast of Scotland. Staffa is famous for it’s basalt formation known as “Fingal’s Cave.” The music was written to stand alone as a concert overture. As such it is virtually a symphonic poem inspired by the spectacular cave.

The German composer Max Bruch wrote his Fantasie für die Violine mit Orchester und Harfe unter freier Benutzung schottischer Volksmelodien—happily just known as The Scottish Fantasy—for the great Spanish violin virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate. Bruch had never been to Scotland when he wrote the Fantasy in 1879–80, but he had seen a book of Scottish folk songs in a library in Munich.

Violinist Andrew Sords

Although titled a fantasy, the work is structured in four movements much like a traditional concerto, and in some performances it was in fact called “Concerto for Violin (Scotch)” and “Third Violin Concerto (with free use of Scottish melodies).” Each of the movements is based on a separate Scottish folk song.

Debussy’s atmospheric Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun is known for its languid opening flute solo and its role in establishing the impressionist style in music—as conductor and composer Pierre Boulez wrote, “the flute of the faun brought new breath to the art of music.” Debussy wrote the Prelude in 1894 and it achieved greater fame and notoriety when it was given a highly suggestive treatment by the Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky in 1912.

Richard Strauss’ comic opera Der Rosenkavalier—a nearly untranslatable word that means loosely “the rose cavalier”—is one of Strauss’ greatest and most popular operas. It was written to a libretto by the Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannstal in 1909–10 and premiered in Dresden in 1911. Its comic situations and deep exploration of the characters’ personalities make it one of the most human and touching operas in the repertoire.

The opera itself was quickly translated into other languages and performed widely in Europe soon after the premiere. The Viennese-style waltzes and other memorable numbers from the opera have been popular as music for orchestral concerts, as reflected in the suite.

The American violinist Andres Sords has had a highly successful career as a soloist, appearing with nearly 300 orchestras on four continents. He also performs in a trio with John Walz, cello and Timothy Durkovic, piano, in addition to solo recital appearances. He grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Southern Methodist University in Dallas. 

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“An Evening of Romance”
Longmont Symphony Orchestra, Elliot Moore, conductor
With Andrew Sords, violin

  • Mendelssohn: The Hebrides Concert Overture
  • Max Bruch: Scottish Fantasy
  • Debussy: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the afternoon of a faun)
  • Richard Strauss: Suite from Der Rosenkavalier

7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16
Vance Brand Civic Auditorium

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October 29, 2024

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GRACE NOTES: Curiosity entertains while the Baroque blooms

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.

Statue of La Llorana at Xochimilco, Mexico. Photo by KatyaMSL.

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.

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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

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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. 

Zachary Carrettin

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.

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“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

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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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February 5, 2024

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Boulder Bach Festival presents new music from Iceland Saturday 

Mystery Sonata, the duo of Mina Gajić, piano, and Zachary Carrettin, violin, will perform

By Peter Alexander Feb. 5 at 6 p.m.

The duo Mystery Sonata, comprising pianist Mina Gajić and violinist Zachary Carrettin, will present a program of new music from Iceland at the Gordon Game Theater Saturday (4 p.m. Feb. 10, Dairy Arts Center).

Mystery Sonata: Mina Gajić and Zachary Carrettin

The program carries the title “Aequora,” a Latin word meaning the calm, even surface of the sea. As executive director and music director respectively of the Boulder Bach Festival, Gajić and Carrettin often perform together on the festival’s concert series. In this case they are playing works from a niche of the contemporary repertoire that is little known in the United States, including works that were specifically written for them. 

Composers on the program are Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Páll Ragnar Pálsson, Daníel Bjarnason and María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir. All are living composers in their 40s who began their music studies in their native Iceland but have gone on to carve out international careers in music. Thorvaldsdóttir had graduate studies in the United States at  the University of California, San Diego, and won the 2012 Nordic Council Music Prize.

Bjarnason has a relationship with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who have commissioned and premiered several of his works. Conductors who have performed his orchestral works include Gustavo Dudamel, John Adams and James Conlon. 

The youngest of the four composers, Sigfúsdóttir has worked as a violinist in a string quartet, as a member of the Icelandic band Amiina, with pop artists including Sigur Rós and Lee Hazelwood, and on film soundtracks. The title of the program derives from her work for orchestra,  Aequora. 

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“Aequora”
Mystery Sonata: Mina Gajić, piano, and Zachary Carrettin, violin

  • Music by Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Páll Ragnar Pálsson, Daníel Bjarnason and María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir

4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 10
Gordon Gamm Theater, Dairy Arts Center

TICKETS

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Colorado Music Festival announces summer festival schedule

Subscriptions now available; single tickets on sale March 5

By Peter Alexander Feb. 4 at 4 p.m.

The Colorado Music Festival (CMF) has announced its 2024 festival season, July 5 through Aug. 4 at Chautauqua Auditorium in Boulder.

Chautauqua Auditorium. Photo by Jeremy Kornreich

This year’s festival will present 19 performances in 31 days—between four and five weeks and slightly shorter than recent previous festival seasons. In addition to the Festival Orchestra made up of musicians from around the country, it will feature the world premiere of a new piece by Gabriela Lena Frank; four Tuesday evening concerts on the Robert Mann Chamber Music Series, performed by members of the Festival Orchestra and the visiting Danish String Quartet; and guest artists including the CU-based Takács Quartet, cellist Alisa Weilerstien, and returning CMF favorites pianist Olga Kern and violinist Augustin Hadelich.

Performances by the full Festival Orchestra will be most Thursday and Friday evenings at 7:30 and 6:30 p.m. respectively. Orchestral concerts at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday will generally feature a smaller ensemble. The full festival schedule is listed below.

Gabriela Lena Frank

A highlight of the season will be the premiere of a new orchestral work with string quartet by Franks on July 21 (see details below). The summer’s only world premiere, the performance will feature the Takács Quartet. Other works by living composers will be featured throughout the summer, including Masquerade by Anna Clyne; Short Ride in a Fast Machine by John Adams, who was CMF composer-in-residence in 2022; Two Mountain Scenes by Kevin Puts, a work that was commissioned by the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival and the New York Philharmonic in 2007; and Joan Tower’s Concerto for Orchestra.

Anton Bruckner

On July 14 conductor Peter Oundjian and the CMF Orchestra will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Austrian composer Anton Bruckner with a performance of his Symphony No. 4 (“Romantic”). On the same program CMF will celebrate the 150th anniversary of Arnold Schoenberg’s birth with a performance of his late Romantic work for strings Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night). 

The annual CMF family concert at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, July 7, will feature some shorter standard classical overtures by Mikhail Glinka and Mendelssohn, as well as a performance of composer Rob Kapilow’s setting of Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham. Also on the program is Three Fun Fables, a setting for narrator and orchestra of three of Aesop’s fables by Daniel Dorff, who is known for numerous works that introduce music and musical instruments to young audiences.

Alisa Weilerstein. Photo by Marco Borggreve

Outstanding guest artists have always been a feature of the CMF. This summer’s guest soloists will be:
—Cellist Alisa Weilerstein, a member of a renowned musical family, playing the Dvořák Cello Concerto on the opening night program, July 5 and 7;
—the playful ensemble Really Inventive Stuff, a favorite on past CMF summer schedules, and the mezzo-soprano Jennifer DeDominici for the family concert July 7;
—violinist Vadim Gluzman playing the Prokofiev Second Violin Concerto July 9;
—pianist Olga Kern playing the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto July 18 and 19;
—Colorado Public Radio personality Kabin Thomas narrating Greig’s music for for Henrik Ibsen’s verse play Peer Gynt, alsoJuly 18 and 19;
—the Takács Quartet playing the world premiere of Gabriel Lena Frank’s new work July 21;
—pianist Awadagin Pratt, playing J.S. Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in A major and Jessie Montgomery’s Rounds for piano and string orchestra July 25 and 26;
—the Danish String Quartet, who last appeared at CMF in 2022, playing a varied program that ranges from Haydn to Stravinsky to the 18th-century blind Celtic harpist Turlough O’Carolan July 30;
—violinist Augustin Hadelich, returning to CMF to play Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto Aug. 1 and 2; and
—soprano Karina Gauvin to sing Ravel’s song cycle Shéhérazade and the final movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 on the Festival Finale concert, Aug. 4.

Subscription tickets are currently available for the Colorado Music Festival. Tickets to individual concerts will go on sale through the Chautauqua Box Office March 5. More information on CMF tickets, including discounted youth and student tickets, is available HERE.

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Colorado Music Festival, Peter Oundjian, music director
Summer 2024
All performances in Chautauqua Auditorium

Opening Night
Festival Orchestra, Peter Oundjian, conductor
With Alisa Weilerstein, cello

  • Anna Clyne: Masquerade (2013)
  • Dvořák: Cello Concerto in B minor
  • Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 in A major (“Italian”)

6:30 p.m. Friday and Sunday, July 5 and 7

Family Concert: Green Eggs and Ham
Festival Orchestra, Jacob Joyce, conductor 
With Really Inventive Stuff and Jennifer DeDominici, mezzo-soprano 

  • Glinka: Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla
  • Daniel Dorff: Three Fun Fables
  • Mendelssohn: Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  • Rob Kapilow: Green Eggs and Ham

10:30 a.m. Sunday, July 7

Robert Mann Chamber Music Series
Colorado Music Festival musicians 

  • Ernst von Dohnányi: Sextet in C Major
  • Beethoven: “Duet with two Obligato Eyeglasses” in E-flat major for viola and cello, WoO 32
  • Schumann: Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, op. 47

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 9

Festival Orchestra Concert
Festival Orchestra, Peter Oundjian, conductor
With Vadim Gluzman, violin

  • John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine
  • Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2 
  • Stravinsky: Rite of Spring

7:30 p.m. Thursday July 11
6:30 p.m. Friday, July 12  

Bruckner Bicentennial Concert
Festival Orchestra, Peter Oundjian, conductor

  • Arnold Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (“Transfigured night”), op. 4
  • Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 (“Romantic”)

6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 14

Robert Mann Chamber Music Series
Colorado Music Festival musicians 

  • Carl Nielsen: Wind Quintet, op. 43
  • Schubert: String Quintet in C Major, D956

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 16

Festival Orchestra Concert
Festival Orchestra, Rune Bergmann, conductor
With Olga Kern, piano, and Kabin Thomas, narrator

  • Vivian Fung: Prayer
  • Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2, op. 18
  • Edvard Grieg: Suites from Peer Gynt

7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 18
6:30 p.m. Friday, July 19

Festival Chamber Orchestra Concert
Festival Orchestra, Peter Oundjian, conductor
With the Takács Quartet and Gabriela Lena Frank, composer 

  • Florence Price: Adoration
  • Gabriela Lena Frank: World Premiere
  • Joan Tower: Concerto for Orchestra

6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 21

Robert Mann Chamber Music Series
Colorado Music Festival musicians

  • Joseph Haydn, String Quartet in C Major, op. 20 no. 2
  • Claude Debussy, Sonata for flute, viola and harp
  • Felix Mendelssohn, String Octet in E-flat Major, op. 20

7:30p.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

  • Johann Strauss: Overture to Die Fledermaus
  • Ravel: Shéhérazade
  • Mahler: Symphony No. 4 in G major

6:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 4

Information on Subscription tickets is available HERE.
Single concert tickets will go on sale March 5.

NOTE: A correction was made Feb. 10. An earlier version of the story said that the 2024 festival would last four weeks. The correct length is 31 days—between four and five weeks.