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Press Releases
Aspen Music Festival and School Announces 2016 Season
ASPEN, Colo.—The Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) today announced its 68th season, running from June 30 to Aug. 21 with more than 400 events and featuring its signature wide variety of musical works, periods and performers. At the 2016 AMFS, America’s past, present and future collide, with a special celebration of great American composers of yesteryear, plus a showcase of America’s best young talent, this year adding those from America’s El Sistema programs, and the grand opening of a new $80 million, state-of-the-art campus.
The 2016 Aspen Music Festival and School could well be said to be presenting a kind of musical Big Bang — one of those moments when forces connect and explode onto the stage. The present certainly is always foremost at the AMFS — with the richest legacy of premieres every year of any U.S. festival and a long roll-call of today’s brightest star performers, many of them AMFS alumni; indeed, this year’s festival will open with the return of alumna Renée Fleming and feature many other illustrious alumni such as Midori, Joshua Bell, Edgar Meyer and Gil Shaham. The past, of course, is the stock-in-trade of classical music, but this year Aspen enriches it by taking a special, season-long look back at 20th century musical America and some of its rarely heard masterpieces. And the charge into music’s future is being well and truly forged, with the opening of the Bucksbaum Campus, already the winner of prestigious American Institute of Architects prizes.
Meanwhile, vistas open up in other ways as the Aspen Music Festival and School both welcomes an important initiative and sends an ensemble of its own to New York. As a partner (with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Bard’s Longy School Music, Venezuela’s FundaMusical and others) of the National Take a Stand Festival (NTASF), Aspen hosts NTASF’s first regional youth orchestra camp (June 24-29). And as a partner organization for the New York Philharmonic Biennial, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble is New York-bound to play the Whitney Museum of American Art (7/8) and David Geffen Hall (7/11) in a stimulating program of works never before played in New York City, including ones by Steven Stucky, who will lead the programs, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
An American Musical Century This season sees an ambitious passion project for the Aspen Music Festival and School, and one with resonances for America itself — nothing less than the rediscovery of an entire era of American classical music. The great orchestral composers of the 20th century, who did so much to forge an American sound, are rarely performed. The AMFS will seek to kick-start a revival of interest in these composers with “An American Musical Century,” a strong programming strand across the season. Highlights will include George Antheil’s Archipelago, “Rhumba;” Korngold’s Violin Concerto, played by the AMFS’ 2016 Dorothy DeLay Prize Winner Blake Pouliot; Aspen alumnus Gil Shaham playing the magnificent violin concerto of Roger Sessions; Leon Botstein, longtime champion of this music, conducting Peter Mennin’s Symphony No. 5 and Walter Piston’s Symphony No. 2; and Aspen alumnus James Gaffigan conducting Roy Harris’ Symphony No. 3. There will also be public talks as well as chamber music around the theme and a day-long forum with Leon Botstein and his wife Barbara Haskill, a curator of, among other things, modernist art at the Whitney Museum of American Art, presented in collaboration with the Aspen Institute.
“This music means so much to so many musicians who know how important it is,” says AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher, himself a composer and former student of Roger Sessions. “But it’s also terrifically entertaining — variously colorful, gripping, tuneful and dramatic. These sounds are not new to our ears today. These figures, many of whom came to Aspen, invented the sound world we now live in. Korngold was the father of film music. Roger Sessions taught so many composers, from Elmer Bernstein to John Adams. Peter Mennin created a fresh, compelling tonal world. Roy Harris was a household name thanks to his Third Symphony, a huge popular hit beloved of Leonard Bernstein and Koussevitsky.”
He continues, “But while we all rightly love 20th century music from abroad, from Stravinsky to Ravel, for some reason we’re in danger of ignoring so much of our own great music, which is to say our own cultural DNA.”
It is, points out Fletcher, a phenomenon of music history that entire canons of great music have often remained essentially out of sight until rediscoveries by important musicians ensured that their time had come.
Fletcher cites large swathes of Baroque music, Mozart (who had fallen out of favor until Brahms and others took up his cause), and Mahler as composers whose music underwent this process of rediscovery.
"It sometimes takes the advocacy of prominent musicians to curate our past for us," says Fletcher, "And then we all reap the rewards for years to come. I hope that Aspen can be part of starting this process for America's own musical century."
“An American Musical Century” – concert highlights include: • Antheil Archipelago, “Rhumba;” Korngold Violin Concerto, Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, Blake Pouliot (violin), conductor Hugh Wolff (7/6) • Mennin Symphony No. 5, Piston Symphony No. 2, Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Leon Botstein (7/13) • Sessions Violin Concerto, Aspen Chamber Symphony, Gil Shaham (violin), conductor Patrick Summers (7/22) • Argento “Tango” from “The Dream of Valentino,” Aspen Festival Orchestra, conductor Hugh Wolff (7/24) • Ives “Central Park in the Dark” and Harris Symphony No. 3, Aspen Festival Orchestra, conductor James Gaffigan (8/14)
White Nights Theme: Voices of Russian, Nordic and Alaskan Composers A strand running through the 2016 festival explores music of the Arctic Circle — composers in the lands where the night turns white. The centerpiece is the hypnotic opera by the great Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho called “L’Amour de loin” (“Love from afar”) with a libretto by Lebanese poet Amin Marouf. It will be conducted by AMFS Music Director Robert Spano. Composed as a joint commission for the Salzburg Festival, Santa Fe Opera and Theatre du Chatalet, Paris, in 2000, the New York Times said of the Salzburg showing, “A haunting and resonant work…important…often transfixing.” Yet although the opera, inspired by the 12th century troubadour Jaufre Rudel and “La vida breve,” has been similarly successful in other countries since, this remains a rare chance in America to see perhaps the first major opera of our century. The semi-staged presentation will be graced by Metropolitan Opera star Susanna Phillips, soprano, who will perform the role at the Metropolitan Opera in the 2016-2017 season, Grammy-Award-winner Kelley O’Connor, mezzo-soprano, and the New York Virtuoso Singers.
On Aug. 3, violinist Jennifer Koh offers two chamber works of Saariaho’s: “Frises” and “Graal (Grail) théâtre,” a violin concerto based on the Arthurian legend, and longtime (and former) Alaskan John Luther Adams’ outdoor percussion work, “Inuksuit” will be performed outside the Benedict Music Tent before the afternoon orchestral concert on Aug. 7 (see more on this, below). Also scheduled are Rautavaara’s Incantations (7/5); Sibelius’ Symphony No. 1 in E minor, op. 39 (7/6) and Symphony No. 2 in D major (7/12); Lindberg’s Arena (7/12); Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor (7/12); Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, op. 45 (7/3), Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor (July 24) and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (8/7); Stravinsky’s Symphony in C (7/10), Petrushka (8/16), Violin Concerto in D major (8/16) and Firebird suite (8/16); Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, op. 16, (8/14), Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (8/13); Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 in E minor (7/17) and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (7/17), Symphonies Nos. 5 and 2 (8/2, 8/3) and “Romeo and Juliet” Fantasy Overture (8/3). More related chamber music works will be announced by April 1.
Shakespeare and Music Four hundred years after the death of the most revered playwright the world has ever known, the Aspen Music Festival explores the many and varied composers who were inspired by his work. Among the Bard-infused works: selections from Berlioz’s “Romeo et Juliette” conducted by Robert Spano (8/21), Berlioz’s “Béatrice et Bénédict” (8/16, 8/18, 8/20); Mendelssohn’s ever-popular Overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (8/12); Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” Fantasy Overture (8/3) and an full evening of songs by Purcell and devoted to Shakespearean characters driven mad by the intensity of their love (Songs of Love and Madness, works by Purcell, Berlioz and Thomas, 7/20). More related chamber music works will be announced by April 1.
John Luther Adams’ “Inuksuit” The New Yorker’s Alex Ross described Pulitzer Prize-winner John Luther Adams’ sprawling, outdoors work “Inuksuit” — a percussive piece that uses the open air as its acoustic canvas — as “the ultimate environmental piece.” This epic composition for large percussion ensemble will be performed on the David Karetsky Music Lawn outside the Benedict Music Tent on Aug. 7, following an outdoor performance in Vail on July 6. The performances are a co-presentation of the AMFS and Bravo! Vail. Both will be free and open to the public.
Premiered in New York in 2012 "Inuksuit,” written for between nine and 99 percussionists, strives to provide an ever-changing soundtrack to the enormity of the earth itself. The parts are all notated, but the timing and coordination of the playing is left up to the performers. Adams has said of it, “At a certain point the music becomes too big for the concert hall, so then you have no choice but to move outside.” Listeners are invited to wander freely through the (musical and actual) landscape, so not only is each performance unique, so is the journey of each individual listener.
Jonathan Biss Launches Three-Year Beethoven Piano Sonata Project from Aspen “Beethoven sonatas have been a constant presence in my life,” writes young piano star Jonathan Biss on his website. He continues, “‘Presence’ is too mild a word, though: ‘force’ comes a bit closer to conveying the space he occupies in my heart and head.” Biss has played Beethoven Piano Sonatas for most of his life and in 2011 began recording them. His plan is to record all 32 by 2020. Meanwhile, in 2016, he launches a three-year project to perform them all, beginning in Aspen this summer. He will perform 14 sonatas over three recitals this summer, including the popular “Appassionata” and “Moonlight” sonatas (8/2, 8/16, 8/17).
Premieres in 2016 World premieres for 2016 season include Robert Spano’s Piano Sonata “Four Elements” and Mohammed Fairouz’s song cycle “Typhoid Mary” with texts by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon. Fairouz is the first Arab American to have an opera produced on an American stage and the youngest composer in the 115-year history of Deutsche Grammophon to have an album dedicated to his works (“Follow, Poet,” 2015). He frequently draws inspiration from poetry and philosophy; Gramophone has described him as a “post-millennial Schubert.” “Typhoid Mary” will be performed with the Aspen Chamber Symphony on Aug. 19 with Cristian Macelaru conducting and Kate Lindsey, mezzo-soprano, singing. Other world premieres are Weijun Chen’s New Work, AMFS commission (7/27); Eric Nathan’s Brass Quintet, AMFS commission (7/27) and Libby Larsen’s “Ferlinghetti” for clarinet and piano (8/13). A U.S. Premiere is Sebastian Currier’s “Glow,” AMFS co-commission (8/18), and an Area Premiere is Joel Hoffman’s “of Deborah for Deborah,” AMFS co-commission (8/20).
Aspen Alumni Performing in 2016 Alumni of the Aspen Music Festival and School performing on the 2016 season schedule include: Adele Anthony, violin; Joshua Bell, violin; Sarah Chang, violin; Ray Chen, violin; Jeremy Denk, piano; David Finckel, cello; Reneé Fleming, soprano; James Gaffigan conductor; William Hagen, violin; Sharon Isbin, guitar; Robert McDuffie, violin; Edgar Meyer, bass; Midori, violin; Tomáš Netopil, conductor; Simone Porter, violin; Gil Shaham, violin; Orli Shaham piano; Alisa Weilerstein, cello; Wu Han, piano; Joyce Yang, piano and the American Brass Quintet, the American String Quartet, the Emerson String Quartet, the Jupiter Quartet and the Takács Quartet. Artists Making Their Aspen Debut in 2016 Performers making their AMFS summer performance debuts are: Behzod Abduramov, piano; Noah Bendix-Balgley, violin; Leon Botstein, conductor; Noel Bouley, baritone*; Colin Davin, guitar*; Hector Del Curto Quintet; Mahan Esfahani, harpsichord; Kate Lindsey, mezzo-soprano; New York Virtuoso Singers; Harold Rosenbaum, director; Yeol Eum Son, piano; Ramón Tebar, conductor; Arie Vardi, piano and Amanda Woodbury, soprano*. (* indicates AMFS alumnus)
Aspen Partners in National Take a Stand Festival Regional Youth Orchestra Camp In the 2016 Aspen Music Festival’s first week, AMFS will be the site of the first regional youth orchestra camp of the National Take a Stand Festival, the new initiative to create a national youth orchestra with children from El-Sistema-inspired programs in the U.S. Partners in the initiative are the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Bard College and Longy School of Music of Bard College and FundaMusical (the Venezuelan foundation associated with El Sistema), in cooperation with El Sistema USA.
The National Take a Stand Festival is a three-year project that began in 2015 with a teacher training and pilot program, followed by two regional youth orchestra camps in 2016, including the one in Aspen, culminating in a seven-day national youth orchestra camp in 2017, featuring a final performance led by Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director Gustavo Dudamel. The camp in Aspen, June 24 to 29, will bring students from all over the country for a program that will focus on musicianship and leadership and culminate in a free public concert in the Benedict Music Tent on June 28 conducted by AMFS Music Director Robert Spano. More information is at http://www.laphil.com/education/yola/take-stand-festival.
AMFS Participates in New York Philharmonic Biennial In June, the AMFS will present a concert as part of the New York Philharmonic’s Biennial, which is a three-week exploration of today’s music by an array of contemporary and modern composers. The 2016 NY Phil Biennial will feature works by 74 composers, spanning in age and experience from students to iconic legends.
Since its inception, the AMFS has been a national leader in the creation and performance of new music, so it is fitting it will present a program at the new Whitney Museum of American Art of works never before performed in New York City (6/8). The program is curated and led by AMFS artist-faculty member and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky and features the AMFS’ Aspen Contemporary Ensemble (ACE) and works by young Aspen alumni Thomas Kotcheff, Nina C. Young and Christopher Stark, AMFS faculty Stucky and Stephen Hartke, and a work by Esa-Pekka Salonen that ACE performed to acclaim in its final concert in summer 2015. ACE will give another concert in David Geffen Hall of a Stucky New York Premiere and a Salonen piece (6/11).
The Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies This eight-week intensive program is highlighted by individual study with some of today’s most highly regarded and frequently performed living composers. Composers-in-residence are Steven Stucky, George Tsontakis and Sydney Hodkinson, along with Stephen Hartke, Kaija Saariaho, William Bolcom and AMFS Music Director Robert Spano and AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher, both active composers. Visiting composers include Libby Larsen, Eric Nathan, Mohammed Fairouz, Joel Hoffman, Sebastian Currier and Weijun Chen.
Community Collaborations The Festival continues its commitment to community collaborations with a wide variety of lectures and enrichment events with Aspen organizations such as the Aspen Public Radio, the Aspen Institute, Jazz Aspen Snowmass, the Aspen Art Museum, the Basalt Public Library, the Carbondale Public Library, Aspen Film and the Anderson Ranch Arts Center.
Other Notable Events Super star soprano and Aspen alumna Renée Fleming will join Maestro Spano and the Aspen Festival Orchestra in performance on the opening weekend, singing R. Strauss’ Four Last Songs. (7/3).
The Aspen Opera Center presents three fully staged operas at the Wheeler Opera House this summer. The season kicks off with one of the canon’s most heart-breaking love stories, Puccini’s “La bohème” (7/14, 16, 18), conducted by Ramón Tebar and directed by AOC Director Edward Berkeley; followed by William Bolcom’s “A Wedding,” a hilarious retelling of Robert Altman's 1978 comedic film of the same name (7/28, 7/30), conducted by Patrick Summers. And the opera season concludes with an adaptation of Shakespeare’s sunny comedy “Much Ado about Nothing,” Berlioz’s “Béatrice et Bénédict” (8/16, 8/18, 8/20), conducted by Johannes Debus and directed by Edward Berkeley.
The AOC features singers who are just embarking on their professional careers. The program’s influence is reflected in Aspen’s notable alumni, including Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, Jamie Barton, Ying Fang, Bryan Hymel, Isabel Leonard, Brian Mulligan and Ryan McKinny. Aspen alumna Sarah Chang returns to perform Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires in a special event evening called Viva Piazzolla! (7/28)
The first half of the program features Argentine tango bandoneon player Héctor Del Curto playing Piazzolla’s Bandoneon Concerto. Del Curto will also present a concert with the Héctor Del Curto Tango Quintet called “Eternal Tango” (7/25).
Motown icon Smokey Robinson will perform in the Benedict Music Tent with his legendary high tenor voice, impeccable timing and charisma. Robinson’s career spans more than four decades, and includes numerous awards and induction into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. “The Tracks of My Tears,” “I Second that Emotion,” and “You Really Got a Hold on Me” are just a few of his many showstoppers. (7/2)
The Emerson String Quartet celebrates its 40th anniversary in concert with a program featuring Hadyn’s String Quartet in D minor, H. III/76, op. 76, no. 2, “Fifths,” Berg’s Lyrische Suite, and Brahms’ String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, op. 51, no. 2 (7/19).
Aspen alumnus and violinist Joshua Bell returns to play the Saint-Saëns Violin Concerto with the Aspen Chamber Symphony. Robert Spano conducts the program that also includes Mahler’s Fourth Symphony (7/15).
The season closes with Carl Orff’s Carmina burana. Led by AMFS Music Director Robert Spano, this rousing masterpiece will be performed by singers Amanda Woodsbury, Matthew Plenk and Noel Bouley, the Aspen Festival Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony Chorus and the Colorado Children’s Chorale. Based on a collection of 13th-century songs with bawdy lyrics, the work is full of earthly humor and celebrates the joys of the tavern, nature, love and lust (8/21).
Grand Opening of Matthew and Carolyn Bucksbaum Campus The 38-acre Matthew and Carolyn Bucksbaum Campus will see the completion of its full redevelopment. On the site will be three state-of-the-art, acoustically designed rehearsal halls, buildings for teaching studios, three sets of practice rooms, a cafeteria and administrative offices, as well as two historic buildings from the 1890s for a total of 103,000 square feet. Stunningly designed by locally based, award-winning architect Harry Teague, who also designed the AMFS’ Benedict Music Tent (2000) and Harris Concert Hall (1993), the buildings combine a contemporary-industrial chic with angles and materials evocative of the surrounding mountains, sky and water.
Phase One, finished in 2014, has already won the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Western Mountain Region 2015 Design Excellence Honor Award under the Distinguished Building category. The campus redevelopment will provide the world’s top musicians who come to Aspen each summer premier facilities for teaching and rehearsing. It will be the perfect complement to the world-class performing facilities of the Benedict Music Tent and Harris Concert Hall and set the AMFS among the top facilities for studying and performing (and hearing) music in the world.|
The AMFS shares the Campus in a unique and sustainable partnership with Aspen Country Day School. All spaces are dual use, meeting the needs of each institution in their distinctive seasons of the year. Learn more and follow the construction progress at www.BucksbaumCampus.org.
About the Music Festival and School The Aspen Music Festival and School is the United States’ premier classical music festival, presenting more than 400 musical events during its eight-week summer season in Aspen. The institution draws top classical musicians from around the world to this Colorado mountain retreat for an unparalleled combination of performances and music education. Many events are free and seating on the David Karetsky Music Lawn and in the Music Garden is always free.
More than 630 music students from more than 40 U.S. states and more than 40 countries come each summer to play in five orchestras, sing, conduct, compose and study with approximately 130 renowned artist-faculty members. Students represent the field’s best talent; many have already begun their professional careers, and others are on the cusp.
Renowned alumni include violinists Joshua Bell, Sarah Chang, Cho-Liang Lin, Robert McDuffie, Midori, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Gil Shaham; pianists Ingrid Fliter, Orli Shaham, Conrad Tao, Yuja Wang, Wu Han and Joyce Yang; conductors Marin Alsop, James Conlon, James Levine, Leonard Slatkin and Joshua Weilerstein; composers William Bolcom, Philip Glass, David Lang, Augusta Read Thomas, Bright Sheng and Joan Tower; vocalists Jamie Barton, Danielle de Niese, Sasha Cooke, Renée Fleming, and Dawn Upshaw; cellists Lynn Harrell and Alisa Weilerstein; guitarist Sharon Isbin; performer Peter Schickele and bassist Edgar Meyer. Aspen Music Festival and School 225 Music School Road, Aspen, CO 81611 www.aspenmusicfestival.com
970-925-9042 box office phone | 970-925-3254 administration phone Also see the AMFS on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Robert Spano Biography: Full bio at: http://www.robertspanomusic.com/artist.php?view=bio As music director at the Aspen Music Festival and School and music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Spano is respected worldwide for his conducting, performance and championing of music of our time. Recent highlights include Britten’s War Requiem in Carnegie Hall and Verdi’s Aida in Atlanta, the world premiere of Steven Stucky’s The Classical Style in Ojai and its stage premiere in Aspen in 2015. Another Aspen highlight was the August 2014 premiere of Spano’s Hölderlin Songs with soprano Susanna Phillips. Last season, Maestro Spano conducted two world premieres with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra—Christopher Theofanidis’ Creation/Creator and Michael Gandolfi’s Imaginary Numbers—and joined both the Houston Grand Opera for Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” and Houston Symphony for a Higdon/Chopin program.
Spano is on the faculty of Oberlin Conservatory and has received honorary doctorates from Bowling Green State University, the Curtis Institute of Music, Emory University and Oberlin. He was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2012 and is proud to live in Atlanta.
Ticket Information Aspen offers the ultimate in flexibility for patrons with passes, the most convenient way to attend concerts. Passes are available at a variety of level from ultimate access and convenience to the beset bargain. Buy tickets and passes through the following: Online: www.aspenmusicfestival.com Phone: 970-925-9042 (M-F, 9-5) Fax: 970-925-8077 Mail: AMFS Box Office, 225 Music School Road, Aspen, CO 81611 Harris Concert Hall box office opens for walk-up business on May 23. Wheeler Opera House Box Office opens for walk-up business on June 28. ###
The 2016 Aspen Music Festival and School could well be said to be presenting a kind of musical Big Bang — one of those moments when forces connect and explode onto the stage. The present certainly is always foremost at the AMFS — with the richest legacy of premieres every year of any U.S. festival and a long roll-call of today’s brightest star performers, many of them AMFS alumni; indeed, this year’s festival will open with the return of alumna Renée Fleming and feature many other illustrious alumni such as Midori, Joshua Bell, Edgar Meyer and Gil Shaham. The past, of course, is the stock-in-trade of classical music, but this year Aspen enriches it by taking a special, season-long look back at 20th century musical America and some of its rarely heard masterpieces. And the charge into music’s future is being well and truly forged, with the opening of the Bucksbaum Campus, already the winner of prestigious American Institute of Architects prizes.
Meanwhile, vistas open up in other ways as the Aspen Music Festival and School both welcomes an important initiative and sends an ensemble of its own to New York. As a partner (with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Bard’s Longy School Music, Venezuela’s FundaMusical and others) of the National Take a Stand Festival (NTASF), Aspen hosts NTASF’s first regional youth orchestra camp (June 24-29). And as a partner organization for the New York Philharmonic Biennial, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble is New York-bound to play the Whitney Museum of American Art (7/8) and David Geffen Hall (7/11) in a stimulating program of works never before played in New York City, including ones by Steven Stucky, who will lead the programs, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
An American Musical Century This season sees an ambitious passion project for the Aspen Music Festival and School, and one with resonances for America itself — nothing less than the rediscovery of an entire era of American classical music. The great orchestral composers of the 20th century, who did so much to forge an American sound, are rarely performed. The AMFS will seek to kick-start a revival of interest in these composers with “An American Musical Century,” a strong programming strand across the season. Highlights will include George Antheil’s Archipelago, “Rhumba;” Korngold’s Violin Concerto, played by the AMFS’ 2016 Dorothy DeLay Prize Winner Blake Pouliot; Aspen alumnus Gil Shaham playing the magnificent violin concerto of Roger Sessions; Leon Botstein, longtime champion of this music, conducting Peter Mennin’s Symphony No. 5 and Walter Piston’s Symphony No. 2; and Aspen alumnus James Gaffigan conducting Roy Harris’ Symphony No. 3. There will also be public talks as well as chamber music around the theme and a day-long forum with Leon Botstein and his wife Barbara Haskill, a curator of, among other things, modernist art at the Whitney Museum of American Art, presented in collaboration with the Aspen Institute.
“This music means so much to so many musicians who know how important it is,” says AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher, himself a composer and former student of Roger Sessions. “But it’s also terrifically entertaining — variously colorful, gripping, tuneful and dramatic. These sounds are not new to our ears today. These figures, many of whom came to Aspen, invented the sound world we now live in. Korngold was the father of film music. Roger Sessions taught so many composers, from Elmer Bernstein to John Adams. Peter Mennin created a fresh, compelling tonal world. Roy Harris was a household name thanks to his Third Symphony, a huge popular hit beloved of Leonard Bernstein and Koussevitsky.”
He continues, “But while we all rightly love 20th century music from abroad, from Stravinsky to Ravel, for some reason we’re in danger of ignoring so much of our own great music, which is to say our own cultural DNA.”
It is, points out Fletcher, a phenomenon of music history that entire canons of great music have often remained essentially out of sight until rediscoveries by important musicians ensured that their time had come.
Fletcher cites large swathes of Baroque music, Mozart (who had fallen out of favor until Brahms and others took up his cause), and Mahler as composers whose music underwent this process of rediscovery.
"It sometimes takes the advocacy of prominent musicians to curate our past for us," says Fletcher, "And then we all reap the rewards for years to come. I hope that Aspen can be part of starting this process for America's own musical century."
“An American Musical Century” – concert highlights include: • Antheil Archipelago, “Rhumba;” Korngold Violin Concerto, Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, Blake Pouliot (violin), conductor Hugh Wolff (7/6) • Mennin Symphony No. 5, Piston Symphony No. 2, Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Leon Botstein (7/13) • Sessions Violin Concerto, Aspen Chamber Symphony, Gil Shaham (violin), conductor Patrick Summers (7/22) • Argento “Tango” from “The Dream of Valentino,” Aspen Festival Orchestra, conductor Hugh Wolff (7/24) • Ives “Central Park in the Dark” and Harris Symphony No. 3, Aspen Festival Orchestra, conductor James Gaffigan (8/14)
White Nights Theme: Voices of Russian, Nordic and Alaskan Composers A strand running through the 2016 festival explores music of the Arctic Circle — composers in the lands where the night turns white. The centerpiece is the hypnotic opera by the great Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho called “L’Amour de loin” (“Love from afar”) with a libretto by Lebanese poet Amin Marouf. It will be conducted by AMFS Music Director Robert Spano. Composed as a joint commission for the Salzburg Festival, Santa Fe Opera and Theatre du Chatalet, Paris, in 2000, the New York Times said of the Salzburg showing, “A haunting and resonant work…important…often transfixing.” Yet although the opera, inspired by the 12th century troubadour Jaufre Rudel and “La vida breve,” has been similarly successful in other countries since, this remains a rare chance in America to see perhaps the first major opera of our century. The semi-staged presentation will be graced by Metropolitan Opera star Susanna Phillips, soprano, who will perform the role at the Metropolitan Opera in the 2016-2017 season, Grammy-Award-winner Kelley O’Connor, mezzo-soprano, and the New York Virtuoso Singers.
On Aug. 3, violinist Jennifer Koh offers two chamber works of Saariaho’s: “Frises” and “Graal (Grail) théâtre,” a violin concerto based on the Arthurian legend, and longtime (and former) Alaskan John Luther Adams’ outdoor percussion work, “Inuksuit” will be performed outside the Benedict Music Tent before the afternoon orchestral concert on Aug. 7 (see more on this, below). Also scheduled are Rautavaara’s Incantations (7/5); Sibelius’ Symphony No. 1 in E minor, op. 39 (7/6) and Symphony No. 2 in D major (7/12); Lindberg’s Arena (7/12); Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor (7/12); Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, op. 45 (7/3), Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor (July 24) and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (8/7); Stravinsky’s Symphony in C (7/10), Petrushka (8/16), Violin Concerto in D major (8/16) and Firebird suite (8/16); Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, op. 16, (8/14), Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (8/13); Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 in E minor (7/17) and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (7/17), Symphonies Nos. 5 and 2 (8/2, 8/3) and “Romeo and Juliet” Fantasy Overture (8/3). More related chamber music works will be announced by April 1.
Shakespeare and Music Four hundred years after the death of the most revered playwright the world has ever known, the Aspen Music Festival explores the many and varied composers who were inspired by his work. Among the Bard-infused works: selections from Berlioz’s “Romeo et Juliette” conducted by Robert Spano (8/21), Berlioz’s “Béatrice et Bénédict” (8/16, 8/18, 8/20); Mendelssohn’s ever-popular Overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (8/12); Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” Fantasy Overture (8/3) and an full evening of songs by Purcell and devoted to Shakespearean characters driven mad by the intensity of their love (Songs of Love and Madness, works by Purcell, Berlioz and Thomas, 7/20). More related chamber music works will be announced by April 1.
John Luther Adams’ “Inuksuit” The New Yorker’s Alex Ross described Pulitzer Prize-winner John Luther Adams’ sprawling, outdoors work “Inuksuit” — a percussive piece that uses the open air as its acoustic canvas — as “the ultimate environmental piece.” This epic composition for large percussion ensemble will be performed on the David Karetsky Music Lawn outside the Benedict Music Tent on Aug. 7, following an outdoor performance in Vail on July 6. The performances are a co-presentation of the AMFS and Bravo! Vail. Both will be free and open to the public.
Premiered in New York in 2012 "Inuksuit,” written for between nine and 99 percussionists, strives to provide an ever-changing soundtrack to the enormity of the earth itself. The parts are all notated, but the timing and coordination of the playing is left up to the performers. Adams has said of it, “At a certain point the music becomes too big for the concert hall, so then you have no choice but to move outside.” Listeners are invited to wander freely through the (musical and actual) landscape, so not only is each performance unique, so is the journey of each individual listener.
Jonathan Biss Launches Three-Year Beethoven Piano Sonata Project from Aspen “Beethoven sonatas have been a constant presence in my life,” writes young piano star Jonathan Biss on his website. He continues, “‘Presence’ is too mild a word, though: ‘force’ comes a bit closer to conveying the space he occupies in my heart and head.” Biss has played Beethoven Piano Sonatas for most of his life and in 2011 began recording them. His plan is to record all 32 by 2020. Meanwhile, in 2016, he launches a three-year project to perform them all, beginning in Aspen this summer. He will perform 14 sonatas over three recitals this summer, including the popular “Appassionata” and “Moonlight” sonatas (8/2, 8/16, 8/17).
Premieres in 2016 World premieres for 2016 season include Robert Spano’s Piano Sonata “Four Elements” and Mohammed Fairouz’s song cycle “Typhoid Mary” with texts by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon. Fairouz is the first Arab American to have an opera produced on an American stage and the youngest composer in the 115-year history of Deutsche Grammophon to have an album dedicated to his works (“Follow, Poet,” 2015). He frequently draws inspiration from poetry and philosophy; Gramophone has described him as a “post-millennial Schubert.” “Typhoid Mary” will be performed with the Aspen Chamber Symphony on Aug. 19 with Cristian Macelaru conducting and Kate Lindsey, mezzo-soprano, singing. Other world premieres are Weijun Chen’s New Work, AMFS commission (7/27); Eric Nathan’s Brass Quintet, AMFS commission (7/27) and Libby Larsen’s “Ferlinghetti” for clarinet and piano (8/13). A U.S. Premiere is Sebastian Currier’s “Glow,” AMFS co-commission (8/18), and an Area Premiere is Joel Hoffman’s “of Deborah for Deborah,” AMFS co-commission (8/20).
Aspen Alumni Performing in 2016 Alumni of the Aspen Music Festival and School performing on the 2016 season schedule include: Adele Anthony, violin; Joshua Bell, violin; Sarah Chang, violin; Ray Chen, violin; Jeremy Denk, piano; David Finckel, cello; Reneé Fleming, soprano; James Gaffigan conductor; William Hagen, violin; Sharon Isbin, guitar; Robert McDuffie, violin; Edgar Meyer, bass; Midori, violin; Tomáš Netopil, conductor; Simone Porter, violin; Gil Shaham, violin; Orli Shaham piano; Alisa Weilerstein, cello; Wu Han, piano; Joyce Yang, piano and the American Brass Quintet, the American String Quartet, the Emerson String Quartet, the Jupiter Quartet and the Takács Quartet. Artists Making Their Aspen Debut in 2016 Performers making their AMFS summer performance debuts are: Behzod Abduramov, piano; Noah Bendix-Balgley, violin; Leon Botstein, conductor; Noel Bouley, baritone*; Colin Davin, guitar*; Hector Del Curto Quintet; Mahan Esfahani, harpsichord; Kate Lindsey, mezzo-soprano; New York Virtuoso Singers; Harold Rosenbaum, director; Yeol Eum Son, piano; Ramón Tebar, conductor; Arie Vardi, piano and Amanda Woodbury, soprano*. (* indicates AMFS alumnus)
Aspen Partners in National Take a Stand Festival Regional Youth Orchestra Camp In the 2016 Aspen Music Festival’s first week, AMFS will be the site of the first regional youth orchestra camp of the National Take a Stand Festival, the new initiative to create a national youth orchestra with children from El-Sistema-inspired programs in the U.S. Partners in the initiative are the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Bard College and Longy School of Music of Bard College and FundaMusical (the Venezuelan foundation associated with El Sistema), in cooperation with El Sistema USA.
The National Take a Stand Festival is a three-year project that began in 2015 with a teacher training and pilot program, followed by two regional youth orchestra camps in 2016, including the one in Aspen, culminating in a seven-day national youth orchestra camp in 2017, featuring a final performance led by Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director Gustavo Dudamel. The camp in Aspen, June 24 to 29, will bring students from all over the country for a program that will focus on musicianship and leadership and culminate in a free public concert in the Benedict Music Tent on June 28 conducted by AMFS Music Director Robert Spano. More information is at http://www.laphil.com/education/yola/take-stand-festival.
AMFS Participates in New York Philharmonic Biennial In June, the AMFS will present a concert as part of the New York Philharmonic’s Biennial, which is a three-week exploration of today’s music by an array of contemporary and modern composers. The 2016 NY Phil Biennial will feature works by 74 composers, spanning in age and experience from students to iconic legends.
Since its inception, the AMFS has been a national leader in the creation and performance of new music, so it is fitting it will present a program at the new Whitney Museum of American Art of works never before performed in New York City (6/8). The program is curated and led by AMFS artist-faculty member and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky and features the AMFS’ Aspen Contemporary Ensemble (ACE) and works by young Aspen alumni Thomas Kotcheff, Nina C. Young and Christopher Stark, AMFS faculty Stucky and Stephen Hartke, and a work by Esa-Pekka Salonen that ACE performed to acclaim in its final concert in summer 2015. ACE will give another concert in David Geffen Hall of a Stucky New York Premiere and a Salonen piece (6/11).
The Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies This eight-week intensive program is highlighted by individual study with some of today’s most highly regarded and frequently performed living composers. Composers-in-residence are Steven Stucky, George Tsontakis and Sydney Hodkinson, along with Stephen Hartke, Kaija Saariaho, William Bolcom and AMFS Music Director Robert Spano and AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher, both active composers. Visiting composers include Libby Larsen, Eric Nathan, Mohammed Fairouz, Joel Hoffman, Sebastian Currier and Weijun Chen.
Community Collaborations The Festival continues its commitment to community collaborations with a wide variety of lectures and enrichment events with Aspen organizations such as the Aspen Public Radio, the Aspen Institute, Jazz Aspen Snowmass, the Aspen Art Museum, the Basalt Public Library, the Carbondale Public Library, Aspen Film and the Anderson Ranch Arts Center.
Other Notable Events Super star soprano and Aspen alumna Renée Fleming will join Maestro Spano and the Aspen Festival Orchestra in performance on the opening weekend, singing R. Strauss’ Four Last Songs. (7/3).
The Aspen Opera Center presents three fully staged operas at the Wheeler Opera House this summer. The season kicks off with one of the canon’s most heart-breaking love stories, Puccini’s “La bohème” (7/14, 16, 18), conducted by Ramón Tebar and directed by AOC Director Edward Berkeley; followed by William Bolcom’s “A Wedding,” a hilarious retelling of Robert Altman's 1978 comedic film of the same name (7/28, 7/30), conducted by Patrick Summers. And the opera season concludes with an adaptation of Shakespeare’s sunny comedy “Much Ado about Nothing,” Berlioz’s “Béatrice et Bénédict” (8/16, 8/18, 8/20), conducted by Johannes Debus and directed by Edward Berkeley.
The AOC features singers who are just embarking on their professional careers. The program’s influence is reflected in Aspen’s notable alumni, including Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, Jamie Barton, Ying Fang, Bryan Hymel, Isabel Leonard, Brian Mulligan and Ryan McKinny. Aspen alumna Sarah Chang returns to perform Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires in a special event evening called Viva Piazzolla! (7/28)
The first half of the program features Argentine tango bandoneon player Héctor Del Curto playing Piazzolla’s Bandoneon Concerto. Del Curto will also present a concert with the Héctor Del Curto Tango Quintet called “Eternal Tango” (7/25).
Motown icon Smokey Robinson will perform in the Benedict Music Tent with his legendary high tenor voice, impeccable timing and charisma. Robinson’s career spans more than four decades, and includes numerous awards and induction into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. “The Tracks of My Tears,” “I Second that Emotion,” and “You Really Got a Hold on Me” are just a few of his many showstoppers. (7/2)
The Emerson String Quartet celebrates its 40th anniversary in concert with a program featuring Hadyn’s String Quartet in D minor, H. III/76, op. 76, no. 2, “Fifths,” Berg’s Lyrische Suite, and Brahms’ String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, op. 51, no. 2 (7/19).
Aspen alumnus and violinist Joshua Bell returns to play the Saint-Saëns Violin Concerto with the Aspen Chamber Symphony. Robert Spano conducts the program that also includes Mahler’s Fourth Symphony (7/15).
The season closes with Carl Orff’s Carmina burana. Led by AMFS Music Director Robert Spano, this rousing masterpiece will be performed by singers Amanda Woodsbury, Matthew Plenk and Noel Bouley, the Aspen Festival Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony Chorus and the Colorado Children’s Chorale. Based on a collection of 13th-century songs with bawdy lyrics, the work is full of earthly humor and celebrates the joys of the tavern, nature, love and lust (8/21).
Grand Opening of Matthew and Carolyn Bucksbaum Campus The 38-acre Matthew and Carolyn Bucksbaum Campus will see the completion of its full redevelopment. On the site will be three state-of-the-art, acoustically designed rehearsal halls, buildings for teaching studios, three sets of practice rooms, a cafeteria and administrative offices, as well as two historic buildings from the 1890s for a total of 103,000 square feet. Stunningly designed by locally based, award-winning architect Harry Teague, who also designed the AMFS’ Benedict Music Tent (2000) and Harris Concert Hall (1993), the buildings combine a contemporary-industrial chic with angles and materials evocative of the surrounding mountains, sky and water.
Phase One, finished in 2014, has already won the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Western Mountain Region 2015 Design Excellence Honor Award under the Distinguished Building category. The campus redevelopment will provide the world’s top musicians who come to Aspen each summer premier facilities for teaching and rehearsing. It will be the perfect complement to the world-class performing facilities of the Benedict Music Tent and Harris Concert Hall and set the AMFS among the top facilities for studying and performing (and hearing) music in the world.|
The AMFS shares the Campus in a unique and sustainable partnership with Aspen Country Day School. All spaces are dual use, meeting the needs of each institution in their distinctive seasons of the year. Learn more and follow the construction progress at www.BucksbaumCampus.org.
About the Music Festival and School The Aspen Music Festival and School is the United States’ premier classical music festival, presenting more than 400 musical events during its eight-week summer season in Aspen. The institution draws top classical musicians from around the world to this Colorado mountain retreat for an unparalleled combination of performances and music education. Many events are free and seating on the David Karetsky Music Lawn and in the Music Garden is always free.
More than 630 music students from more than 40 U.S. states and more than 40 countries come each summer to play in five orchestras, sing, conduct, compose and study with approximately 130 renowned artist-faculty members. Students represent the field’s best talent; many have already begun their professional careers, and others are on the cusp.
Renowned alumni include violinists Joshua Bell, Sarah Chang, Cho-Liang Lin, Robert McDuffie, Midori, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Gil Shaham; pianists Ingrid Fliter, Orli Shaham, Conrad Tao, Yuja Wang, Wu Han and Joyce Yang; conductors Marin Alsop, James Conlon, James Levine, Leonard Slatkin and Joshua Weilerstein; composers William Bolcom, Philip Glass, David Lang, Augusta Read Thomas, Bright Sheng and Joan Tower; vocalists Jamie Barton, Danielle de Niese, Sasha Cooke, Renée Fleming, and Dawn Upshaw; cellists Lynn Harrell and Alisa Weilerstein; guitarist Sharon Isbin; performer Peter Schickele and bassist Edgar Meyer. Aspen Music Festival and School 225 Music School Road, Aspen, CO 81611 www.aspenmusicfestival.com
970-925-9042 box office phone | 970-925-3254 administration phone Also see the AMFS on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Robert Spano Biography: Full bio at: http://www.robertspanomusic.com/artist.php?view=bio As music director at the Aspen Music Festival and School and music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Spano is respected worldwide for his conducting, performance and championing of music of our time. Recent highlights include Britten’s War Requiem in Carnegie Hall and Verdi’s Aida in Atlanta, the world premiere of Steven Stucky’s The Classical Style in Ojai and its stage premiere in Aspen in 2015. Another Aspen highlight was the August 2014 premiere of Spano’s Hölderlin Songs with soprano Susanna Phillips. Last season, Maestro Spano conducted two world premieres with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra—Christopher Theofanidis’ Creation/Creator and Michael Gandolfi’s Imaginary Numbers—and joined both the Houston Grand Opera for Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” and Houston Symphony for a Higdon/Chopin program.
Spano is on the faculty of Oberlin Conservatory and has received honorary doctorates from Bowling Green State University, the Curtis Institute of Music, Emory University and Oberlin. He was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2012 and is proud to live in Atlanta.
Ticket Information Aspen offers the ultimate in flexibility for patrons with passes, the most convenient way to attend concerts. Passes are available at a variety of level from ultimate access and convenience to the beset bargain. Buy tickets and passes through the following: Online: www.aspenmusicfestival.com Phone: 970-925-9042 (M-F, 9-5) Fax: 970-925-8077 Mail: AMFS Box Office, 225 Music School Road, Aspen, CO 81611 Harris Concert Hall box office opens for walk-up business on May 23. Wheeler Opera House Box Office opens for walk-up business on June 28. ###
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