Colorado MahlerFest Announces 2020 Virtual Colorado MahlerFest - May 13-17, 2020

The Colorado MahlerFest, which had previously announced the cancellation of this year’s in-person festival, announces the 2020 Virtual Colorado MahlerFest, May 13-17, 2020. The festival has curated a collection of performances, films, a virtual symposium, art gallery, and more which will be released each day at 3:30 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time. Materials will be released across a number of online platforms and collected at MahlerFest.org/MahlerFest-Online/.

The Virtual Festival was modeled after plans for MahlerFest XXXIII, which would have taken place in Boulder at the same time. A performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony is the final video to be released. It will be preceded by performances of visiting composer, Philip Sawyers’ tone poem, Hommage to Kandinsky, which was scheduled for the final performance with the symphony, and Act I of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre, which was planned for a unique presentation in the underground parking garage of Boulder’s Twenty Ninth Street shopping district.

“Canceling this year’s festival was a particularly painful step,” says MahlerFest’s Artistic Director Kenneth Woods. “We had worked all year to put together what we felt was the most dynamic and ambitious program the festival has ever delivered. Reinterpreting those plans into something we could present online was a new challenge. We are proud of what we have assembled and excited to share it.”

An entire schedule for the festival can be found at MahlerFest.org/MahlerFest-Online/. Highlights include:

• A special message from the co-founder of Wynkoop Brewing Company and former Colorado Governor, the The Honorable John Hickenlooper
• Virtual Symposium including a touching film made for the occasion by cultural historian Gavin Plumley about why Mahler is a good composer for self-isolation, an interview with visiting composer Philip Sawyers, and podcasts and discussions with musicologist Peter Davison
• Boulder-based pianist David Korevaar performs Schubert from his home
• Lieder Recital with Soprano and Festival Artist April Frederick performing a song cycle by visiting composer Philip Sawyers
• Hommage to Kandinksy – a recording of the tone poem scheduled to be performed with Mahler’s Second Symphony at the final concert of MahlerFest XXXIII
• Of Love, Death and Beyond – Jason Starr’s movie exploring the music influences and personal drama that resulted in Mahler’s Second Symphony
• Opera Online – a performance of Act I of Wagner’s Die Walküre arranged by Francis Griffin
• Mahler’s Second Symphony in a performance which features musicians from some the best American orchestras conducted by Neeme Järvi with soloists Susanne Mentzer, mezzo soprano and Twyla Robinson, soprano

Colorado MahlerFest is one of only two North American organizations, alongside the New York Philharmonic, to receive the Gold Medal of the International Gustav Mahler Society. Renowned author Norman Lebrecht recently said of the festival that “The Colorado MahlerFest in and around the city of Boulder is one of the boldest musical initiatives of modern times...a byword among Mahler scholars and followers for its uncluttered idealism, its uncommon altitude (5,430 feet high) and its internationally resonant scholarship and recordings.”

Funding for the Colorado MahlerFest comes from the Daniel W. Dietrich II Foundation, the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District, the Sosnow Foundation, and the Boulder Arts Commission.

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Colorado MahlerFest’s mission is to celebrate the legacy of composer Gustav Mahler through an annual festival featuring all of Mahler’s musical output as well as contextual cultural and educational events. The organization was founded in 1988 by Artistic Director Emeritus Robert Olson who, after studying in Vienna on a Fulbright scholarship, recognized the similarities the beautiful Colorado landscape and Mahler’s summertime composing locations. Notable achievements include a 2000 Colorado State Senate proclamation that the festival enriches the lives of the Colorado public and receiving the International Gustav Mahler Society of Vienna’s rare Gold Medal (the only American orchestra to receive this award other than Mahler’s own New York Philharmonic). Olson retired in 2015 and was succeeded by Kenneth Woods, an internationally active, American-born conductor, currently also the Artistic Director of the English Symphony Orchestra. During Woods’ tenure MahlerFest has shifted from almost entirely volunteer-based to a training orchestra model with Festival Artists inspiring students of all ages.

MahlerFest.org