2015 Festival Focus Week 5

YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

FESTIVAL FOCUS

Supplement to The Aspen Times

New Lecture Series with Robert Spano!

Aspen Music Festival and School Music Director Robert Spano gives audiences a sneak peak into the world of conducting in a new lecture series.

Join Maestro Spano in Harris Concert Hall for these free events August 4, 11, and 18, at 3:30 pm, as he explores the art form of conducting.

In addition to the lecture, on August 11 audiences can stay to enjoy the Maestro’s “Conducting Master Class” at 4 pm in the Benedict Music Tent, during which he will go in depth into Stravinksy’s masterful work, The Rite of Spring.

Monday, July 27, 2015

Vol 26, No. 5

Lugansky returns after triumphant 2014 debut Although neither of his parents were musicians, the pianist recalls his childFor pianist Nikolai Lugansky it was hood home being full of music at all never a question of if he would pursue times, from records and radio to his a career in music, but when. mother casually playing the piano. “My It all began when his father, a physi- parents adored music,” Lugansky says. cist, brought home a “There is a story in toy piano. “He was my family that my fatrying to play some ther decided to marry melody, a Soviet my mother when she, song, and I came unknowingly, bought up to him and told tickets to his favorite him he was playing opera and asked him the wrong notes and if he would like to that he should play come along.” it correctly,” LuganIt was in that nursky remembers. turing environment Lugansky’s father that Lugansky conimmediately recogtinued his studies nized the talent in and began compethis young son, and, ing internationally. at the age of seven, He was a prize-winLugansky entered ner at the Internathe Central School tional Bach Compeof Music in Moscow. tition in Leipzig in While there he stud1988 and at the AllNikolai Lugansky ied with renowned Union Rachmaninoff Pianist teachers and piaCompetition in nists Tatiana Niko1990. Then in 1994, laeva and Sergei Dorensky, who is cur- at the age of twenty-two, Lugansky rently the director of the Tchaikovsky stunned audiences, taking home first School of Music in Moscow. prize at the International Tchaikovsky “I was so lucky to have that educa- Competition, a victory that catapulted tion, especially at that time, and so him into the public eye. thankful that my parents appreciated See Lugansky, Festival Focus page 3 the arts,” Lugansky says.

TORIE ROSS

Festival Focus writer

“Chopin’s music forms such a special connection for a pianist and [his First Piano Concerto] is one of my favorite concertos. It’s just a beauty. A beauty of form, of notes, and of [melodic] language.”

MARCO BORGGREVE

Pianist Nikolai Lugansky returns to the AMFS for his second summer, following an acclaimed performance in 2014.

Double bill of opera comedies at the Wheeler this week TORIE ROSS

Festival Focus writer

The Aspen Opera Theater Center (AOTC) will open its second production of the season this week with a double bill of contemporary operatic comedies: Steven Stucky’s The Classical Style: An Opera (Of Sorts) and Christopher Theofanidis’s The Cows of Apollo (or, The Invention of Music). The performances will run this Thursday, July 30, and Saturday, August 1, at 7 pm.

Although double-billed performances are not common for the AOTC, Director Edward Berkeley explains the program is fitting because both stories focus on the existence of music. “These two operas are very different, but what brings them together is that they explore the idea of music from two diverse perspectives,” Berkeley explains.

The evening will open with the world premiere of the

fully staged presentation of The Classical Style: An Opera (Of Sorts).

The opera, which was co-commissioned by the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS), the Ojai Music Festival, Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley, and Carnegie Hall, was composed by AMFS artist-faculty member Stucky with a libretto by AMFS alumnus pianist Jeremy Denk.

The Classical Style is based on the celebrated academic book of the same name by pianist Charles Rosen, which explores the works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.

However, far from taking an academic tone, Stucky and Denk take a humorous approach to the work. “The genius of it is that he has turned this theoretical academic work into a live action opera, full of comedy, nuSee AOTC, Festival Focus page 3

RYAN CUTLER/AMFS

AMFS Music Director, and conductor of The Classical Style, Robert Spano works with cast members during a rehearsal.

Buy tickets now! (970) 925-9042 or www.aspenmusicfestival.com

Page 2 | Monday, July 27, 2015

FESTIVAL FOCUS: Your Weekly Classical Music Guide

Supplement to The Aspen Times

Rafael Payare and Joyce Yang perform with APO TORIE ROSS Festival Focus writer

Conductor Rafael Payare and pianist Joyce Yang were each fourteen when they first heard a piece of music that resonated with them so profoundly that it changed the course of their lives.

For Payare, it was Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture emanating from his brother’s room. “I walked into his room asking what that music was. It was never the same for me after that,” Payare says. The Venezuela native began playing the French horn soon after, quickly becoming a student in the country’s celebrated El Sistema music program.

As for Yang, she had already been playing piano for almost a decade when she heard the National Symphony Orchestra perform Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. “I sat there, in the audience, weeping for half an hour. I never knew music could do that to me. All of a sudden music became this powerful force that I needed to be a part of. I wanted to inspire people the same way,” Yang says. After that, she devoted herself even more intensely to her piano studies.

While Yang continued on with the piano into her professional career, attending the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) as a piano student and going on to win the silver medal at the 2005 Van Cliburn International Competition, Payare eventually discovered his intense passion for conducting. “It had always been in the back of my mind as something that

I wanted to do, but then one day we had a visiting maestro come to the orchestra I was playing in, and he didn’t speak a word of Spanish. But as soon as he walked on to the stage, he had complete control and he changed the course of the performance without a single word. I thought to myself, ‘Wow, I want to do that,’” Payare explains. He changed his focus and went on to win first prize at the prestigious Malko Competition for young conductors.

Now internationally celebrated artists, Yang and Payare will join forces this Wednesday, July 29, at the AMFS when they perform together with the Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, which is made up of some of the very best young musicians drawn from all over the world. Payare will conduct the orchestra through all three pieces of the evening’s program.

The program includes Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain, Liszt’s Totentanz, and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.

Yang, who collaborated on the program with Payare, will perform both the Falla and Liszt pieces along with the APO. “I’ve always been interested in what I perceive as colorful music. When I first heard Nights in the Gardens of Spain I immediately saw these vibrant jewel colors. It works so well in a concert setting because it immediately transports the audience to a new place, no matter what city it’s being played in,” says Yang. “And then you bring in Totentanz, which immediately wakes the audience

OH SEOK HOON

Pianist Joyce Yang will join conductor Rafael Payare for a performance in the Benedict Music Tent on July 29.

up from their dream-like state.” (“Totentanz,” lively and virtuosic, is translated as “dance of the dead.”)

Although Yang has been performing in Aspen ever since she was seventeen years old—first as a student and then as a guest artist—this will be Payare’s AMFS debut. Payare’s wife, longtime Aspen favorite Alisa Weilerstein, has also been attending and performing at the Festival since she was a child. “I have heard about Aspen for so many years from my wife, I can’t wait to finally be there and experience the atmosphere for myself,” Payare says.

Buy tickets now: (970) 925-9042 • www.aspenmusicfestival.com

Supplement to The Aspen Times

FESTIVAL FOCUS: Your Weekly Classical Music Guide

Monday, July 27, 2015 | Page 3

Lugansky: Pianist presents Chopin’s First Piano Concerto Continued from Festival Focus page 1

He returns to Aspen this week, following up a crowd-pleasing and critically acclaimed Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) debut last summer. “Nikolai took Aspen by storm last year with his performance of Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto,” says Asadour Santourian, vice president of artistic administration and artistic director for the AMFS. “We certainly loved having him here, and the unexpected surprise for Lugansky was that he loved what he saw here and how much of Aspen he was able to discover. So, he immediately accepted the invitation to return this year.”

Lugansky will take to the Benedict Music Tent stage this Friday, July 31, with a performance of Chopin’s First Piano Concerto, performing with the Aspen Chamber Symphony.

The pianist, who cites Aspen as “one of the most unbelievable places he’s ever

performed,” says he is excited to share Chopin with AMFS audiences. “Chopin’s music forms such a special connection for a pianist and this is one of my favorite concertos. It’s just a beauty. A beauty of form, of notes, and of [melodic] language,” Lugansky says.

In addition to attending his performance with the Aspen Chamber Symphony, audiences will get a chance to interact with the pianist on a more personal scale at an intimate artist dinner featuring Lugansky, which will be held on Saturday, August 1. The evening will include cocktails, a musical presentation, and a seated dinner with the artist.

As the Festival excitedly prepares for Lugansky’s return, hopes are high that this isn’t the last Aspen audiences will be seeing of the Russian pianist. “Hopefully this is the establishment of a long-time presence over the next many years with Lugansky,” says Santourian.

Aspen Music Festival and School Box Office Hours

MARCO BORGGREVE

In addition to his performance, Lugansky will be featured at an intimate artist dinner on Saturday, August 1, at a private residence, to benefit the AMFS.

Harris Concert Hall: 9 am through the intermission of the evening concert, daily.

Wheeler Opera House: 9 am–5 pm daily.

Opera coach Merrill mentors promising singers AOTC: Double bill Continued from Festival Focus page 1

TORIE ROSS

Festival Focus writer

Let the world never underestimate the power of a good mentor. Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) artist-faculty member and senior opera coach Kenneth Merrill knows this perhaps better than anyone, as it was one of his own professors during his time at The Juilliard School that guided the young Merrill’s career in opera coaching.

“I started at school as a solo pianist, but I quickly discovered that there was a vast amount of collaborative literature that was so wonderful. It was really my professor that pushed me in that direction,” Merrill says. “After graduation, vocal coaching just came as a natural progression. “As a coach, Merrill would accompany singers on the piano during rehearsals, guiding them through the score and preparing them for their performance.

It was in 1980, one of the first summers after Merrill graduated, that he came to work with the AMFS and the Aspen Opera Theater Center (AOTC). “Aspen was a huge factor in my career. It was because of the work I did that summer with AOTC that I received my first full-time teaching job,” he says.

Thirty-five summers later, Merrill continues coming back, molding young singers and musicians, and juggling a myriad of responsibilities. This summer for example, Merrill is coaching young singers for the AOTC’s third production of the summer, Mozart’s Così fan tutte, teaching an Opera Scenes Master Class on the works of Mozart, teaching a weekly art song class for singers and collaborative pianists, and working individually with collaborative pianists and AOTC student opera coaches.

Wearing multiple hats is nothing new to Merrill who, besides being on faculty at both The Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music during the academic year, is also an accomplished conductor and harpsichordist. In fact, he says he relishes in the challenge and the opportunity to experience

RYAN CUTLER/AMFS

Senior opera coach Kenneth Merrill has been mentoring opera students in Aspen since 1980.

more works. “All my roles support one another in a way,” Merrill explains. “I’m the type of artist who loves to explore different repertoires and different time periods, and these positions really allow me to do that.”

As for his students, Merrill says he likes to lead by example, fostering their passion through a deep and complete understanding of the composers and their music. “One of my main goals is to help my students come to an understanding of the style, the shapes of the music, the words that enhance the music and combine with melody and rhythm, orchestra and color, all those types of things,” he explains. “In the end, it’s all about sharing in the process with your students. By evolving your methods to match their progression of learning, you can show your enthusiasm and the care you have for the work they are doing.”

ances, and double entendres,” says Asadour Santourian, vice president of artistic administration and artistic advisor of the AMFS. Returning AMFS opera student Johnathan McCullough plays the work’s “walking encyclopedia” of an author, Charles Rosen. “This opera brings so many styles together in such a hilarious way,” McCullough says. “It takes you on this journey from the beginning of the classical style all the way to modern music.”

McCullough notes that his favorite thing to do during the performance is trying to catch all the references and jokes made about music during the opera.

“Writing an opera based on a musicological text may seem absurd, but its sense of humor is so great that it works,” Berkeley says, adding, “Steven Stucky is such a smart composer that the music itself also has a sense of humor and wit, which is terrific.”

Later in the evening, the AOTC will present The Cows of Apollo (or, The Invention of Music). In this Greek myth “whodunit,” Apollo loses his herd of sacred cows, only to find that his scheming brother Hermes has stolen them, turning one of the cows into a lyre, the first musical instrument. “[The opera] explores the loss of innocence and the idea that you have to lose something to find something truly beautiful, in this case music, but it does it in an incredibly smart and funny way,” says Berkeley.

Soprano Elizabeth Novella, who plays the role of Apollo’s mother, says she loves the work because the music is accessible to those who love traditional opera. “A lot of contemporary music has the reputation of being unapproachable to people outside of the classical world, but this is an opera for everyone because it’s simply music that sounds really good,” Novella explains.

Santourian feels the combination of the works is sure to delight audiences, thanks to their quick wit and uproarious sense of humor. “What could be better,” he says, “than putting two genius comedies one after the other, with both exploring the subject of music in such a unique way?”