Festival Focus July 23, 2018

FESTIVALFOCUS YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ASPEN TIMES

MONDAY, JULY 23, 2018

VOL 29, NO. 5

Harris Concert Hall celebrates twenty-five years of music

Irving and Joan Harris led the campaign to build the new 500-seat concert hall and gave the lead gift that named Harris Concert Hall. They shared and supported a vision that ushered in a new era for the Festival and School.

LAURA E. SMITH

Festival Focus Writer

Twenty five years ago, the Aspen Music Festival and School debuted the 500-seat Harris Concert Hall, and it literally and figuratively changed the musical landscape in Aspen, and beyond.

The story of its building has become well known as part of Festival lore, starting with its vision and support by none other than its namesakes, Irving and Joan Harris. “Harris Hall began as a dream,” remembers Joan. She was responsible for the campaign to fund the Hall and had been pitching other donors on making the lead gift. One day, after one such fundraising dinner but as yet no lead gift, she and her husband flew home to Chicago from Aspen. As the plane landed, she remembers, Irving said to her, “Oh, I forgot to

ROY WILLEY

ALEX IRVIN

Architect Harry Teague designed the fully underground structure with acoustician Charles Salter. The warm, woody hall has sometimes been compared to the “inside of a cello.”

Despite record snowfall during construction, Harris Concert Hall opened on August 20, 1993. Pinchas Zukerman, Renée Fleming, and others performed in the opening weekend of concerts.

tell you something. I figured out who can name the hall.”

“Really, who?” she asked.

“We can,” he said.

After that, fundraising continued apace, followed by construction during the winter of 1992-93 on a tight schedule, during a season of near-record snowfall. Architect Harry Teague had designed a fully underground structure that would offer full sound isolation, and which he imagined, in metaphor, as an excavation of a huge instrument buried in the ground. One of his team compared it, as a warm, woody enclosure, to “being inside of a cello.”

In August 1993, all hurdles had been cleared and the Hall was ready for its debut. Building a hall is a risky endeavor. It must be beautiful, yes, and comfortable for musicians and patrons, yes, but the entire definition of its success is in its

sound.

The opening weekend of concerts was as grand and celebratory as hoped. Pinchas Zukerman played Vivaldi concertos with six music students, Renée Fleming sang, a full orchestra squeezed in for Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony.

The New York Times was in attendance and proclaimed the hall, indeed, a success, “a gem in the making,” the review said, where “the various sonorities of the instruments have good detail yet juicy reverberance, wonderful character, naturalness, fullness and bloom.”

The artists who perform in it agree. Interviewed for the Hall’s 20th anniversary, musicians gushed over their experiences in the space. “One of the great chamber music halls See Hall, Festival Focus page 3

Pacifica Quartet performs recital, leads Aspen quartet program CAITLIN CAUSEY

Festival Focus Writer

The Pacifica Quartet leads the AMFS’s Center for Advanced Quartet Studies and presents a recital in Aspen on July 24.

The members of the Pacifica Quartet credit their time as students at the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) as critical in their development. Now, two decades later, the professional quartet comes to Aspen each summer to teach and perform, and bring their unique voices together in a musical full circle, including a recital in Harris Concert Hall on July 24.

The Quartet, composed of Simin Ganatra (first violin), Austin Hartman (second violin), Guy Ben-Ziony

(viola), and Brandon Vamos (cello), formed in 1994. The group spent two summers studying with AMFS in the late 1990s and went on to win a Grammy Award, tour internationally, and teach. They now serve as quartet-in-residence and full-time faculty at Indiana University’s prestigious Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington.

Last year the group was appointed to lead the very AMFS program they had once attended: the Center for Advanced Quartet Studies.

“Pacifica Quartet has established an extraordinarily fine reputation,

one of the best in the world,” says AMFS Vice President of Artistic Administration and Artistic Advisor Asadour Santourian. “After coming here as students and then later as guest artists, we turned to them to head the Advanced Quartet Studies program. We wanted the kind of intensive approach they have established at Indiana University here in Aspen.”

Santourian reports that more than twenty quartets typically vie for just three spots in the AMFS program See Pacifica, Festival Focus page 3

BUY TICKETS NOW! 970 925 9042 or WWW.ASPENMUSICFESTIVAL.COM

2

MONDAY, JULY 23, 2018

FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

Supplement to The Aspen Times

Abduraimov plays masterpieces themed love and death AMY HEGARTY

Festival Focus Writer

Twenty-seven-year-old pianist Behzod Abduraimov made his Aspen debut to great acclaim in 2016, and this summer he returns for two concerts: a solo recital on July 26 and a performance with the Aspen Festival Orchestra on July 29. At his recital, he plays a program of works dramatically themed around “love and death,” and at the orchestral concert he plays Tchaikovsky’s beloved Piano Concerto No. 1, an audience favorite perfect for an Aspen Sunday afternoon.

“Behzod is becoming a favorite performer everywhere, but especially here,” says Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) President and CEO Alan Fletcher. “He’s a particularly emotional and expressive player, and the repertoire he’s performing for us is explicitly dramatic.”

Born in Uzbekistan in 1990, Abduraimov’s career took off in 2009, when, at the age of eighteen, he won the Grand Prize at the London International Piano Competition.

For his Aspen recital, Abduraimov performs Liszt’s monumental Piano Sonata in B minor and transcriptions of music from two large-scale works: Isolde’s Liebestod from Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde (transcribed by Liszt) and Ten Pieces from Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet. All three works, Abduraimov explains, “include the theme of love and death. I thought that combining these three quite contrasting masterpieces from different eras would be a musically satisfying experience.”

Asadour Santourian, AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration and Artistic Advisor, notes that Abduraimov “is a powerful player,” and that, for his recital program, he’s chosen works that demonstrate his ability “to throw out torrents of sound and then suddenly scale it back to fragile, very quiet, lyrical playing. He does that with great fluency and great success.”

Those torrents of sound are especially on display in Liszt’s Piano Sonata, which is often cited as one of the most daunting piano sonatas ever written. For Abduraimov, the thirtyminute, single-movement piece (which Liszt completed in 1853 and dedicated to Robert Schumann) resembles “a mini-opera. It’s like a story that’s telling us about life with so many ups and downs—from dramatic climaxes to very intimate moments—all combined into one continued, perfect shape. It’s incredible,” he adds, “how Liszt was able to transform several similar themes into extremely drastic characters within the whole sonata. It allows the pianist to create so many colors and emotions, which leads to a unique experience for the listener as well as for the performer.”

Three days after his solo recital, Abduraimov joins the Aspen Festival Orchestra, led by AMFS Music Director Robert Spano, for a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. The program also includes the tone poem Isola by Finnish composer Sebastian Fagerlund and the melodic Symphony No. 1 by Christopher Theofanidis, co-director of the AMFS composition program.

Abduraimov learned the Tchaikovsky when he was

Supplement to The Aspen Times

FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

MONDAY, JULY 23, 2018 3

HALL: new possibilities, faith, and rediscovery Continued from Festival Focus page 1

Pianist Behzod Abduraimov plays a recital of dramatic works by Wagner, Liszt, and Prokofiev on July 26. Then he joins the Aspen Festival Orchestra for Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto on July 29.

twelve years old and performed it publicly for the first time when he was thirteen.

“The concerto’s opening hymn is like a theme,” he says, “and then you have the deep drama and lyrical phrases in the first movement, the simplicity of beautiful tunes in the second movement, and a lively folk dance in the finale. All of it,” he adds, “is filled with rich orchestration, which makes the work very exciting.”

BUY TICKETS NOW! 970 925 9042 or WWW.ASPENMUSICFESTIVAL.COM

“Having a year-round chamber music venue of this type and in the entire world,” said several; “the best percussion hall in the world,” said longtime AMFS percussion artist-faculty quality has transformed what we can present,” says AMFS member Jonathan Haas; a hall with “beautiful clarity and pro- President and CEO Alan Fletcher. “The Hall beautifully supjection and warmth,” said classical guitar AMFS artist-faculty ports everything we put in it, from the most gossamer solo repertoire to our annual brass member Sharon Isbin; “a place quintet recital, the new works of you reveal your true self,” said “The building becomes the our composition students, even cellist David Finckel.” symbol, because it’s more than a small orchestras—combinations “If I have to be really honof instruments and repertoire est,” said pianist and longtime building; it’s a metaphor for the that just would not work, even in AMFS artist-faculty member our new Music Tent.”

Anton Nel, “it’s one of my two faith and planning for the future Harris Concert Hall also is a or three favorite halls in the of the music school and festival.” spectacular space for teaching world to play in. I would put it and for student performances, up there with Wigmore Hall in Joan Harris infinitely deepening the quality London and so on.” of the educational experiences The Hall’s presence, and quality, give artists and audiences an opportunity for inti- for the hundreds of emerging young musicians who study in mate recitals—now more than twenty each summer and Aspen each summer.

Says flute AMFS artist-faculty member Nadine Asin of the three each winter. Before the Hall was built, chamber music was played in the Music Tent, then a 1,700-seat structure Hall, “When I hear my students play here, I really have a sense with canvas sides and a concrete floor. It was less than ideal. of who they are at this moment and what their potential is,

ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL BOX OFFICE HOURS

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

Wheeler Opera House: 9 am–5 pm daily.

PACIFICA: Beethoven, Bartók, Chausson recital

Science of Music series returns CAITLIN CAUSEY

Festival Focus Writer

Music often seems to be the domain of the heart, not the head. We all have songs or works that take us back to a key moment in our lives.

What research shows, however, is that our brains may be wired to do just that: process music in an area related to storing memories. This suggests that our experience of the art form is much more a matter of the mind than we realize.

During an upcoming Science of Music talk cohosted by the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) and the Aspen Science Center, professor Assal Habibi of the University of Southern California will discuss recent findings on the links between music and memory.

“In this talk, I will focus on the influence of music on health and development across the lifespan,” she says. Drawing upon her research with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, Habibi notes that she will also discuss “the relationship between early childhood music training and development of key cognitive functions including memory and learning skills in children.”

The neuroscientist and classical pianist will also present recent findings on how she says researchers have found that “music can be used as a means to prevent age-related decline in memory function, and serve as a protective factor against dementia and cognitive impairments.”

Composer Bruce Adolphe will join Habibi to present and discuss his piece Musics of Memory, which illustrates aspects of how the brain remembers music.

“Music and Memory” is the second of three talks in this season’s Science of Music series, held July 26, August 2, and August 9. The first, an exploration of the physics behind performance venues, features acoustic engineer Lawrence Kirkegaard in conversation with architects Carl Giegold and Harry Teague.

Teague designed AMFS’s 500-seat Harris Concert

who they can become, from seeing them on this stage and hearing them on this stage.”

And it is this looking to the future that more than anything, perhaps, defines Aspen’s Harris Concert Hall. In an interview during opening weekend, Joan Harris commented that “The building becomes the symbol, because it’s more than a building; it’s a metaphor for the faith and planning for the future of the music school and festival.”

The metaphor of faith, and of rediscovering a buried musical instrument, and many more live with, and in, and through, this building every day—today, in its twenty-fifth year, as they will in its twenty-sixth year, and beyond. Students come in to rise, and to learn, and to reach and hope. Artists come in to stand revealed, to be honest, and to give of themselves in a way the space asks, with intimacy and warmth. And audiences come in to experience art and beauty laid bare, and to find in that the connection and growth one seeks in the best of performances.

And if that isn’t true success in a hall, then what is?

Robert McDuffie plays a recital commemorating the 25th anniversary of Harris Concert Hall on July 28.

Continued from Festival Focus page 1

TODD ROSENBERG

Cynthia Yeh, principal percussionist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and AMFS artist-faculty member, will discuss the science behind percussion instruments (August 9).

Hall and 2,050-seat Benedict Music Tent, for which Kirkegaard designed the acoustics.

The third and final Science of Music talk features the brilliant Cynthia Yeh, AMFS artist-faculty member and principal percussionist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Yeh will delve into the science behind percussion instruments, the world’s oldest music-making objects, and explore how their unique timbres are created to affect musicians and listeners.

AMFS President Alan Fletcher will moderate all three Science of Music presentations, held for the first time this year at the Aspen Community Church.

Note that AMFS passes cannot be used for this collaboration with the Aspen Science Center. Geared for the “enthusiastic novice,” this series is designed to be accessible to anyone and be enjoyable on its own, or as a complement to one’s concert-going experience.

The Science of Music series presents lectures on Concert Hall Acoustics (July 26), Music and Memory (August 2), and Percussion Instruments (August 9).

This series is co-presented with the Aspen Science Center.

each year. Cellist Vamos recalls with fondness that Pacifica Quartet’s time studying in Aspen was hugely influential in their early development, and that the group hopes to facilitate the same impactful experiences for current students.

“What sets this program apart from others is the time that is allotted to the groups to focus on their repertoire and the opportunities to perform that rep,” he notes. “Every day, the quartets perform for each other and the coaches, and receive and give their thoughts. These informal performances are invaluable in learning the repertoire and speeding up the process of owning and understanding the music.”

Vamos says of returning in an artist-faculty role, “Coming back to Aspen after all these years to work with talented young quartets is so satisfying.

It is exciting to see what the new generation of quartets is doing, and to hear these groups at the early stage of their careers.”

Pacifica Quartet’s July 24 recital program showcases why they have risen in the field. The Aspen Times critic Harvey Steiman has written of them, “The first thing that strikes a listener about the Pacifica is its sound.

Each instrument has an individual personality, uncannily tuned to one another to blend seamlessly. At times the four musicians can sound as full as a string orchestra. Intonation is never a problem. Neither is emotional impact. Passion seems to be as critical as intonation for these guys.”

The opening work is Beethoven’s String Quartet in B-flat major, which Vamos points out is “an example of [the composer’s] early period, where he was under the influence of the masters Haydn and Mozart.” Bartok’s masterful String Quartet No. 4 follows, rich with technical challenges and powerful, often jarring rhythmic vitality. The final piece of the evening is Chausson’s stirring, emotional Concerto in D major, which Vamos says is “lush and full of romanticism.” Joining the Quartet onstage for this Chausson piece will be violinist David Coucheron and pianist Inon Barnatan.

“It is always enjoyable to add amazing and inspiring guest artists to perform with the Quartet,” Vamos adds.

“It’s a hugely satisfying experience to enjoy one of Pacifica Quartet’s concerts,” says AMFS’ Santourian. “They will no doubt take the audience on a fantastic journey.”