Festival Focus July 30, 2018

FESTIVALFOCUS YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ASPEN TIMES

Don’t miss...

Science of Music Lecture Series 5 pm at Aspen Community Church Experts sit down with AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher to discuss the science, physics, and psychology of Music and Memory (August 2) and Percussion Instruments (August 9).

A Parisian Feast of Music Season Benefit August 6 at Hurst Hall on the Bucksbaum Campus The AMFS presents a gala evening honoring Walter Isaacson and the special sibling bond shared by the AMFS and the Aspen Institute. Performances by exquisite talents are paired with fine wines and gourmet delicacies in this extraordinary event. For more information, contact Darian Oliva at 970 205 5063.

MONDAY, JULY 30, 2018

VOL 29, NO. 6

Disney brings magical premiere to Aspen tonight LAURA E. SMITH

Festival Focus Writer

Take a journey through Walt Disney Animation Studios’s films of the past ten years together in one night at a filmand-live-orchestra event at the Benedict Music Tent tonight.

In a new presentation for the Studio, presented with the Aspen Music Festival and School, audiences can relive the storytelling, music, and emotions of Frozen, Moana, Tangled, Big Hero 6, Wreck-It Ralph, Bolt, Winnie the Pooh, Princess and the Frog, and Zootopia in one fun-filled evening.

The evening promises a thrilling tour of these films for the audience. Says the evening’s conductor Richard Kaufman, “People relate to motion pictures just like they relate to music, and when you put them together, they are life’s moments, part of people’s memories and what brings those memories back.”

He also notes that the evening will be “Something unique because when people go to the theater to see these films they see the visuals and hear the music but what they don’t see is the live orchestra performance of the music, which is incredibly exciting.” He continues, “In a sense, in an evening like this, it’s like the audience is on the recording stage for the films.”

Tom MacDougall, executive vice

president for music for Walt Disney Studios and producer of this show, explains that putting together a compilation like this was as much fun for the creators as for he thinks it will be for the audience.

“We started this project by going back and watching all of these films, which is something we don’t get the chance to do like you might think,” he says. “It was a really fun opportunity to look back on all those films, and look back fondly.”

After that, he says, “We started musically, with the music for each film, and created suites that would try to give the feeling of seeing the film again. Then we cut the pictures to fit the music, to fit the journey on which the orchestra is going to take the audience.”

The evening will have a live 85-member orchestra on stage. Players are students from the Aspen Music Festival and School; as well as professional concertmaster David Halen, a longtime AMFS artist-faculty member and concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony; and four top studio musicians. Additional instrumentation beyond the standard includes drum set, synthesizer, electric bass, and long list of percussion instruments.

Says Kaufman, “The top young musicians in the world at the Aspen Music See Disney, Festival Focus page 3

Midori celebrates Bernstein with memorable Serenade JESSICA CABE Festival Focus Writer

ALEX IRVIN

Midori will perform Bernstein’s Serenade, after Plato’s Symposium with the Aspen Festival Orchestra on August 5.

Violinist Midori is a household name in classical music—especially in Aspen, where she studied starting at 8 years old and has returned as a guest artist regularly over the past three decades—but she was once an aspiring tween, dreaming of a career in music. That fateful year of her life, she performed Bernstein’s Serenade, after Plato’s Symposium, with the composer himself conducting. And she broke strings on two violins before reaching the end of the piece on the assistant concertmaster’s instrument. The New York Times headline on the front page the following

day read, “Girl, 14, conquers Tanglewood with 3 violins,” and the rest was history.

Now, the world-renowned violinist is back in Aspen to play that same piece during the centennial of Bernstein’s birth with the Aspen Festival Orchestra on Sunday, August 5.

“I am always excited to play this work for the beauty, the challenges and the memory it offers me,” Midori says. “This work by Bernstein is his only large-scale work written for my instrument as a solo.

It has an intriguing combination of storytelling, dance, and drama.”

The work is a musical tribute to Plato’s exploration of love and desire.

“It makes tremendous demands,” says Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor. “It’s for strings and percussion, no winds or brass, and it is in dialogue fashion. Midori is in dialogue with the orchestra, but absolutely, the violin part is one of the most demanding and challenging in the violin literature. She’s completely up to the challenge and will regale us with her abilities and artistry.”

AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher says he’s excited to be taking the opportunity to honor Bernstein with this perfor-

See Midori, Festival Focus page 3

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

2

FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

MONDAY, JULY 30, 2018

Supplement to The Aspen Times

AMFS singers present Bernstein’s jazzy Trouble in Tahiti project this nouveau riche couple who moved to the suburbs,” says

In this year of the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s

Santourian. “Then we have the Greek chorus commenting

birth, the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) is pre-

on what’s really going on. It’s great fun and a great way to

senting Bernstein’s first opera, Trouble in Tahiti, in a concert production in Harris Concert Hall alongside the Charlie Chaplin silent film, A Dog’s Life.

“It’s a concept evening that I wanted to put together,” says AMFS Artistic Administrator and Advisor Asadour Santourian. “I wanted the audience to have this experience of having seen a movie because the couple in Trouble in Tahiti goes to a movie, and then she comes home and sings, ‘What a movie, what a terrible, terrible movie.’ She goes into this tirade about it and she’s hilarious. She’s not trying to be funny but she is very funny.”

Written at the dawn of the 1950s, Trouble in Tahiti explores themes both deeply American and universal. What

celebrate one aspect of Bernstein. He loved the human voice and wrote for it prolifically.”

“It’s one of Bernstein’s most wonderful pieces,” says Aspen Opera Center (AOC) director Edward Berkeley. “It’s about people who are trying to hold a family together in the face of tensions, commuting to work, and just surviving in the suburbs.”

“But,” he notes, “it’s not a sad piece at all. It has a sense of humor, a sense of parodying that way of life. Since the story is most certainly based on Bernstein’s own parents, and possibly his own marriage, it brings a special humor and poignancy to the work.”

Mezzo-soprano Zaray Rodriguez plays Dinah in the August 2 production of Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti.

Third-year AOC student and baritone Michael Aiello por-

her second summer, will play Dinah. Rodriguez notes that

trays Sam. Of his character Aiello says, “in the workplace

Dinah “is a strong woman…[who] wants her marriage to suc-

and with his gym buddies he is a star and a ‘winner,’ but at

ceed.” The singer feels that Trouble in Tahiti seeks to “cast

home when he walks through the front door he is unhappy,

a light on what real relationships go through: change, rou-

The opera follows a day in the life of businessman Sam

broken, and lost. I think Sam wasn’t ready to grow up and

tine, familiarity, and the lives of two independent beings

and housewife Dinah, who alternately argue and long for

get married and create a family, but the strains of confor-

walking through life together.” She adds, “I think the overall

kindness in their marriage of lost love. A jazz trio singing

mity to have the perfect home and family drove him into

theme is that ‘things aren’t always what they seem.’”

tunes reminiscent of radio jingles serves as a kind of mod-

that life.”

happens when we are disillusioned with ‘the good life,’ and where does love go if it’s sheathed in unhappiness? With this work, Bernstein illuminated the perils of the suburban dream long before it was a phenomenon.

ern-day Greek chorus while the action unfolds.

Mezzo-soprano Zaray Rodriguez, returning to Aspen for

FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

MONDAY, JULY 30, 2018 3

DISNEY: symphonic, contemporary, rock-n-roll music Continued from Festival Focus page 1

“[Bernstein] wanted to make a social commentary with

CAITLIN CAUSEY Festival Focus Writer

Supplement to The Aspen Times

The multi-layered Trouble in Tahiti runs for one night only, August 2.

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

Festival and School will be playing this music, which will be pieces with what are called “click tracks” to keep the animaextraordinary for the audience and for the musicians, too. In tion and the music in sync. It’s a feat of technical production addition, we will be bringing some of the top studio players to bring these movie moments live into the concert hall.

But it will make for a spectacular evening, notes Macin the country for specific parts for drums, sax, and syntheDougall. “We are trying to give the sizer.”

“People relate to motion feeling you saw all the films again, For example, joining the enat least in broad strokes,” says Macsemble will be Bernie Dresel, pictures just like they relate Dougall. He points out that there an Eastman School of Music is a particular synergy in premiergraduate who is one of the to music, and when you put ing this new project in Aspen with top studio drummers in Holthem together, they are life’s orchestral players in their young lywood and who played on twenties. “These are their movies,” many of these original scores. moments, part of people’s he says. “I like the idea that that “This is the real deal,” says Kaufman. “There are many memories and what brings those most of them will have grown up with these films.” different styles represented memories back.”

Adds Kaufman, “This is a project in these films—symphonic, that is very exciting to put together. contemporary, rock-n-roll, Richard Kaufman That excitement will continue in techno, all over the place.”

Conductor the spirit of both remembrance A huge screen will hang and discovery with which the musiabove the orchestra for the projection; more than fifty of the musicians will wear ear- cians will play the music, and the audience will be able to

ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL BOX OFFICE HOURS

experience a brand-new project with this fantastic music and brilliant animation.”

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

Wheeler Opera House: 9 am–5 pm daily.

Weilerstein with Bach Suites, Tchaikovsky MIDORI: Mahler’s

Das Lied von der Erde

JESSICA CABE Festival Focus Writer

Alisa Weilerstein has been coming to the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) for, quite literally, her entire life. Her parents taught at the Festival when she was a baby and child, she attended as a student, and now she returns nearly every summer as a guest artist.

Weilerstein may be a familiar face, but she always finds ways to surprise listeners in Aspen, and this season is no exception. The 2011 MacArthur “genius grant” recipient will play a recital of Bach’s Six Cello Suites on July 31, and will then join the Aspen Chamber Symphony for a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, op. 33, on August 3.

“Alisa has undertaken to climb the Olympus of the cello,” says Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor. “They are these Six Suites, which are about architecture, Bach’s great mind, Bach’s ability to transmute the period of Baroque in an unbelievably crystallized fashion, really finely into his music.”

Weilerstein has always been forthcoming for her love of Bach, and while a program consisting entirely of Bach cello suites is not new to her, it is fresh for Aspen audiences.

“I think it’s the greatest music there is, and to do them all in one concert is certainly a lot of work for the performer, but I’ve now been doing it quite a lot for the past few years, and it’s one of the most meditative experiences I’ve had as a performer,” Weilerstein says. “Bach is maybe the only composer you can say is truly timeless.”

AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher says the opportunity to hear this music in sequence is a rare experience not to be missed.

“They are a trajectory,” Fletcher says. “They go from very bright and simple and beautiful to extremely complex and deeply emotional. To hear any one of them alone is great, but to hear them as a sequence is powerful.”

When Weilerstein joins the Aspen Chamber Sym-

Continued from Festival Focus page 1

ALEX IRVIN

Cellist and AMFS alumna Alisa Weilerstein performs all six Bach Cello Suites on July 31 and Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme on August 3.

phony for a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, op. 33, it will show a side of the composer rarely seen.

“This is his tribute to Mozart, so it’s a much more Classical style, kind of like comic opera,” she says. “It’s very playful and upbeat, very light, very virtuosic and fun, very cheeky and witty.”

After spending a lifetime of summers in Aspen, Weilerstein is now able to bring her own child to the Festival, giving her a full-circle feeling even stronger than she expected. Coming back each year feels like a homecoming.

“Great friends, great mountains, family time, what’s not to love?” she says.

mance.

“Midori had the opportunity to work extensively with Leonard Bernstein on her interpretation of the piece, and Bernstein frequently conducted it with her,” Fletcher says. “It’s really a window into Bernstein’s intentions, and this being the 100th anniversary of Bernstein’s birth, we’re paying a special tribute to him.”

Midori says in addition to looking forward to playing this work in particular, she is, of course, looking forward to being in Aspen once again.

“I first came to Aspen in 1981 for a nine-week study and was a student for several summers after that,” she says. “Aspen was my first introduction to the U.S., and, of course, I learned it was very different from New York, where I went on to live soon after my first summer.

Surrounded by beautiful mountains, the calm offered was a great setting for learning and reflecting.”

In addition to Bernstein’s Serenade, the August 5 program includes Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, an emotional symphonic work that Mahler chose not to call a symphony in an effort to fool fate. AMFS alumna and mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton and tenor Richard Smagur perform.

“Schubert, Beethoven, Bruckner, Dvořák all died after writing their ninth symphony,” Santourian says. “Mahler had written his eight symphonies, but he was deceiving fate by writing something symphonic that used voices and not calling it No. 9.”

The work is in six movements and is an exploration of seven poems, most of which deal in some way with the human condition. At the time, Mahler had learned he had a heart condition, and his daughter had just passed away.

“He was at a very unsettled state of his life, and this is kind of a reflection; these poems came right at the perfect moment for him to reflect on where he was,” Santourian says. “Are they morose?

No, they’re not morose. They’re about the human condition and aspects of the human condition, and that’s the impulse behind the composition.”