Aspen Music Festival and School Festival Focus - Week Five

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FESTIVALFOCUS YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

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MONDAY, JULY 25, 2022

VOL 32, NO. 5

Uncommon Ritual Reunites Fleck, Marshall, and Meyer SAMANTHA JOHNSTON

Festival Focus Writer

Known internationally for their musical talent and award-winning compositions, bluegrass legends Béla Fleck, Mike Marshall, and Edgar Meyer are sure to bring the house down when they reunite to revisit their eclectic 1997 album, Uncommon Ritual, on the stage of the Benedict Music Tent, July 30.

Sometimes jazz, sometimes blues, sometimes Celtic jig, this performance will feature classical compositions as well as compositions by each member of the trio. At points, the pieces make you want to get up out of your chair and slap your knee, while other moments make you want to sit back and sway to the blues. From the whimsical Child’s Play to the building chaos and tension of Barnyard Disturbance, the album clearly reflects the genius and personal interest of double-bassist Meyer, banjoist Fleck, and mandolin player Marshall.

“No one is more wide-ranging than Edgar Meyer. His exploration with jazz, with world music, with bluegrass, with Appalachia, and with the classical tradition have led to fabulous concerts over many years,” says Aspen Music Festival and School CEO Alan Fletcher.

Described as a “patina of culture,” and an album that makes you “think before you feel,” Uncommon Ritual isn’t classical, nor does it belong to any other single music tradition.

“I have always found musical stylistic definitions to be limiting,” Meyer said. “In my mind, the borders are amorphous, and any particular

Banjoist Béla Fleck, mandolin player Mike Marshall, and double bassist Edgar Meyer (left to right) will perform a concert with a wide-ranging scope, including music from classical to bluegrass genres.

‘genre’ of music exists generally within a multidimensional spectrum of possibilities.”

Though Meyer, Fleck, and Marshall bring an unmistakable bluegrass undertone to the music, their longtime friendship and musical relationship shines in this collaboration as they easily and seamlessly move through genres.

“With Mike and Béla, we are able to take advantage of some of these overlaps and ambiguities,” Meyer says. “The sound of the music is partially defined by having three instruments indigenous to bluegrass played by people who have invested a lot of their life in that music.”

Meyer likens their different styles of

music to different dialects rather than different languages.

“There is no ‘statement’ contained in this music,” Meyer says. “This is our conversation that emanates from our friendship and our love of music.”

Meyer, an alumnus and artist-faculty member of the AMFS, is always a favorite on the summer concert stage where he has performed for decades. Revisiting the collaboration from 25 years ago makes this summer’s performance truly special.

“Probably the most meaningful thing for us is when alumni return at the peak of their inspiration, and Edgar is the ideal exemplar of this,”

says Fletcher. “What I hope is truly typical in Aspen is that the wonderful artists are free to explore their personal interests. It will be an unforgettable picture of how his artistry has transformed over this period.”

After this summer’s performance, it’s hard to know whether the trio will ever have the opportunity to perform the album again together. For now, the performance symbolizes pride and nostalgia.

Meyer says, “I was talking with Béla, and we realized that Uncommon Ritual was a project that we were proud of and that we didn’t want it to get any older without at least revisiting it for a couple of evenings while we still could.”

¡De Colores! Free Mariachi Community Celebration July 27 PIPER STARNES

Festival Focus Writer

The Aspen Music Festival and School presents its first-ever free Mariachi community concert, ¡De Colores! on July 27 at 5:30 pm, bringing together students, educators, families, and local organizations for an evening of Mexican folkloric culture and music. Denver-based Mariachi Sol de mi Tierra will perform at the Benedict Music Tent with local music students and dancers from Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Folklórico as the culminating event of the ¡De Colores! Mariachi Workshop.

The concert will be presented in English and Spanish with the addition of musical text translations made available.

AMFS Dean of Education and Community Katie Hone Wiltgen says, “[The program] ties in perfectly to our season theme, Tapestries, as we talk about the weaving of different colors and materials. De Colores honors the varied colors in nature and how those colors work together to create true beauty, just as we celebrate the weaving of different cultures here in the Roaring Fork Valley, and how our unique, distinct, and

diverse backgrounds come together in a beautiful forging of community.

Pitkin County Library will present interactive story time and crafts, while the Basalt Regional Library will host a bilingual story time, highlighting resources for secondlanguage learners. English in Action and Valley Settlement will also be present to provide information on their services, opportunities for volunteering, and building cross-culture relationships. Finally, before heading into the Tent for the performance at 5:30 pm, audiences can participate in a Mexican folkloric art project with Anderson Ranch Arts Center. Food and beverages will be available for purchase from the beloved Taqueria El Yaqui food truck, with drink specials for the adults.

The workshop, held from July 25-27, invites rising fifth through twelfth graders to explore Mariachi education, even if they have no prior experience. A team of Colorado-based Mariachi instrument specialists and teacher assistants, led by Michael Linert of Westminster High School, will

Dancers from Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Folklórico will perform alongside musicians from Denver-based Mariachi Sol de mi Tierra.

See Mariachi, Festival Focus page 3

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MONDAY, JULY 25, 2022

FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

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Hadelich and Spano Present Sibelius Violin Concerto, Mahler 1 SARAH SHAW

Festival Focus Writer

Always a highlight of the season, Augustin Hadelich’s decade-long tenure at the Aspen Music Festival and School continues on Sunday, July 31 when he performs the Sibelius Violin Concerto in D minor with conductor and AMFS Music Director Robert Spano and the Aspen Festival Orchestra. On the program are a trio of pieces, each one written in a different century, and all three sure to give the audience an auditory treat.

Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D minor opens almost immediately with a magical and thematic solo. A post-Romantic work composed in 1903, it’s also a technically brilliant piece, rich with a color, texture, and character that Hadelich says is quite unique in the violin repertoire. “For me, the opening violin line is the passionate, romantic human protagonist, floating and soaring above the foggy orchestral texture and struggling against the surrounding world. You immediately know that this is not going to be just a story, but an epic tale!”

The slow movement is intimate and warm. “We have moved indoors and are protected from nature’s violent force. The theme expands slowly, with an inner pulse that keeps it moving forward despite the slow pace,” says Hadelich.

Just as the audience gets comfortable with the laid-back atmosphere of the second movement, along comes the third and final movement, which Hadelich describes as a wild ride, full of “virtuosic pyrotechnics.” Listen for the riding rhythm evident in the lower strings and an opposing rhythm in the timpani that

results in a rumbling texture. Explains Hadelich, “It’s like a whole herd that isn’t elegantly riding in a synchronized way, but rather galloping wildly!”

Shortly after the Sibelius concerto was first performed, a critic made fun of it by calling the last movement a “Polonaise for Polar Bears.” Like many music critics, Hadelich says, “he must have thought himself to be very funny and clever! But there is indeed something slightly frightening and primal about the rhythms in this music.”

Hadelich’s virtuosity has been described as “beauty,” and he is renowned for teasing out the myriad ways of making a phrase come alive on the violin. “He’s certainly one of the most important violinists playing today,” says AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher.

Interestingly, he’s also an excellent pianist, an instrument he took up again during the pandemic. He accompanied himself on the violin (“by first recording the piano part, then the violin part, then the other way around”) for small concerts he recorded on YouTube and for a virtual concert with the AMFS. “It was like a fun game,” Hadelich says, “to play one part while imagining the other one, so that it would fit together!”

Closing the program is Mahler’s First Symphony, composed in 1888. Originally designated by Mahler himself as a “symphonic poem in two sections,” it underwent drastic modifications between its premiere—an unsuccessful debut in Budapest—and its next performance in Weimar, Germany, in 1894. Ultimately, what was once a five movement ‘poem’ is now a four-movement symphony that combines the late-Romantic and modernist

Hadelich and Spano perform with the Aspen Festival Orchestra.

ideas of Liszt and Wagner with the symphonic tradition of Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, and Bruckner.

Also on the program is Onward by Brian Raphael Nabors—a 10-minute work for full orchestra that Nabors describes as “a soundscape to celebrate the dreams and aspirations that motivate us to become our best selves.” It was commissioned by the Atlanta-based Antinori Foundation, Spano, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra as part of the grand prize awarded to Nabors as the national winner of 2019 Rapido! Composition Contest.

This musical journey will also be available to view as a free livestream on the AMFS Virtual Stage at aspenmusicfestival.com/virtual-stage.

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FESTIVALFOCUS | YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

MONDAY, JULY 25, 2022

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TONIGHT AND TOMORROW!

THE SOUND OF MUSIC In Concert Broadway talents take the Tent stage for Rodgers & Hammerstein’s beloved musical. A favorite for generations, this concert version stars Christy Altomare, Brandon Victor Dixon, Ashley Blanchet, Ana María Martínez, and Brad Oscar, accompanied by a full orchestra conducted by Andy Einhorn with direction by Marc Bruni.

July 25, 26 | 7:30 PM BENEDICT MUSIC TENT TICKETS AT 970 925 9042 OR ASPENMUSICFESTIVAL.COM

Yunchan Lim, Cliburn Winner, Plays in Aspen MARIACHI

EMBODIES 2022 FESTIVAL THEME

NICK EDWARDS-LEVIN

Festival Focus Writer

Yunchan Lim, Gold Medalist of the prestigious 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, will perform a recital at the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) on Thursday, July 28 in Harris Concert Hall.

The Cliburn Competition is one of the world’s top piano competitions. A panel selects 30 pianists aged 18–30 to compete over a grueling 17 days, performing up to three recitals and three piano concertos. It is a test not only of artistry, but of endurance.

Hailing from Siheung, South Korea, Lim is the youngest-ever winner of the gold medal at the Cliburn Competition, securing it at only 18 years of age. He began his piano career when he was seven years old in order to keep himself occupied.

“When I was seven, I had no education, and I envied my friends swimming or exercising. So I wanted to try something, and I chose piano,” Lim wrote in an email. Lim said that he chose the instrument for pure proximity: “there was a small piano academy in front of my house.”

Looking back on his career—one which is now turbo-boosted by his success at the Cliburn—he remembers a moment very early on with special fondness. “The most important moment of my life was when I played the full version of Bach’s Invention No. 1 in my first lesson,” Lim said. “These musical achievements are much more important to me than commercial achievements.”

Still, Lim’s commercial achievements are great. From the Cliburn Competition alone, he won a $100,000 cash prize and three years of free career management. He also was awarded $5,000 for the best performance of a new work and $2,500 for the audience award. When it was announced that he won, he wasn’t able to process it—primarily because he was so exhausted. “To be really honest, I didn’t have any thoughts,” Lim said. “I really wanted to rest! This is because the Cliburn Competition is the hardest competition in the world, and the repertoire is really vast.”

According to AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration Patrick Chamberlain, Lim’s performance promises to be exciting. “AMFS has a long history of presenting the Van Cliburn winner soon after the competition and we’re thrilled to welcome Yunchan Lim for this important debut. He won the hearts of the jury and audience and we look forward to sharing his artistry with our Aspen audience,” Chamberlain says. “His program of Brahms, Mendelssohn, Skryabin, and Beethoven is a thoughtful and sophisticated portrait of his artistry.”

Continued from Festival Focus page 1

Yunchan Lim, 18, is the youngest-ever Gold Medalist of the Cliburn Competition. He will perform works by Brahms, Mendelssohn, Skryabin, and Beethoven in his July 28 recital in Harris Concert Hall.

After a few weeks to rest and recover from the competition, Lim will make his way to Aspen, where he will perform a recital of works both new and familiar to him. On the program is Brahms’s Four Ballades, Mendelssohn’s Fantasia in F-sharp minor “Sonate écossaise,” Skryabin’s Second Piano Sonata, and Beethoven’s Eroica Variations. Lim, who has never played Brahms’s Ballades before, said “the reason I want to play it is because I fell in love with the dark, cruel, but terribly beautiful song. Brahms was 20 years old when he composed number one. How special it is to feel the soul of an 80-year-old in a 20-year-old’s work!” Mendelssohn’s rarely-performed Fantasia is also dark, which inspired Lim to program it.

The second part of the program consists of pieces Lim played at the Cliburn Competition. About Skryabin’s Second Sonata, Lim said that it was written “looking at the sea, so it needs an intuitive interpretation.” Lim described Beethoven’s Eroica variations as one of the classical repertoire’s ”unspeakable masterpieces.”

host technique-building sessions on traditional Mariachi instruments like the vihuela, guitarrón, violin, and trumpet.

However, Linert emphasizes that all voices and instruments will be welcomed and included. “My instrument, the cello, is not typically found in a Mariachi ensemble, but for this workshop, it’s going to work out great!” Linert says.

During the three-day workshop, students will rehearse three pieces—“La Raspa,” “De Colores,” and “Cielito Lindo (Beautiful Sky)”—to perform alongside Mariachi Sol de mi Tierra in the final community performance. Since the ensemble’s establishment in 1995, Mariachi Sol de mi Tierra has become one of Colorado’s premier musical acts and a cultural staple among the Latino community. Through this collaborative performance, the group hopes to give Aspen audiences a glimpse of Mexican music, culture, and history.

“We’re constantly thinking about how we can create education programming that feels culturally relevant and makes people feel welcomed. If all goes according to plan and we get some additional funding, we would love to be able to continue this workshop throughout the summer, open it up to people from outside of our valley, and ultimately make Mariachi another offering within our AfterWorks umbrella,” Hone Wiltgen says.

The AMFS AfterWorks program offers after-school and in-school music education programming throughout Aspen, Basalt, Carbondale, and Glenwood Springs schools. Current program offerings include Beginning Strings, Chamber Music Lab, Lead Guitar, and Maroon Bel Canto Choirs.

IF YOU GO:

¡DE COLORES! A MARIACHI CELEBRATION Wednesday, July 27

4 pm Pre-Concert Fiesta | 5:30 pm Concert Benedict Music Tent Free, no tickets required | Open to all ages

ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL BOX OFFICE: 970 925 9042 OR ASPENMUSICFESTIVAL.COM

Open daily, 12 pm – 4 pm or concert time or intermission, if applicable.