FESTIVALFOCUS YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE
SUPPLEMENT TO THE ASPEN TIMES
MONDAY, JUNE 28, 2021
VOL 31, NO. 1
Planning in a Pandemic: Bringing the Festival Back LAURA E. SMITH
Vice President for Marketing and Communications
After a heart-pumping year of planning and re-planning, the Aspen Music Festival and School is back, live and in person. “Our plan always was that we bring back the most music, to the most people, as we possibly could,” says AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher, adding, “this meant for our artist-faculty, students, and guest artists whose lives were upended, as well as our audience.” He continues, “Since March of 2020, we kept abreast of every public health recommendation and prediction. Over and over, we made spectacularly detailed plans to meet the guidelines—and then in just weeks or even sometimes days would need to fully scrap those and start over. It’s been a heroic effort on the part of everyone, the staff, but also the faculty, the board, and our donors, who have given us their faith and support when we’ve needed it most.” The work started as early as last September with the full budget process. Says Senior Vice President for Strategy and Administration Jennifer Elliot, “We normally take six weeks to budget and plan each fall. We map out the artists and season, but also the students and faculty of each instrumental program, nearly 1,000 units of housing, a detailed marketing plan, concert-by-concert production needs, transportation, cafeterias, sales—the budget is thousands of lines.” She explains that in fall of 2020, the staff did this process from the ground up, with
GRITTANI CREATIVE
The Benedict Music Tent, poised for the return of Aspen’s music lovers after standing silent for more than a year during the global pandemic.
huge changes for COVID assessed and planned, and they did it twice. “We had two scenarios,” she explains, “we hoped one would prove a good base for wherever we eventually would end up—and one did.” Elliot also oversaw all safety plans for the Festival, monitoring the ever-changing guidelines and working with an aerosols specialist
and an HVAC consultant to determine safe capacity for every single AMFS activity from a lesson on a trumpet to full orchestras in the Music Tent. “We separately analyzed each space,” she says, “I have huge spreadsheets with data showing the air turnover per hour in every space. We know exactly how many people can be in each one, and doing what,
with what for breaks, and in masks or not. It’s a huge matrix.” Vice President for Artistic Administration and Artistic Advisor Asadour Santourian usually begins planning each season at least a year ahead, which was the same in 2020.
See Planning, Festival Focus page 3
Slatkin and Barnatan play Beethoven Favorites, Friday SHANNON ASHER
Festival Focus Writer
Internationally acclaimed conductor and Aspen alumnus Leonard Slatkin will return to the Aspen Music Festival and School this Friday to kick off the season’s first Aspen Chamber Symphony concert with two of Beethoven’s most-loved works and a lesser-known gem. After more than a year-long hiatus from live music, Slatkin is eager to return to Aspen. Although he has been back on the podium for about two months now, he confides that it has not yet felt normal, at least in terms of trying to communicate with musicians through a mask. “A conductor covering more than half of his face is like a flute player using three fingers,” Slatkin says. “The spacing between musicians also makes it more challenging to communicate and to achieve a sense of ensemble. Nevertheless, I am happy to be making music again.” He is also happy to be back in Aspen again where he was a
LEWEL LI
Conductor and Aspen Music Festival and School alumnus Leonard Slaktin returns to the Benedict Music Tent podium July 2.
student in the mid-1960s. He recalls that it “ . . . was quite small back then, and there was a true sense of family among the students and faculty. Many of my lifelong friendships were made there, and I loved every minute of my experience.”
Having been the music director at major symphony orchestras including Detroit, St. Louis, and Washington, Slatkin now guest conducts all over the world. When he received the AMFS’s invitation to conduct Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony this summer, Slatkin couldn’t resist the opportunity to take another look at this beloved orchestral work: “Who can turn down the opportunity to try and improve on one’s last performance? But I will add something to the mix to demonstrate a few of the sketches that Beethoven rejected. Hopefully, we will learn that this composer always knew what was right.” “Mr. Slatkin has a little surprise for our audience on that concert,” says Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor. “He is trying to recreate the Bernstein notes on the great presentation of the Beethoven symphony and its themes. There is a little surprise there.”
See Beethoven, Festival Focus page 3
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