Free Composition Program Readings

Free Composition Program Readings

SHANNON ASHER

Festival Focus Writer

Composition Program Readings are a regular part of the Aspen Music Festival and School experience, providing the public with a rare opportunity to be in the room when a musical work is performed for the very first time. These free events take place at 1 pm, Tuesday, July 20, and Saturday, July 24, in the Benedict Music Tent. Tickets are free and can be reserved ahead of time or obtained at the event.

This year, ten composers are enrolled in the AMFS’s Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies. They are either currently in a graduate program or have recently graduated. At this Saturday’s reading, the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra will perform one new work each by several of the student composers who, following the performances, will receive live feedback from an august group of composers: composer and AMFS music director Robert Spano, composer and AMFS president and CEO Alan Fletcher, and AMFS composition artist-faculty and composers-in-residence Stephen Hartke and Christopher Theofanidis. The audience has the opportunity to hear not only the music, but also the critique and conversation between the young composers and their mentor teachers.

Composition students sit side by side with Alan Fletcher, AMFS president and CEO, and Robert Spano, music director—both composers themselves—as their newly composed works are performed in 2019.

CARLIN MA

For the orchestral works written by the student composers, the AMFS has two working reading sessions, which both take place this week (1 pm, July 20 and 24). The composers work ahead of time with the conducting fellows and the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra to realize and understand their pieces.

Each composer gets time for the reading of their work—about 30 minutes each—enough time to play the work through, address any problematic spots, and then a play the work a second time. “It is a real learning experience. Writing a work for many players is daunting, and for some, it is their first experience doing so,” Theofanidis says. “The composer will also come away with a recording, which will be invaluable to them going forward.” Some of them will then revise those works for another session on August 14.

Theofanidis, who works closely with the students, notes that the program is intensive. “Aspen is an immersive environment,” he says. “There are so many concerts, rehearsals, master classes, and administrative wisdom floating around that the students here are literally soaking in knowledge from all directions.”

“The fellows are treated as adults, not just students, and for some, this is a real entry into the professional world,” Theofanidis explains. “The people they come across here will be connected to them throughout their lives, and this is their first chance at a ‘world stage’ to learn how to navigate their futures.”

As a teacher, Theofanidis feels that his job is to “awaken the ‘first loves’ that other artists have, and to help them understand why those things are valuable in their own voices and how to integrate them."

Like many musicians returning to live music, Theofanidis expressed his frustrations with Zoom teaching and meetings, but he also gave credit to everyone who did what they could to make the best of it. “Returning to live music seems like going from watching TV directly into nature again,” Theofanidis says. “It has a soul. I have been so moved by the few concerts I have already seen and am breathing it all in with relish. It is like being reborn from black and white into technicolor.”

As a returning faculty member at AMFS, Theofanidis looks forward to his summers in Aspen. “Everything is peeled back to just music, nature, and collaboration, and that is what I think we all long for as musicians in our day-to-day lives,” Theofanidis says. “It is a nurturing environment, and one that feeds the soul at every level. Everyone is here for that reason—to remember our priorities in life.”

Christopher Theofanidis (center), AMFS composer-in-residence, with fellow composers Alan Fletcher (left) and Robert Spano (right), and students of the Schumann Center for Composition Studies.

CARLIN MA

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