Jonathan Haas Leads Percussion Ensemble Recital

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ASPEN TIMES MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 2021 VOL 31, NO. 7

Jonathan Haas Leads Percussion Ensemble Recital

SHANNON ASHER

Festival Focus Writer

On Wednesday, August 11, timpanist and longtime Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) artist-faculty member Jonathan Haas leads the Percussion Ensemble in a free Spotlight Recital at 2:30 pm in Harris Concert Hall.

AMFS’s Vice President for Artistic Administration and Artistic Advisor Asadour Santourian and Haas worked together to develop the program for this specific performance. “This is the first year that the program is basically going to be chamber music—percussion with solos,” Haas explains. “Usually, we do large works for up to 18 percussionists, sometimes 20, but with only 8 percussion students this summer, the obvious choice was to select chamber music pieces.”

The overarching theme of the concert “centers around protesting, as well as recognizing current events in the world that are essential to all of us moving forward in a unified manner,” Haas says. “This is a statement for this particular concert, and I think it’s a very positive statement.”

Haas’s professional interest hinges on bringing the timpani from its location behind the orchestra up to the very front. “With a percussion ensemble, there are usually only four or five timpani on the stage,” Haas explains. “When you’re a percussionist, you must learn up to 300, 400 different types of percussion instruments. The timpani extend unto themselves, although they’re part of the percussion family, but are regarded in orchestras as having their own principal chair, which makes it very special.”

AMFS artist-faculty member Jonathan Haas

As a student at the AMFS for three years in the 1970s, Haas is now in his 39th summer as a faculty member. His favorite thing about the Festival is the opportunity to perform side-by-side with his students. “It’s the reason I’m a musician,” Haas conveys. “I came here as a student and played side-by-side with some of the most iconic teachers, and then paying that forward, I now have the opportunity to do the same thing. There’s nothing better than playing next to your students. It’s the best experience you could have.”

Also performing Wednesday are Haas’s longtime collaborators and friends, and fellow artist-faculty members, Nadine Asin and Timothy Adams, Jr. “Nadine and I have known each other throughout our careers, and whenever there’s an opportunity to play with Nadine, I consider it to be the most important and fun-filled opportunity,” Haas says.

Adams and Haas follow somewhat of the same story. “We haven’t known each other quite as long, but Tim is one of the most influential percussionists in the world,” Haas reveals. “During the pandemic, and especially during the time in which Black Lives Matter took place, I needed a colleague to be able to discuss, plan, and find ways in which to create this repertoire and celebrate the lives of important musicians of color, and Tim Adams was my first call.”

AMFS artist-faculty Timothy Adams Jr. and President and CEO Alan Fletcher during a summer 2020 virtual High Notes Discussion.

Haas continues, “He and I have deepened our relationship because of this. Most interesting, and I think important, is that the AMFS and NYU commissioned a very large percussion ensemble piece from Tim as a tribute to George Floyd called the Music 8:46 Project. It will receive its world premiere next summer at the AMFS. It’s written to both memorialize and commemorate, and to bring to everybody’s attention all that’s gone on in the past year. Hopefully, having composers such as Tim writing these significant pieces is going to be part of our AMFS artist-faculty member Jonathan Haas future. It’s opened up a whole new world for us.”

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