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Măcelaru, Bronfman, McDuffie Join Forces for Final ACS
BY EMMA KIRBY Marketing Coordinator
The final Aspen Chamber Symphony (ACS) concert of the 2023 Festival on Friday, August 18 is a coming home of sorts, with two world-renowned artists who are beloved at the AMFS—pianist Yefim Bronfman and violinist Robert McDuffie—joining conductor Cristian Măcelaru, an Aspen Music Festival and School alumnus who has since launched a fruitful career as a conductor and music director across the globe.
This concert is particularly meaningful for Măcelaru, who credits his two years as an Aspen Conducting Academy fellow to his success. Now the now the Music Director of the Orchestre National de France, he says, “[the AMFS] was such, such a huge part of my formation as a conductor and as a musician. I learned so much as a student here, it was invaluable. Every time I’m able to return to Aspen it’s with great joy and deep emotions.”
This Friday, he brings a uniquely curated and wide-ranging program which features new works, a piano concerto by Schumann, a world premiere of a previously lost work, and a piece that harkens back to his AMFS student days.
As the music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Măcelaru champions and commissions many new works, among them Friday’s opening selection, Gabriela Lena Frank’s Contested Eden, which was written in response to the recent California wildfires.
Next, Bronfman performs Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, which Măcelaru says is “a piece that really does not get old. It’s one of those compositions that has been able to maintain its rightful place in musical history for almost 200 years.” AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration Patrick Chamberlain emphasizes Bronfman’s exceptional artistry: “When he plays the piano, you listen. Everything just feels right.”
Opening the second half of the concert is another work that evokes nature commissioned by Măcelaru at the Cabrillo Festival—Gabriella Smith’s Field Guide—followed by the world premiere of Aria from American composer Peter Mennin’s Violin Concerto, performed by Robert McDuffie.
The movement was one of the final pieces Mennin was composing before his death, and the unfinished work sat undiscovered and unpublished for almost 40 years. It was “presented to us by the Mennin family as the opportunity to give the world premiere of this work,” says Chamberlain. Says Măcelaru of the work, “It’s a beautiful, slow, kind of meditative piece. It’s a very intimate world. It’s not an extroverted statement, but it’s very delicate and beautiful.”
In a full circle moment, Măcelaru ends the concert with Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite. “It was a very important piece for me when I was a student here. It was a bit of a rite of passage for everyone when the week came that we had to conduct The Firebird.” He also sees it as the perfect piece to close a concert. Says Măcelaru, “the whole story of the Firebird is about the good celebrating and triumphing over evil.” Chamberlain adds, “putting The Firebird on a program with Frank’s work about wildfires is actually a sort of beautiful moment [which shows that] despite all the destruction that’s caused, something beautiful can emerge.”
