Festival Focus, Week 6

YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

FESTIVAL FOCUS Supplement to The Aspen Times

Monday, July 30, 2012

Vol 23, No. 7

Season Benefit Stars Opera Sensation Nathan Gunn been accompanying him for decades.

“She knows my voice so well,” Gunn says. “If I’m doing Nathan Gunn, with his heartthrob looks and resonant something that sounds a little weird, she can remind me baritone voice, has played roles with the Metropolitan Op- of that. She has always been really great about helping era, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and Paris Opera, me learn music and keeping me on track with healthy to name a few, but he has never limited himself to the singing. We really get along so well and know each other classical genre. so well musically that for us, making music is like having Gunn will present a cabaret event with his wife, Julie a conversation.”

Gunn, for the season benefit of the Aspen Music Festival Gunn will also be accompanied by AMFS Music Director and School (AMFS) at 6:15 pm Monday, August 6, in Harris Robert Spano for one song. Gunn has collaborated with Concert Hall. Cocktails are at 5 pm, and dinner is at 8 pm.

Spano numerous times and says the two of them “speak “Nathan Gunn does everything from Baroque opera the same language.” to twentieth-century opera to musical “He’s such an expressive, easily theater and cabaret,” AMFS President communicative conductor and piaand CEO Alan Fletcher says. “This nist,” Gunn says. “We hit it off at the program is on the American Songvery beginning because he trusts the book theme, but he can do anything.” people he’s collaborating with to be The program will include familiar musicians and he allows them to be standards by Cole Porter and Kurt musicians. He’s not a dictator; he’s a Weill, such as “Don't Fence Me In” conductor. It’s very easy to work with and “This is the Life,” as well as songs someone like that.”

by Ives and Barber, in a celebraGunn says he designs his recital tion of America that is fitting for the programs with an overarching theme, Alan Fletcher AMFS President and CEO AMFS 2012 season theme: “Made in so that the audience can better conAmerica.” nect with the music. The program Gunn says Bill Miller, the profeson August 6 will be about love and sor who taught him to sing, emphasized learning to sing passion and includes several crooner standards written one’s own language. Because this is not always possible during the Great Depression, which Gunn chose for their in the opera idiom, Gunn learned to appreciate a variety applicability today. of American music. He has commissioned numerous new “It has to be relevant, for me,” Gunn says. “I want it to works throughout his career. speak to people and where they are at that time.”

“He’s a very patriotic person, and he’s able to commuWhen Gunn returns to Aspen, he plans to see many nicate that through great music in his art form,” says Asa- old friends, as well as meet new Festival students when dour Santourian, vice president for artistic administration he gives a free and open master class at 1 pm Sunday, and artistic advisor.

August 5, at the Aspen Middle School Commons.

Nathan and Julie Gunn met when they were students “Aspen is such a beautiful place,” he says. “One of the at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She greatest benefits to my profession is seeing all these difhelped him find Miller, went to all his lessons, and has ferent parts of the world and the United States.”

GRACE LYDEN

Festival Focus writer

This program is on the American Songbook theme, but he can do anything.

M SHARKEY PHOTOGRAPHY

Nathan Gunn, known for his lyric baritone voice and magnetic stage presence, will present a cabaret event at the season benefit Monday, August 6, in Harris Concert Hall.

Weilerstein Family Unites for Two Concerts GRACE LYDEN

Festival Focus writer

Cello star Alisa Weilerstein and her younger brother Joshua Weilerstein, assistant conductor at the New York Philharmonic and a violinist, have been coming to the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) all their lives.

Their parents, violinist Donald Weilerstein and pianist Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, were on the AMFS artist-faculty from 1976 to 2001, and Alisa first came to Aspen at the age of two months. Both Alisa and Joshua attended the Festival as students, and Joshua served as the AMFS assistant conductor in 2011.

"Aspen is full of childhood memories for me, sort of like a home away from home," Alisa says.

The siblings will return to the mountains this week when Alisa performs Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B minor under her brother’s baton at 4 pm Sunday, August 5, with the Aspen Festival Orchestra (AFO) in the Benedict Music Tent.

“For them, it’s a big homecoming in a very special way, that the two of them can perform together in their chosen fields, one as a cellist, one as a conductor, back

where they studied,” says Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor.

Alisa and Joshua do not often get to perform together, and the entire family has only performed together once before. But they will unite on stage for a second time at 8:30 pm Wednesday, August 1, when the Weilersteins play a recital of chamber music in Harris Concert Hall.

“We were originally going to do something separately, but it naturally morphed into this family recital, and we were very happy to do that,” Alisa says. “The idea was to bring the family together. It will be very special.”

Alisa has always wanted to be a musician. “One of my favorite pastimes when I was two and three was to listen to my parents practice and rehearse with their colleagues,” she says.

When Alisa was two years old, she got the chicken pox, and her grandmother cheered her up by making her a cello out of a Rice Krispies box, with an old green toothbrush for an endpin and a chopstick for a bow. It See WEILERSTEIN Festival Focus page 3

ALEX IRVIN / AMFS

Alisa Weilerstein, the cellist, AMFS alumna, and MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipient, performs this Wednesday and Sunday.

Buy tickets now! (970) 925-9042 or www.aspenmusicfestival.com

Page 2 | Monday, July 30, 2012

FESTIVAL FOCUS: Your Weekly Classical Music Guide

Denk Plays Schoenberg Concerto Stravinsky last season, in addition to maintaining relationships with living composers whose new Pianist Jeremy Denk will perform Schoenberg’s works he has premiered.

Piano Concerto with the Aspen Chamber Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice president for Symphony at 6 pm this Friday, August 3, in artistic administration and artistic advisor, refers the Benedict Music Tent. Robert Spano, music to Denk as a “thinking pianist.” director for the Aspen Music Festival and School “He’s interested in parts of the repertoire that (AMFS), will conduct. other pianists don’t usually traverse,” Santourian Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto is not played says. The Schoenberg Piano Concerto is part often, and Denk learned the of “an entire arm of the work for the 2012 Festival. repertoire that I think people Spano played a role in asking with intellectual pursuits go him to learn the piece. to.”

“Jeremy Denk is one of the Santourian says that while most intellectually stimulating the concerto is a corner of the pianists around,” Spano says. classical repertoire for some “There’s something about the pianists, it is a cornerstone depth of music making, but for intellectuals such as Denk. also the depth of his intellect, Published in 1942, the that made me very interested Piano Concerto consists in hearing him play the of four interconnected Robert Spano Schoenberg Piano Concerto.” movements, and in the AMFS Music Director AMFS President and CEO manuscript, each is labeled Alan Fletcher agrees. with an autobiographical “Jeremy is someone I would hear play anything, marking: “Life was so easy,” “Suddenly hatred anytime,” he says. broke out,” “A grave situation was created,” and The major orchestras with which Denk has “But life goes on.” The composer did not approve played include the Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, of programmatic music, though, and merely used New World, St. Louis, and San Francisco the unpublished markings as a guide for his symphonies, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and composing. The entire work is founded in twelveLondon Philharmonia. He performed concertos

by Beethoven, Copland, Mozart, Schumann, and See DENK Festival Focus page 3 GRACE LYDEN

Festival Focus writer

Supplement to The Aspen Times

Percussion Ensemble Concert Tonight!

Jeremy Denk is one of the most intellectually stimulating pianists around.

2011 Percussion Ensemble Concert ALEX IRVIN / AMFS

The 2012 percussion students at the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) will play the music of Steve Reich, Jolivet, David Ives, Andrew Thomas, Cage, and Antheil at 6 pm Monday, July 30, in Harris Concert Hall. Artist-faculty member Jonathan Haas will conduct, and soloists will include Bonita Boyd flute, and Joshua Vonderheide percussion.

Buy tickets now: (970) 925-9042 • www.aspenmusicfestival.com

Supplement to The Aspen Times

FESTIVAL FOCUS: Your Weekly Classical Music Guide

Spano and McDuffie Play Brahms Sonatas

Monday, July 30, 2012 | Page 3

50% Off A Recital by the American String Quartet 8 pm Thursday, August 2 in Harris Concert Hall Present for one-time use. No cash value.

Faculty Spotlight Congratulations to Per Brevig!

ALEX IRVIN / AMFS

Robert Spano (right), the music director for the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS), and Robert McDuffie (left), the internationally renowned violinist, will collaborate at 8 pm Tuesday, July 31, in Harris Concert Hall with Spano at the piano, to play Brahms's three beautiful sonatas for violin and piano.

They performed the first of the sonatas last year at Mercer University in Georgia, where McDuffie is a professor of music, and Spano says that was when he decided to program this recital. “I’ve always loved making music with him, and we were having such a good time playing, and I said, ‘You have to play all the Brahms sonatas with me next summer, because we will just have the best time.’” Spano says playing with McDuffie is effortless, even organic. “Things just fall into place with him,” Spano says. “It’s so easy and natural. It’s just a pleasure.”

The trombonist and longtime member of the AMFS artist-faculty has just returned from Paris, where he was presented with the International Trombone Association's 2012 Award, "in acknowledgement of his impact on the world of trombone performance."

Denk: Thinking Pianist Continued from Festival Focus page 2

Joshua Weilerstein ALEX IRVIN / AMFS

Weilerstein: Family Concerts Continued from Festival Focus page 1

ALEX IRVIN / AMFS

tone technique and uses one tone row.

The atonality of Schoenberg’s writing is part of what makes the concerto both stimulating and difficult. Santourian says it demands as much as Beethoven’s “Emperor” concerto, but with serial language. He continues, “And just because it is serial music, it doesn’t preclude that it can be beautiful.”

“The whole idea with the atonality was not to separate themselves from the rest of the world but to extend the compositional language by this new technique,” Santourian says.

Fletcher says the Piano Concerto is one of Schoenberg’s more expressive works.

“It represents a sweetening of Schoenberg’s musical vocabulary toward the end of his life, and it’s a very lyrical piece,” Fletcher says.

Also on the program is Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, nicknamed “Eroica,” the Italian word for “heroic.” The symphony was written at the start of Beethoven’s middle-period and is regarded as an expression of the composer’s bridge from mature Classical writing into Romantic, with an emotional range that was revolutionary for its time. The second movement alone includes both a funeral march and happier sections.

Twice as long as the Classical symphonies of Mozart and Haydn, the work received mixed reviews at its first public performance in 1805. More recently, in 1953, Leonard Bernstein called the first two movements, “perhaps the greatest two movements in all symphonic music.”

was love at first sight, and the instrument beJoshua did not decide he wanted to pursue came her most cherished possession. When music until the age of sixteen, when he went on Alisa was four, though, she realized it made no a life-changing trip to Venezuela with his youth sound and demanded a real cello and lessons. orchestra. He studied conducting with Ludovic Alisa has been playing Dvořák’s Cello Con- Morlot in college, and AMFS President and certo since she was twelve and first performed CEO Alan Fletcher says that when Joshua was it professionally at fourin the American Acadteen. She estimates that emy of Conducting at she has played it more Aspen (AACA) in 2009 than any other piece and 2010, “he was one but never tires of it. of those blazing talents, “It’s probably his we knew immediately.” greatest work, and for The AFO program will that reason, I always include Shostakovich’s find new things in it, no Symphony No. 5, which matter how many times Joshua says is one of I’m doing it,” Alisa says. his favorite pieces for “Even during periods its “raw emotion.” The when I’m playing it evpiece saved ShostakovAsadour Santourian AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration and Artistic Advisor ery weekend, there’s so ich's career and is full much to discover. The of mock patriotism to orchestra is so interesting, the colors are so in- please Stalin, who did not pick up on the satire. teresting, it’s so emotionally satisfying.”

The family recital program will include a piece Alisa jokes that though Joshua is conduct- arranged by Stephen Coxe for the Weilerstein ing, she has lived with the piece longer than her Trio, an ensemble of Alisa and her parents, and brother and he will therefore be following her Brahms’s String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat major, op. lead. Luckily, their musical sensibilities are very 18, which Joshua says is "a gorgeous mastersimilar, she says. piece of Brahms."

It's a big homecoming in a very special way, that the two of them can perform together... back where they studied.