by Rachel Herrington | Mar 5, 2024
Door time: 7:00 PM
Show time: 7:30 PM
“Yes, playing string quartets is our job, and yes it is hard work, but we mostly do it for pleasure, like we always did,” says the Danish String Quartet, a highly sought-after ensemble of energetic musicians who met each other at music camp as teenagers. The Quartet returns to the Robert Mann Chamber Music Series with a varied program including work by Haydn, Stravinsky, and Mozart, as well as Shostakovich’s profound String Quartet No. 3 and three Irish folk melodies by Celtic harper and composer Turlough O’Carolan.
Artists:
Danish String Quartet
Program:
Joseph Haydn, String Quartet, Op. 77, No. 2: III, Andante
Igor Stravinsky, Three Pieces for String Quartet
Turlough O’Carolan, Three Melodies
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Divertimento in F Major, K. 138
Dmitri Shostakovich, String Quartet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 73
by Rachel Herrington | Mar 5, 2024
Door time: 6:00 PM
Show time: 6:30 PM
The Washington Post declares that twin sister pianists Christina and Michelle Naughton “have to be heard to be believed”; the Festival is honored to welcome these audience favorites for an all-Mozart program. Following the charming serenade Eine kleine Nachtmusik (“A Little Night Music”), the Naughtons perform the Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, written for Mozart to play with his beloved sister Nannerl. After intermission is Mozart’s Haffner Symphony, a staggering work of intensity and invention.
Artists:
Gemma New, conductor
Christina and Michelle Naughton, piano duo
Program:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Eine kleine Nachtmusik
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Concerto in E-flat Major for Two Pianos, K. 365
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony No. 35, Haffner
by Rachel Herrington | Mar 5, 2024
Door time: 7:00 PM
Show time: 7:30 PM
The Robert Mann Chamber Music Series continues with a spotlight on the Festival’s own musicians. Haydn’s String Quartets achieved a new range of expression for secular music; his String Quartet C major, Op. 20, No. 2 is a diamond from start to finish. Debussy, a master of impressionism and fantasy, creates a quintessential dreamscape in his Sonata for Flute, Harp, and Viola. Instead of treating his string octet as two individual quartets, Mendelssohn’s innovative Octet finds all eight musicians working tightly together in, as the composer requested, “symphonic orchestral style.”
Artists:
Colorado Music Festival musicians
Program:
Joseph Haydn, String Quartet in C Major, Op. 20, No. 2
Claude Debussy, Sonata for flute, viola and harp
Felix Mendelssohn, String Octet in E-flat Major, Op. 20
by Rachel Herrington | Mar 5, 2024
Door time: 6:00 PM
Show time: 6:30 PM
Be the first to experience a brand new concerto by Gabriela Lena Frank, heralded as one of the most significant women composers in history by the Washington Post. This exciting new work was commissioned by the Festival and will be performed by Boulder’s Grammy-winning Takács Quartet as ensemble-soloist alongside the Orchestra. After intermission, Joan Tower’s brilliant Concerto for Orchestra allows for great moments of individual virtuosity, but ultimately it is the entire Orchestra that shines. “I had imagined a long and large landscape that had a feeling of space and distance,” Tower says of her Concerto for Orchestra, in which the music “travels a long road.” This program celebrates three generations of women composers and opens with Florence Price’s Adoration, originally conceived for solo organ and performed here in its stunning arrangement for strings.
Artists:
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Takács Quartet
Gabriela Lena Frank, composer
Program:
Florence Price, Adoration
Gabriela Lena Frank, world premiere
Joan Tower, Concerto for Orchestra (1991)
by Rachel Herrington | Mar 5, 2024
Door time: 7:00 PM
Show time: 7:30 PM
The Robert Mann Chamber Music Series continues by highlighting musicians from the Festival’s own ranks. One of the most beloved works ever written for wind quintet is this music by Carl Nielsen; he composed his Wind Quintet with five friends in mind, and this warmth, as well as the personality of each instrument, shines through. Schubert’s sublime and romantic C major String Quartet is regarded as one of the greatest string quartets of any era.
Artists:
Colorado Music Festival musicians
Program:
Carl Nielsen, Wind Quintet, Op. 43
Franz Schubert, String Quintet in C Major, Op. 163, D. 956
