by Rachel Herrington | Mar 5, 2024
Door time: 7:00 PM
Show time: 7:30 PM
Celebrated pianist Awadagin Pratt makes his Festival debut with music old and new, beginning with Bach’s nimble Keyboard Concerto in A major. Pratt then performs a piece he commissioned from lauded composer Jessie Montgomery; her Rounds is inspired by an epic poem by T.S. Eliot and the opposing forces that appear in nature — “action and reaction, dark and light, stagnant and swift.” In Eastern folklore, the princess Scheherazade told the cruel Sultan 1,001 stories in order to save her own life; Rimsky-Korsakov borrows Scheherazade’s tales of royalty, festivals, sea voyages, and more in his richly orchestrated fantasy.
Artists:
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Awadagin Pratt, piano
Program:
Johann Sebastian Bach, Keyboard Concerto in A Major BWV 1055
Jessie Montgomery, Rounds for piano and string orchestra (2022)
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade
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: 6:00 PM
Show time: 6:30 PM
Welcome back, Festival favorite Olga Kern! Fresh off a celebration of Rachmaninoff’s 150th anniversary, Kern performs his Second Piano Concerto — a success from its inception, this memorable concerto’s themes that have been borrowed by countless films, Sinatra songs, and more. After intermission, Colorado Public Radio’s Kabin Thomas narrates the outlandish tale of Peer Gynt, a hopeless yarn-spinner who lies and sneaks his way through many misadventures and ultimately learns his lesson. Audiences will immediately recognize Grieg’s music, including the unforgettable “In the Hall of the Mountain King” and “Morning Mood.” Guest conductor Rune Bergmann leads this crowd-pleasing program, which opens with Vivian Fung’s inspirational Prayer.
Artists:
Rune Bergmann, conductor
Olga Kern, piano
Program:
Vivian Fung, Prayer (2020)
Sergei Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 18
Edvard Grieg, Suites from Peer Gynt
by Rachel Herrington | Mar 5, 2024
Door time: 7:00 PM
Show time: 7:30 PM
Welcome back, Festival favorite Olga Kern! Fresh off a celebration of Rachmaninoff’s 150th anniversary, Kern performs his Second Piano Concerto — a success from its inception, this memorable concerto’s themes that have been borrowed by countless films, Sinatra songs, and more. After intermission, Colorado Public Radio’s Kabin Thomas narrates the outlandish tale of Peer Gynt, a hopeless yarn-spinner who lies and sneaks his way through many misadventures and ultimately learns his lesson. Audiences will immediately recognize Grieg’s music, including the unforgettable “In the Hall of the Mountain King” and “Morning Mood.” Guest conductor Rune Bergmann leads this crowd-pleasing program, which opens with Vivian Fung’s inspirational Prayer.
Artists:
Rune Bergmann, conductor
Olga Kern, piano
Program:
Vivian Fung, Prayer (2020)
Sergei Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 18
Edvard Grieg, Suites from Peer Gynt
