{"id":2445794,"date":"2019-06-27T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-27T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=308531"},"modified":"2019-06-27T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-27T22:00:00","slug":"joyce-yang-plays-gershwin-as-aspen-music-festival-opens-american-themed-70th-anniversary-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/joyce-yang-plays-gershwin-as-aspen-music-festival-opens-american-themed-70th-anniversary-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Joyce Yang plays Gershwin as Aspen Music Festival opens American-themed 70th anniversary season"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Pianist Joyce Yang will perform with the Aspen Festival Orchestra on Sunday and will give a recital at Harris Concert Hall on Wednesday.<\/strong>
Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The opening salvo of the Aspen Music Festival\u2019s American-themed 2019 season comes Sunday, with pianist Joyce Yang performing George Gershwin\u2019s Piano Concerto in F Major with the Aspen Festival Orchestra.<\/p>\n

The summer\u2019s \u201cBeing American\u201d theme, over the next nine weeks, will offer an array of definitions and interpretations of the American sound and character.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is the American sound in that it has that great optimism and a dose of freedom,\u201d Yang said of the concerto. \u201cWhatever the quote-unquote American sound is for me, it has a lot to do with that optimism and finding magic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The jazzy orchestral piece challenges the soloist to move from intimate passages fit for a nightclub to galloping cinematic sections and Gershwin\u2019s signature grandiose and soaring symphonic flourishes. It may be lesser known than Gershwin\u2019s major works for piano and orchestra, eclipsed in popular culture by \u201cRhapsody in Blue,\u201d but it\u2019s no less worthy of Aspen\u2019s biggest stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe piece has quite a bit of magic in it,\u201d Yang said. \u201cI always feel like I\u2019m going to fly away and lift from Earth \u2014 you\u2019re constantly soaring to these great heights.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her words, it\u2019s \u201cless stuffy\u201d than much of the classical repertoire and calls for a completely different stylistic touch than, say, the Mozart and Rachmaninoff pieces that Yang will perform during her solo recital Wednesday at Harris Concert Hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually use different muscles attacking the piano in some of the really jazzy sections,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s like if you go to the gym and you work on something totally different and you have that slight soreness in some strange area of your body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yang\u2019s recital on Wednesday at Harris Concert Hall will include four Rachmaninoff piano works, culminating in the composer\u2019s \u201cSymphonic Dances,\u201d reconfigured for two pianos. Yang will team with another beloved Aspen alum, Conrad Tao, to tackle the piece.<\/p>\n

The pair, who also both studied under Yoheved Kaplinsky in the pre-college program at the Juilliard School, has performed it together once before at the Laguna Beach Chamber Music Festival. That experience convinced them they needed to bring it to Aspen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a handful of things that he did \u2014 I had no idea I could phrase something that way or color it that way,\u201d she recalled. \u201cIt was a revelation and I said, \u2018We have to do this again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s concert is the centerpiece of an auspicious opening weekend for the 2019 festival, which began Thursday night with a recital by the Pacifica Quartet. This evening\u2019s Aspen Chamber Symphony concert in the Benedict includes the premiere of a new orchestral work by living legend of the bass Edgar Meyer<\/a>, Mozart\u2019s Piano Concerto No. 24 with Andreas Haefliger and Gershwin\u2019s Catfish Row Suite from \u201cPorgy and Bess.\u201d On Saturday night the tent will host a tribute to Nat King Cole by vocalist Gregory Porter<\/a> with special guests, in the Music Festival\u2019s annual collaboration with the Jazz Aspen Snowmass June Experience.<\/p>\n

Yang, a Grammy nominee, 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition silver medalist and Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, has been part of the Aspen Music Fest family<\/a> since her youth as a student. She has performed here every summer as a featured performer since she was 19, when she became the youngest ever Van Cliburn finalist and instantly became a global star. Being the featured soloist at the opening Sunday, she admitted, adds some extra pressure to her annual pilgrimage to Aspen. But she welcomes it, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m touched that they trust me with such a big evening,\u201d Yang said. \u201cIt means a lot to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sunday also marks her first time performing under festival music director Robert Spano, who will conduct Sunday\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

The \u201cBeing American\u201d theme will no doubt be a conversation-starter on the music school\u2019s Castle Creek campus and on the lawn at the Benedict this summer. The conversation began Tuesday at the Aspen Music Festival\u2019s convocation, when Spano took up the question in his opening remarks to students and faculty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to keep the question open as to what \u2018Being American\u2019 in the music means,\u201d Spano said. \u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful question and a difficult one, because it goes back to the question of what it means, being American, in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he offered a few answers.<\/p>\n

Like Yang, Spano strayed from music theory to define the American sound, focusing instead on four elements: dreaming, daring, doing and discipline. He pointed to rocket scientist Jack Parsons and the composer Aaron Copland as examples of those four D\u2019s in action as they broke new ground of American invention.<\/p>\n

Musing on the definition of the American sound, Spano also paraphrased the judge who, in the 1990 obscenity trial against artist Robert Mapplethorpe, famously defined pornography saying, \u201cI know it when I see it.\u201d The same, Spano argued, could be said of American music: \u201cI know it when I hear it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The festival is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, as well as the 20th anniversary of the new Benedict Music Tent, occasions that led the festival\u2019s leaders to the American theme.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like the right time \u2014 as one of America\u2019s flagship arts institutions \u2014 to ask, through the lens of great music, what it means to be American,\u201d President and CEO Alan Fletcher said upon the season announcement in February.<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pianist Joyce Yang will perform with the Aspen Festival Orchestra on Sunday and will give a recital at Harris Concert Hall on Wednesday.Courtesy photo The opening salvo of the Aspen Music Festival\u2019s American-themed 2019 season comes Sunday, with pianist Joyce Yang performing George Gershwin\u2019s Piano Concerto in F Major with the Aspen Festival Orchestra. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2445794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 11:24:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}