{"id":2454125,"date":"2020-02-04T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=320306"},"modified":"2020-02-04T23:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T06:00:00","slug":"aspen-music-festival-announces-2020-season-of-uncommon-women-and-beethoven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspen-music-festival-announces-2020-season-of-uncommon-women-and-beethoven\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen Music Festival announces 2020 season of \u2018Uncommon Women\u2019 and Beethoven"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
The Aspen Music Festival and School capped off the summer season by performing Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection.”<\/strong>
Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The Aspen Music Festival and School will celebrate Beethoven\u2019s 250th birthday and the centenary of U.S. women\u2019s suffrage during a summer 2020 season of more than 400 events.<\/p>\n

The dual themes of \u201cBeethoven\u2019s Revolution\u201d and \u201cUncommon Women of Note,\u201d announced with the full season lineup as tickets went on sale<\/a> Wednesday, will carry the 71st festival season from July 2 through Aug. 23.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a whole lot of Beethoven, which we think is great,\u201d Music Fest President and CEO Alan Fletcher said this week. \u201cBut our overall programming philosophy is to mix things up, to have variety and to have things that people have not heard before. So we thought the perfect opportunity is the 100th anniversary of women\u2019s suffrage in the U.S. and to make a major part of the summer programming women in the arts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Beethoven programs will include a two-night recreation of the composer\u2019s historic December 1808 concert in Vienna, which included the premiere of his Fifth Symphony and major middle period works (Aug. 19 and Aug. 21). Today\u2019s leading pianists \u2014 Daniil Trifonov, Vladimir Feltsman and Hung-Kuan Chen among them \u2014 will play all of Beethoven\u2019s piano concertos and many of his sonatas over the course of the season, while violinist James Ehnes concludes his complete cycle of violin sonatas (Aug. 4 and Aug. 6).<\/p>\n

Pianist Inon Barnatan, cellist Alisa Weilerstein and violinist Benjamin Beilman with the Aspen Festival Orchestra will perform Beethoven\u2019s \u201cTriple\u201d Concerto conducted by returning Aspen favorite James Conlon (July 19). Barnatan and Weilerstein also will survey Beethoven\u2019s cello sonatas (July 23) and pianist Jeremy Denk will lead a chamber music evening dubbed \u201cHeroic Beethoven\u201d (Aug. 18).<\/p>\n

The season closes Aug. 23 with the Aspen Festival Orchestra and a choir performing Beethoven\u2019s Ninth \u201cChoral\u201d Symphony, following a full week of daily Beethoven concerts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when we bring out the fusillade and light up the sky with as much Beethoven as possible,\u201d said Asadour Santourian, the Music Festival\u2019s vice president for artistic administration. \u201cIt picks up momentum all summer and it climaxes that week.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cUncommon Women\u201d theme will present works by and about women, including Julia Wolfe\u2019s \u201cFountain of Youth\u201d (July 22) and the premiere of a newly commissioned work by Sarah Kirkland Snider based on texts by prominent American suffragists (Aug. 8). The season will include a semi-staged performance of Virgil Thomson\u2019s opera \u201cThe Mother of Us All,\u201d about the life of suffragette Susan B. Anthony with a libretto by Gertrude Stein (Aug. 5).<\/p>\n

Music written or conducted by women remains a rarity on classical musical programs in 2020. Fletcher said he believes the Aspen Music Festival has the power to lead fellow international symphonies and festivals toward gender parity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have an audience that is so devoted and so informed, we feel as though the audience trusts us and if we say \u2018Kaija Saariaho<\/a> is possibly the greatest living composer,\u2019 then people will say, \u2018OK, we\u2019ll listen to that,\u2019\u201d Fletcher said. \u201cWe feel that we have only a few steps to go to where nobody even thinks about, \u2018Is this a woman composer or conductor?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Women composers featured at the festival include Saariaho, Julia Wolfe, Missy Mazzoli and Melody E\u00f6tv\u00f6s. Works inspired by women authors include Kevin Puts\u2019 \u201cLetters from Georgia,\u201d based on Georgia O\u2019Keeffe\u2019s writings (July 5); Andre Previn\u2019s \u201cHoney and Rue,\u201d based on Toni Morrison\u2019s poetry (July 26); and a spoken performance of Maya Angelou\u2019s \u201cStill I Rise\u201d (Aug. 11).<\/p>\n

The festival has made strides toward gender equality in its student body<\/a> in recent years, and opted to make women a programmatic focus for 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery concert you have ever gone to in your life, most likely, has been all male composers,\u201d Santourian said. \u201cSo how about a summer that has a very healthy mix?\u201d<\/p>\n

On the opera front, the Music Fest will launch its new Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS program<\/a>, overseen by the acclaimed soprano Ren\u00e9e Fleming and Houston Grand Opera artistic director Patrick Summers.<\/p>\n

The pair will lead a reorganized Aspen opera program, run for the past three decades by Edward Berkeley, who returns to Aspen to direct Mozart\u2019s \u201cThe Magic Flute\u201d (July 16 to 20).<\/p>\n

Fleming herself also will perform with the Aspen Festival Orchestra on July 5, with festival music director Robert Spano conducting.<\/p>\n

The reorganized program will include vocal training as well as vocational and music business instruction, with repertoire expanding into art song, cabaret and Broadway. Though the curriculum for the 50 opera students will be different, the audience-facing opera program is largely unchanged. Staged productions at the Wheeler Opera House for the season are \u201cThe Magic Flute\u201d and Ricky Ian Gordon\u2019s \u201cThe Grapes of Wrath\u201d (Aug. 20 and 22).<\/p>\n

On the Broadway front, the season will include a concert production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic \u201cThe Sound of Music\u201d at the Benedict Music Tent (Aug. 3). Organized in partnership with Theatre Aspen, it follows the inaugural 2019 joint concert production of \u201cSouth Pacific.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Music Fest also will host \u201cAn Evening of Cabaret: I\u2019m in the Mood for Love,\u201d featuring opera students performing from The Great American Songbook (July 27).<\/p>\n

The festival also announced a number of programming changes for 2020 aimed at drawing new audience members. Its Wednesday and Friday concerts will begin at 5:30 p.m. \u2014 an hour earlier than in previous seasons \u2014 and will run 30 minutes shorter and without intermission.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s purely to see if the audience will appreciate it,\u201d Fletcher said. \u201cMaybe for first-time people, shorter would be better. That was our thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

The festival also is introducing a new \u201cConcert Concierge\u201d service, providing personal recommendations to potential audience members unsure what events might suit their tastes. And first-time Music Fest attendees will also get a 50% discount on concert tickets.<\/p>\n

Returning audience favorites on the docket include violinist Pinchas Zukerman with the Zukerman Trio in his first Aspen summer appearance in 15 years (Aug. 12) and alumni including soprano Golda Schultz (July 24), violinist Sarah Chang (July 26), violinist Gil Shaham (July 31), pianist Joyce Yang (Aug. 12), violinist Robert McDuffie (Aug. 13), and pianist Tengku Irfan (Aug. 21).<\/p>\n

Musicians making their debuts in Aspen this summer include cellist Nicolas Altstaedt (Aug. 16), violinist Benjamin Beilman (July 19), alumna and soprano Yelena Dyachek (Aug. 23), alumnus and 2019 Tchaikovsky International Cello Competition winner Zlatomir Fung (July 26), bass Soloman Howard (Aug. 23), violinist Alexi Kenney (Aug. 18) and 18-year-old Russian pianist Alexander Malofeev (July 26).<\/p>\n

The festival expects a class of 690 music students from around the world for the summer in Aspen, studying under 200 teaching artists.<\/p>\n

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

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

The Aspen Music Festival and School capped off the summer season by performing Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection.”Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times The Aspen Music Festival and School will celebrate Beethoven\u2019s 250th birthday and the centenary of U.S. women\u2019s suffrage during a summer 2020 season of more than 400 events. The dual themes of \u201cBeethoven\u2019s […]<\/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":["post-2454125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 17:27:39","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\/2454125","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=2454125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2454125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2454125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2454125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}