ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL – GEAT CONCERTS AND GREAT REHEARSALS!

English: montage of great classical music composers - from left to right: first row - Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Händel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven; second row - Gioachino Rossini, Felix Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin, Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi; third row - Johann Strauss II, Johannes Brahms, Georges Bizet, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Antonín Dvořák; forth row - Edvard Grieg, Edward Elgar, Sergei Rachmaninoff, George Gershwin, Aram Khachaturian (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Aspen Music Festival concerts that I have attended this summer have been wonderful. 

And while I really enjoyed the regular events featuring the musical talents of such artists as Joshua Bell, Edgar Meyer, and Chi Yuen Cheng and the works of such composers as Samuel Barber, Robert Schumann, Igor Stravinsky, Wolfgang Amadè Mozart, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, I have been especially fascinated by the dress rehearsals I have attended as well.

Among other things, these rehearsals have allowed me a greater understanding of just how much effort goes into perfecting these events.

ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL EVENT – OH BOY, WHAT AN OBOE!

English: The Aspen Concert Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival and School, August 16, 2010. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last Wednesday we were treated to exceptional performances at the Aspen Music Tent from the Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra – and the Aspen weather!  I also learned a lot about an instrument with which I was not particularly familiar, the oboe.

A driving thunderstorm that sounded like a freight train on the Aspen Music Tent’s roof briefly interrupted the first piece by Igor Stravinsky, “Divertimento from the Fairy’s Kiss”, but this did little to dampen the spirits of the performers or the enthusiasm of the audience at this event. In fact, this dynamic aural display actually seemed to electrify the entire experience – a triumvirate of works by Stravinsky, Wolfgang Amadè Mozart (“Oboe Concerto in C major, K.314”, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( “Symphony No. 5 in E minor, op 64”)