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”)

ASPEN MUSIC EVENT WITH JOSHUA BELL & EDGAR MEYER -- WHAT IS A DOUBLE BASS?

Edgar Meyer (Photo credit: judy h)

On Friday, 7/13/2012, I attended my first Aspen Music Festival event of this summer season. The Aspen Chamber Symphony, conducted by Robert Spano and joined by guest artists Susanna Philips(vocalist – soprano), Joshua Bell (violin) and Edgar Meyer (double bass), performed three works reflecting the Aspen Music Festival’s summer  2012 theme, “Made in America”.

According to the Aspen Music Festival, this theme:

 “…features the music of three groups of recognized and much-beloved composers: the current musical luminaries on the North American scene; émigré composers who created significant music in America, from Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky to Hindemith, Bloch, and Bartok; and the entire school of American composers who studied in Europe and returned to establish a truly American school, including MacDowell, Chadwick, Copland, Antheil, Rorem, and many others…”

July 13, 2012, Aspen Music Festival Featured Works

 

“Knoxville Summer of 1915 .op 24” by Samuel Barber

“Concerto for Violin and Double Bass” by Edgar Meyer

“Symphony No. 4 in D minor, op 120” by Robert Schumann

ASPEN COLORADO – WHAT’S BEEN GOING ON - WHAT’S COMING UP

Jerome B. Wheeler, former Macy's executive who later moved to Aspen, Colorado, and helped develop the town during its silver-mining boom era in the 1880s. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Aspen, Colorado really is a delightfully unique place.

While the town is recognized internationally as a skiing and snowboarding mecca with many high-profile events and activities geared towards the rich and famous, it also provides the venue for many other outstanding activities and events that are accessible to the “common folk” as well.

Having grown up in Aspen and having lived here (or close by) for most of my life, one would think that I would take advantage of this, but it is astonishingly easy sometimes to take opportunities like this for granted. Only recently have I acted to rectify this and avail myself of activities and events that I had once brushed off or ignored completely.

Over the last year, I have listened to Aspen Music Festival concerts, sat in on lectures and presentations by the Aspen Center for Physics and the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES) , and even participated in local community dances.