GRACE LYDENFestival Focus writer

French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, one of the most in-demand soloists today, will play Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Aspen Festival Orchestra (AFO) at 4 pm Sunday, August 12, in the Benedict Music Tent. The concert is a part of the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) and will be conducted by Christian Arming, the respected music director of the New Japan Philharmonic.

Saint-Saëns’s final piano concerto is popularly nick-named “The Egyptian,” for the composer wrote it on one of his winter vacations to Egypt. In the second move-ment, one can hear the influences, including sounds of Nile crickets chirping. The composer premiered the piece himself in 1896 to great success.

“This is, of course, his last expression on the genre, so it’s a fuselage of bravura, a crystallization of his ideas,” says Asadour Santourian, vice president for artistic ad-ministration and artistic advisor.

Santourian notes that Saint-Saëns’s five piano con-certos have an uneven history of performance.

“There was a period, prior to the last twenty years, when Saint-Saëns concertos were played very regu-larly, for the sweetness of their tunes, for the bravura of the writing for the soloist,” Santourian says. “They were very, very popular and mainstage. Then they dis-appeared.”

In 2007, though, Thibaudet recorded Saint-Saëns’s concertos No. 2 and No. 5, and Santourian says other pianists have also started to bring back the pieces that are “just beautiful, tuneful works featuring the soloist in a spectacularly brilliant way.”

Hailed as "One of the Best Pianists in the World"Thibaudet’s performing career of thirty years and im-

pressive discography of forty recordings can be attrib-

uted to a combination of technical finesse and poetic interpretation that has received copious praise from publications and fellow musicians alike. The New York Times wrote that "every note he fashions is a pearl…the joy, brilliance, and musicality of his performance could not be missed.”

The pianist champions the music of his country and will also give an all-Debussy program for the AMFS at 8 pm Tuesday, August 14, in Harris Concert Hall.

Wagner and MessiaenThe Sunday program will also include two works

from Wagner operas: Prelude to Act 1 from Parsifal and Brünnhilde’s Immolation from Götterdämmerung, which is the final scene of the last opera in Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Brünnhilde has taken matters into her own hands at this point and rides her horse into the fire, so that she can cleanse the Ring of its curse and allow the Rhinemaidens to claim it from the ashes.

“It has a very Armageddon sound to it, but it’s also very tuneful, and at the end of the episode, we return to middle-earth, and we’re back to where we started,” Santourian says.

In addition, the AFO will play Messiaen’s Concert à quatre (Concerto for four), featuring AMFS artist-faculty Nadine Asin flute, Elaine Douvas oboe, Darrett Adkins cello, and Steven Beck piano.

This piece will be of particular interest to audience members who go to From the Canyons to the Stars on Thursday in Harris Concert Hall (see article below).

“The Concert à quatre is at the point in Messiaen's life when he has crystallized his entire knowledge of his very long life: composition knowledge, music knowledge, knowledge of himself,” Santourian says. “The difference between a work that was for 1976 and a work from the 1990s is, of course, a span of over twenty years. We’re getting real essence of Messiaen in this piece.”

GRACE LYDENFestival Focus writer

French composer Olivier Messiaen came to the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) in 1964 for the Con-ference on Contemporary Music, and he returned to the United States in 1972 on com-mission to compose a piece for the nation’s bicentennial. While in the American West, he trav-eled to see its breathtaking can-yons and study the birds of the region.

“He was such a devoted bird-er,” AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher says. “He was one of the world’s great experts on birdsong, so it is natural that when he would come out here, he would want to go someplace and see the kinds of species he wouldn’t see so much in the south of France.”

Messiaen’s experiences inspired him to write the breathtaking From the Canyons to the Stars, a chamber work with references to birdsong throughout, which

AMFS Music Director Robert Spano will conduct at 8 pm Thursday, August 9, in Harris Concert Hall.

“If you wonder whether classical music can express the awe of the western landscape and looking at the stars at night, wonder no more. This is that piece,”

Fletcher says.Though the work was written

to evoke images of the nation’s canyons, Fletcher says Mes-siaen might as well have been writing about the mountains of Aspen, for the music evokes this region, as well. Spano says this is part of why it was pro-grammed for the AMFS 2012 “Made in America” season.

“So much of the piece comes from birds that are native to where we are,” Spano says. “That piece leapt to mind right

away when we were talking about ‘Made in America.’ The thought of having that piece happen here, the

Supplement to The Aspen Times Vol 23, No. 8

Jean-Yves Thibaudet, one of the most sought-after pianists today, will perform Saint-Saëns's Piano Concerto No. 5, "The Egyp-tian," at 4 pm Sunday, August 12, in the Benedict Music Tent.

Thibaudet Plays Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 5

Buy tickets now! (970) 925-9042 or www.aspenmusicfestival.com

Robert Spano will conduct a thirty-three member chamber group in Messiaen's From the Canyons to the Stars on August 9.

FESTIVAL FOCUS

From the Canyons to the Stars at AMFS

YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

Monday, August 6, 2012

See CANYONS Festival Focus page 3

PHOTO COURTESY OF JEAN-YVES THIBAUDET

ALEX IRVIN / AMFS

If you wonder whether classical music can express

the awe of the western landscape ... wonder no more. This is that piece.

Alan FletcherAMFS President and CEO

Page 2 | Monday, August 6, 2012 FESTIVAL FOCUS: Your Weekly Classical Music Guide Supplement to The Aspen Times

GRACE LYDENFestival Focus writer

Seventeen-year-old Melba Pearson knew she wanted to play the violin when she was six and saw a photo of a violin case in a magazine. She also has always been aware of the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) and says that growing up next door to it contributed to her passion for playing music.

“I’ve lived in Aspen my entire life, and so the Music Festival has been a huge part of my life since before I could walk,” Pearson says. “My parents really love going to the concerts, and the Music Festival has been a big part of my family, so playing music has just come naturally to me.”

This is Pearson’s fifth summer as a student in the Festival PALS (Passes And Lessons Scholarship) program. PALS provides selected Roaring Fork Valley music students between the ages of eleven and eighteen with free music lessons, taught by AMFS students, and complimentary Festival season passes. The program has had the support of Community Banks of Colorado and Les Dames d’Aspen from the first year.

Pearson started the piano around the age of four, but she asked to play the violin two years later and now considers it her primary instrument. Her family lives in Florida several months of the year, and she takes lessons there, as well as in Aspen during the year. Her PALS teacher therefore offers a third perspective on music-making.

“I actually really, really love getting different people’s opinions because everyone’s different in the way they play or approach a piece, how they approach teaching, and what they tell me to do better,” Pearson says.

This is Pearson’s first summer studying with Ritchie Zah, who also conducts the PALS string ensemble. Fourteen-year-old PALS participant Julia Foran says the string ensemble is one of her favorite aspects of the program.

“Personally, I think chamber music is the best thing about playing a stringed instrument,” Foran says. “When you play music, you’re in a group, so it’s not just about you. It’s about connecting with other people and visualizing some kind of scene to make the music the way you want it to sound.”

Foran is a third-year PALS student, and this year, she is taking viola and voice lessons with AMFS students David Lai and Stephanie Sadownik, respectively. She has played the violin for six years and started the viola last fall. She also grew up with a

love for musical theater. Last summer, Foran made her Theatre Aspen debut playing the title role in Annie.

“I really like the audience and the applause, and I like to see the lights,” she says. “It’s a different perspective. It’s really neat, the connection you have with the audience, how you feed off their energy.”

Foran already knows she wants to attend the Music Festival one day and then pursue a career in music, either teaching or performing. She has not yet decided between viola or voice and says she is equally serious about both.

Pearson has plans to study neuroscience, but she fully intends to keep playing and performing in college.

“I just like sharing music, because I really love music, and I like giving that to other people,” Pearson says. “I feel like I’ve been given a gift and it makes me happy when I can share that gift with other people.”

Buy tickets now: (970) 925-9042 • www.aspenmusicfestival.com

Local Kids Get Music Lessons Through PALS

DEBORAH BARNECOW / AMFS

The students of the 2012 PALS program receive lessons with AMFS students, complimentary season passes, and the opportunity to play in chamber ensembles. The public is welcome to attend the free PALS vocal master classes at 1 pm Sunday, August 5, in Opera Hall 1, and 4 pm Wednesday, August 15, in Castle Creek 1, both on the Bucksbaum Campus.

Monday, August 6, 2012 | Page 3Supplement to The Aspen Times FESTIVAL FOCUS: Your Weekly Classical Music Guide

thought of hearing it here, got me all excited.”Messiaen collected birdsong with the same ardent dedication that other

composers collected folksongs of their native people. The pitches, intervals, and rhythms of various birds’ tunes are integrated into the music, giving it a unique identity.

“All of his music is tremendously shot through with love of nature and love of ecstatic Catholic mysticism,” Fletcher says. “It makes that music sound like no one else’s.”

One might think that birdsong is best mimicked on a flute, but Messiaen did not limit himself.

“He does it on all kinds of instruments: piano, percussion, woodwinds, even strings sometimes. He’ll do it with anything,” Spano says. “It’s the complete picture of what a bird sang, and birds do have incredible complexity, and subtlety, and difference in their song. We tend to reduce it to a trill, but if you actually start listening to birds, they’re doing amazing things.”

The piece is written for an ensemble of thirty-three, which includes strings, winds, brass, and percussion, “and in typical Messiaen fashion, the percussion is very much used rather than as a battery of instruments that one strikes but as a battery of instruments that add color to the score,” says Asadour Santou-rian, AMFS vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor. The ensemble will feature AMFS artist-faculty member John Zirbel horn, and Juho Pohjonen piano, making his AMFS debut.

According to Santourian, Messiaen’s works are performed infrequently.“Some are so difficult or just too complex to bring people together,” Santou-

rian says. “It’s wonderful that one can do it in a festival setting.”

Jane Monheit Sings American Songbook

Canyons: Spano ConductsContinued from Festival Focus page 1

Ray Chen, AMFS Alumnus, Plays Recital with Pianist

Khatia Buniatishvili

Violinist Ray Chen, an alumnus of the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS), and pianist Khatia Buniatishvili will perform works by Beethoven, Stravinsky, Franck, and more at 8 pm Saturday, August 11, in Harris Concert Hall.

Chen, now twenty-three, first attended the Festival in 2008 and then went on to win the 2009 Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition as the competition’s youngest participant. His concert tours have taken him all over Europe, Asia, and the United States, and this Saturday’s recital will mark his debut as a performer for the AMFS.

“We see these young people come into their own here, and then it’s a pleasure, and an honor, and really a responsibility to present them as guest artists,” AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher says.

GRACE LYDENFestival Focus writer

Jane Monheit, the jazz vocalist whose albums have frequent-ly topped the Billboard Jazz chart, says there was never a time when she did not want to be a professional singer.

“It’s not like there’s something that made me go, ‘oh, I love music,’” she says. “It’s just who I am. It’s that simple.”

Monheit will perform with her trio at 8:30 pm Wednesday, August 8, in Harris Concert Hall, for her debut recital with the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS).

Monheit says she does not determine a set list of songs until the half hour before the show, but almost all of her repertoire comes from the Great American Songbook, and the August 8 program will be no different.

“The Great American Songbook is a national treasure,” Mon-heit says. “There’s no way pop music would even exist as an art form if it weren’t for the Great American Songbook. It was the first pop music. It wasn’t considered jazz until decades later.”

The Great American Songbook is a term for the body of songs written between the 1920s and 1960s that are now considered the best of the twentieth century. These standards are typically drawn from Broadway and Hollywood productions.

Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice president for artistic admin-istration and artistic advisor, says the music is a perfect fit for the AMFS 2012 season theme, “Made in America.”

“The Great American Songbook is literature that is native to us, that we invented, whether it makes you think of Sinatra, whether it makes you think of Ellington,” Santourian says.

Monheit reveres the composers who wrote what is now stan-dard repertoire in her field.

“George Gershwin is certainly as famous as Frank Sinatra. Cole Porter is certainly as famous as Ella Fitzgerald,” Monheit says. Sometimes young people think Monheit has written the songs she performs, but “these songs were all written by bril-liant songwriting teams.”

Though none of Monheit’s family members are professional musicians, she grew up in a house where everyone played an instrument.

“Jazz was always there, and I loved it when I was tiny,” Mon-heit says.

Santourian notes that Monheit is classically trained and has the voice to prove it.

“It’s a beautiful instrument,” he says. “It is a smoldering, very healthy voice that is equally at home in the Great American Songbook, in jazz, in contemporaneous sounds, but she has carved a direction for herself being a great songstress.”

Monheit says she has been on tour nonstop for the last thir-teen years and loves when her schedule includes Aspen. She has come before for Jazz Aspen Snowmass.

“It’s always lovely to come because it’s just so pretty,” Mon-heit says. “I have a four-year-old son, and we’re New Yorkers, so I know he’ll love seeing the mountains.”

Season Benefit:Nathan Gunn

Tonight!

PHOTO BY VINCENT SOYEZ

Opera star Nathan Gunn, accompanied by wife Julie Gunn and AMFS Music Director Robert Spano, will perform a cabaret event for the AMFS 2012 season benefit at Harris Concert Hall.

Cocktails are at 5 pm, followed by the performance at 6:15 pm, and dinner on the Music Tent stage at 8 pm.

Co-Hosts and Artist Sponsors: Toby Devan Lewis and Gael Neeson

M SHARKEY PHOTOGRAPHY

Half-Price Tickets!All-Schumann Recital Jonathan Biss piano

8 pm Tuesday, August 7, in Harris Concert Hall

Present this coupon for 50 percent off. One-time use. No cash value.