Music Director Peter Oundjian sat down with Colorado Music Festival Principal Trumpet Jeff Work to discuss his career path, a few of his favorite music venues, what it feels like to record music over Zoom, and more.

This year’s edition of the Music of Today series runs July 12-17 and puts an emphasis on diversity and inclusion. It features works by more than a dozen living composers ranging from such well-established masters like Philip Glass and Osvaldo Golijov to up-and-comers Stacy Garrop and 2013 Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw to cross-genre talents like Steven Ellison aka Flying Lotus, a Los Angeles DJ and rapper.

The acclaimed Anthony McGill, principal clarinetist for the New York Philharmonic, makes his mark on Chautauqua Auditorium on August 4. The orchestral centerpiece of the show is Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite — an exciting and dramatic musical fairytale drawn from generations of folklore.

“I’m just honestly seeking out masterworks from all eras and all styles,” Lark said. “It’s pretty common now to hear from musicians of my generation and later that people are over the term ‘genre.’ I look for music that I fall in love with and that has a deep message.”

His big breakthrough came in 2018 when he won both first prize and the audience prize at the Malko Competition in Copenhagen, an international conducting contest that the symphonic world follows closely for new talent. “I can measure everything before that and everything after that as two completely times in my life,” Bancroft said.