The Robert Mann Chamber Music Series continues with a world premiere by “astonishingly innovative” composer James Stephenson (Musical America); while he writes deftly “in all walks of the musical landscape,” his new quartet features trumpet and strings. Following intermission, Tchaikovsky remembers Italy — by way of Russia, of course — in an irresistible sextet for strings, his final contribution to chamber music.
Six-time Grammy-winning conductor and Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Leonard Slatkin joins the Festival for a program celebrating the distinctive American sound. This spotlight on American composers begins with Aaron Copland’s Rodeo with its iconic “Hoedown,” followed by a chaconne from John Corigliano’s romantic score for the film The Red Violin. After the break: Ron Nelson’s paean to the South’s Savannah River, a haunting adagio by “unmistakably American-sounding” Cindy McTee (Washington Post), and finally George Gershwin’s jazzy symphonic poem An American in Paris.
Six-time Grammy-winning conductor and Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Leonard Slatkin joins the Festival for a program celebrating the distinctive American sound. This spotlight on American composers begins with Aaron Copland’s Rodeo with its iconic “Hoedown,” followed by a chaconne from John Corigliano’s romantic score for the film The Red Violin. After the break: Ron Nelson’s paean to the South’s Savannah River, a haunting adagio by “unmistakably American-sounding” Cindy McTee (Washington Post), and finally George Gershwin’s jazzy symphonic poem An American in Paris.
Music Director Peter Oundjian begins this all-Mozart marvel with a mysterious serenade for winds, which broods before turning suddenly buoyant. At the keyboard for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 is Tony Siqi Yun, a nuanced performer who plays with “every note personalized” (Musical America). Closing this revel of Mozart’s genius is his Haffner Symphony, a staggering work of energy and invention.
The Robert Mann Chamber Music Series continues with a program featuring the Festival’s own musicians. Beethoven’s only quintet for piano and wind is rife with rhapsodic dialogue between its instruments. In Stravinsky’s bitter L’Histoire du Soldat, a WWI soldier makes a deal with the devil in order to know the future, but — after a rousing story animated by music — the cunning devil keeps the upper hand.
Music Director Peter Oundjian helms one of music’s grandest spectacles: Holst’s The Planets. From the hammering “Mars, the Bringer of War” to the ethereal “Neptune, the Mystic,” this seven-planet suite lures the heavens into Chautauqua Auditorium. Electrifying pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii performs Rachmaninoff’s dreamy Second Piano Concerto. This monumental program begins with the world premiere by Leigha Amick, a composer who aims “to spark intellectual curiosity and express human experience.”
Music Director Peter Oundjian helms one of music’s grandest spectacles: Holst’s The Planets. From the hammering “Mars, the Bringer of War” to the ethereal “Neptune, the Mystic,” this seven-planet suite lures the heavens into Chautauqua Auditorium. Electrifying pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii performs Rachmaninoff’s dreamy Second Piano Concerto. This monumental program begins with the world premiere by Leigha Amick, a composer who aims “to spark intellectual curiosity and express human experience.”
Conductor Gemma New returns to lead a varied program, beginning with Prokofiev’s cheerful “Classical” Symphony, which he referred to as “a symphony as Mozart or Hayden might have written it.” Ricardo Morales joins the Festival Orchestra to perform Copland’s Clarinet Concerto — penned during a four-month tour of Latin America, the pulsing rhythms of Brazil are woven throughout Copland’s trademark jazz and lyricism. Morales continues with one of music’s finest showcases for the clarinet, Rossini’s challenging Introduction, Theme, and Variations. The program concludes with Ravel’s beloved Ma mère l’oye (Mother Goose) suite, where we meet Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb, Beauty and the Beast, and more.
“None of us have any memory of our lives without the string quartet,” claims this highly sought-after ensemble of energetic musicians who met each other at music camp as teenagers. By audience request, the Danish String Quartet returns to the Robert Mann Chamber Music Series with a delectable program including works by Mozart, Shostakovich, and Ravel.
Audiences raved about pianist Michelle Cann’s Festival debut in 2023; now Cann returns to Chautauqua to perform the world premiere of a piano concerto by esteemed composer Valerie Coleman. After intermission, Berlioz invites us on a psychedelic romp: his Symphonie Fantastique is a musical hallucination that evokes dark revels, an execution, and a visit to the underworld.
Audiences raved about pianist Michelle Cann’s Festival debut in 2023; now Cann returns to Chautauqua to perform the world premiere of a piano concerto by esteemed composer Valerie Coleman. After intermission, Berlioz invites us on a psychedelic romp: his Symphonie Fantastique is a musical hallucination that evokes dark revels, an execution, and a visit to the underworld.
Music Director Peter Oundjian continues his tradition of closing the Festival season with a massive Mahler symphony. Mahler referred to his sunny Third as “A Summer’s Midday Dream,” and was aware he was defying symphonic convention as he wrote it, saying, “But to write a symphony means, to me, to construct a world with all the tools of the available technique.” Grammy Award-winning mezzo soprano Fleur Barron and the Boulder Children’s Chorus join the Festival Orchestra to give this epic symphony its voice.