United States Colorado Music Competition 2024 [1] – Numerous: Olga Kern (piano), Kabin Thomas (narrator), Colorado Competition Orchestra / Gemma New (director). Chautauqua Auditorium, Boulder, Colorado, 19.7.2024. (DS)

Vivien Fung – ‘Prayer’
Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No.2, Op.18
Grieg– Alternatives from Peer Gynt Suites 1&2

It was not simply one other busy journey day in July. I used to be ready, hour after hour, to see if my flight would ever elevate off throughout the latest international Microsoft know-how crash in order that I may make it for the anticipated third weekend of concert events at Boulder’s Colorado Music Competition. Many flights, together with these of other people hoping to listen to Olga Kern’s efficiency of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.2, had been canceled with no imminent probability of rebooking. Sadly, they’d miss out on a unbelievable live performance.

However one thing mysterious (and completely unbiased of any fashionable know-how) should have intervened on my behalf. As a result of I made it – by working down the jetway, hailing a Lyft and rushing alongside the open roads of Colorado to drag up moments earlier than the efficiency started at Boulder’s lovely Chautauqua Auditorium.

Whereas a lot composition nowadays incorporates computer systems, software program, electronics and, generally, AI, Vivien Fung’s ‘Prayer’ is an fascinating testomony to a time after we had been relieved to have new know-how round us. She wrote the work throughout the isolation of COVID-19 to convey bodily separated musicians throughout Canada along with recorded elements. It was intriguing to listen to this ‘pandemic work’ in a live performance corridor now, with a full orchestra below one baton.

It transitions superbly to the stage – this time with the unwavering experience of conductor Gemma New. Primarily based on a prayer by Hildegard von Bingen, Fung’s brief work is a balm for the soul. ‘Prayer’ opened with the grounding sound of a number of basses as different sections slowly joined in, till a sonorous, multi-textured mix wafted into the huge wood auditorium. I couldn’t assist however envision Fung writing the piece in isolation whereas desirous to seize a way of the majestic profundity of spirit. She succeeded, skillfully and with beautiful aesthetics – which might play as nicely on Zoom as on a mountain. On the shut, the piece returns to a spot of quiet introspection after which ends with a poignant, single ring from the percussion part. Fung’s composition captured the viewers’s consideration and proved that know-how has not made it unimaginable to deal with one expertise at a time.

With know-how on the thoughts, I watched the Steinway lid open for Olga Kern’s efficiency of Rachmaninoff. Although we might take their existence as a right, devices are additionally technological improvements of their time. Like another invention, they will work nicely or break down and, like software program, they work finest with expert, inventive customers. Kern is one such technological grasp of the piano. Simply as a savvy Wall Road analyst may elegantly manipulate an Excel spreadsheet, Kern tears into the piano to display what it actually has to supply. And, after all, this can be a lot extra scintillating than a spreadsheet!

Kern carried out with countless vitality, powering via the Rachmaninoff concerto with a magnetic pleasure. From my seat within the second row, I noticed the instrument shake and leap on the stage, exhibiting its robust Steinway spine. However this was not simply piano showmanship – it was a really particular person strategy to a bit that audiences love and may anticipate to listen to in an ordinary interpretation. Kern had different plans.

She lit a recent hearth below this behemoth work. At occasions her phrasing was jazzy, and generally she had a Chopinesque fashion. Glimmers of early Brahms flowed from her fingers. The concerto’s emotional content material was putty in Kern’s arms: she accentuated anxious and nervous undertones with a fingering approach that emphasised her interpretation, and she or he turned passages into tender expressive moments with out falling into the mainstream pit of nostalgic shmaltz. And each climax – of which Rachmaninoff is the grasp – she approached with an intriguing selection. For some, she used a sweeping gesture, and for others she would leap on with shock or creep up on them with deliberate hesitancy. Kern made me essentially inquisitive about and deeply drawn to this concerto once more – not a simple feat.

Although in each method a soloist with a assured presence, Kern can also be an ensemble participant and totally engaged with the orchestra. Her rapport with conductor New (who stepped in for Rune Bergmann who had been scheduled) was removed from hidden – they paired nicely and led the pageant orchestra collectively. Their working relationship was evident and elevated the expertise. Within the second motion, there was a testomony to Kern’s reference to the orchestra when she and the principal oboe performed the opening of alternating voices as if subsequent to one another in an intimate area quite than at a distance throughout the stage. It was heavenly.

The most effective summer season festivals are sometimes locations of camaraderie the place musicians separated by their seasonal jobs return to previous pals in splendid settings like Boulder. Kern comes yearly to the Colorado Music Competition and, after shouts of bravo from the viewers, she beamed and introduced her encore decisions. One had the sensation that she was excited to share an intimate secret with us, as if she had been taking part in a favourite piece alone at midnight. She gave a rendition of Prokofiev’s Etude No.4 in C minor that entwined the foolish, severe and macabre magnificently. Kern completed with an viewers favourite, Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’, at such a rollicking velocity that she out-paced any bee which may have tried to maintain up.

The night ended with alternatives from Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suites. Kabin Thomas of CPR Classical Radio joined in to inform Peer Gynt’s story between every motion, and he had an actual knack for freshening up an previous story. He framed Peer Gynt as ‘the Homer Simpson of Norway’, which amused the viewers, and he demonstrated listening expressions as he sat in entrance of the orchestra – a boon for individuals who need to strategy classical music. Thomas modeled learn how to enter the area of listening via demonstration.

The orchestra carried out with what struck me as a classic radio fashion – vivid, completely balanced tone and dynamics, tight phrasing – all with the intention of sending a transparent message to audiences of all types. Underneath New, who held the orchestra along with ease, they performed particularly partaking, sultry variations of ‘Anitra’s Dance’ and ‘Solveig’s Music’. Everybody may really feel how every musician beloved being a part of the pageant’s music-making.

By the top of the night, ideas of a four-hour flight delay had been lengthy gone. Expertise has all the time been marching ahead, with its advantages and its detriments. Alongside the best way, music has been a part of the journey of human creation. As soon as once more, the music didn’t let anybody down, no matter any international software program crashes, and it introduced distinctive artists and an impressed viewers collectively.

Daniele Sahr