United States Aspen Music Competition [6]: Aspen, Colorado. (HS)

In an Aspen Music Competition week that started with a dutiful efficiency of the 60-year-old Broadway basic Fiddler on the Roof and included with a extremely private recital by composer Missy Mazzoli and violinist Jennifer Koh, depart it to violinists Gil Shaham and Adele Anthony to ship a night of satisfying music that ranged from Bach to Freddie Mercury.

Shaham and Anthony, who’re married, launched their Thursday recital with a curious however dazzling association by Ruggiero Ricci of the Presto finale of J.S. Bach’s Violin Sonata No.1. Ricci organized Brahms’s model for piano, which expanded on Bach with extra counterpoint. Then got here ‘Ecstatic Dance’ by the Australian composer Ross Edwards, who based mostly it on Aboriginal music – a nod to Anthony’s heritage.

This system was a part of a Seventy fifth-anniversary collection that options headliner musicians who bought their begins at this pageant’s college, most sharing the music-making with Aspen associates (and some present college students).

A set of three items by the British violinist and someday composer Julian Milone added two younger violinists and a bassist to play intelligent variations of Weill’s ‘Mack the Knife’, Mozart’s ‘Der Holle Rache’ (the Queen of the Evening’s aria) and Mercury’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, earlier than pianist Anton Nel joined the 2 soloists in an brisk and virtuosic gallop by means of Moszkowski’s Suite for Two Violins and Piano.

The topper, although, was a totally elegant, poignant and fantastically performed Clarinet Quintet in B minor by Brahms (in a method bringing this system full circle). Clarinetist Joaquin Valdepeñas was particularly eloquent, melding a delicate tone with the strings, together with fellow college standouts, violist Choong-Jin Chang and cellist Brinton Averil Smith.

Wednesday in Harris Corridor, Missy Mazzoli, the pageant’s composer-in-residence this summer season, stepped into the performer highlight with violinist Jennifer Koh, for whom she has written music on and off for 15 years. Within the spirit of a thread operating by means of this 12 months’s programming, the music veered away from the standard classical mannequin of sonatas, solos and duos in favor of utilizing electronics to increase prospects.

Clad in military boots, a feathery black costume and pink hair, Koh utilized amplification to her violin. Mazzoli, additionally in fight boots and black, dialed up ready music on a pc, performed a small digital keyboard and sometimes turned to a grand piano for sonic selection in a collection of quick items that ranged from unique soundscapes to mellow meditations on acquainted classical tropes.

A gesture to J.S. Bach’s well-known Chaconne launched the primary piece, ‘Dissolve, Oh My Coronary heart’, which spirals into its personal world over eight minutes. Controlling computer-generated sounds, Mazzoli underlined the violinist’s lithe melodic traces. Foundational bass traces sometimes supported extra florid passages. It revealed a aspect of each musicians that we don’t typically hear of their greater works.

One of the best for me had been ‘A Music for Mick Kelly’, which appeared to come back from a toddler’s thoughts if that baby had a vivid creativeness, and the ethereal, dreamlike ‘Vespers for Violin’.

Monday’s live performance staging of Fiddler on the Roof, the beloved musical by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick that opened on Broadway 60 years in the past, crammed the music tent with the largest crowd of the season to date. It was the annual semi-staged joint effort of the music pageant and Theatre Aspen. Headlined by a number of singing actors with Broadway credit, the presentation benefited most from a 60-piece orchestra taking part in John Williams’s sensible orchestration for the 1971 movie. The educated and insightful Andy Einhorn performed along with his common aptitude.

Neither the solid nor the manufacturing had been dangerous, however little was as much as the requirements set in current summer season displays, together with The Sound of Music and South Pacific. Shuler Hensley, who directed and performed the lead character Tevye with a resonant baritone, missed lots of the character’s particulars, and a number of the magical moments of the piece wafted by with lesser affect than wanted.

All of the voices had been amplified, a necessity towards the massive orchestra. Among the many standouts had been Broadway veterans Anne L. Nathan as a really human Golde, Danny Kornfeld as an brisk Motel the tailor and, as Tevye’s three daughters, Sydney Borchers (Hodel), Sophia Gunter (Tseitl) and Aliyah Douglas (Chava). A stunningly athletic Russian dance quantity by Gabriel Bommarito-Logan as Fyedka stole the present within the first act.

Because the titular fiddler on the roof, pupil violinist Ezra Shcolnik performed the acquainted music (which Williams enhanced) effectively. It’s maybe unfair to match him to the movie rating’s (unseen) Isaac Stern, however subtleties of articulation had been misplaced within the amplification.

This system be aware targeted nearly fully on the story, with hardly a phrase concerning the music.

Harvey Steiman

23.7.2024, Fiddler on the Roof: Soloists, refrain, Aspen Competition Ensemble / Andy Einhorn (conductor), Shuler Hensley (director). Klein Music Tent.

Forged:
Tevye – Shuler Hensley
Golde – Anne L. Nathan
Lazar Wolf – David Benoit
Motel – Danny Kornfeld
Hodel – Sydney Borchers

24.7.2024, Recital: Jennifer Koh (amplified violin), Missy Mazzoli (keyboards, electronics, piano). Harris Live performance Corridor.

Mazzoli – ‘Dissolve, O my Coronary heart’, Interlude, ‘A Thousand Tongues’, ‘Tooth and Nail’, ‘Kinski Paganini’, ‘The Evening Forward and No Actual Destiny’, ‘A Music for Mick Kelly’, ‘Hail, Horrors, Hail’, ‘All I Need Is All of It’, ‘Procession Ascending’, ‘Vespers for Violin’

25.7.2024, Recital: Gil Shaham, Adele Anthony (violins). Harris Live performance Corridor.

J.S. Bach (arr. Ricci) — Presto from Violin Sonata No.1 in G minor
Ross Edwards — Ecstatic Dance for Two Violins
Julian Milone — Alternatives for 4 violins and double bass [ Yvette Kraft, Eunice Lee (violins), Liam Jankelovics (bass)]
Moritz Moszkowski — Suite for Two Violins and Piano, op.71 [Anton Nel (piano)]
Brahms — Clarinet Quintet in B minor [Joaquín Valdepeñas (clarinet), Choong-Jin Chang (viola) and Brinton Averil Smith (cello)]