The Breckenridge Music Festival and Hang Time Custom Picture Framing are thrilled to announce its call to artists for the 2012 Breckenridge Music Festival Poster.
Please bring us your best original watercolor, oil or mixed media painting
to our Breckenridge gallery between October 5th – Nov. 2nd.
Minimum image size should be 18” x 24”,
maximum size 20” x 24”. Smaller sizes not accepted. Music theme encouraged.
Inviting all Summit County Vocalists!
Participate in a performance designed to create an enjoyable, excellent choral performance within a limited time frame. This concert is for singers who want a satisfying musical experience, and whose schedules allow a limited rehearsal commitment.
The concert, “From Bach to the Beatles,” will include programming for choir from the incomparable sacred music of J. S. Bach to choral composers including Gabriel Fauré, Igor Stravinsky, John Rutter, to Broadway, and the Beatles. The performance will be under the direction of Dr. Linda Shea, Director of Instrumental Music of the Summit High School music department, and will feature Leonard Rhodes, Director of Music at Lord of the Mountains Lutheran Church on organ, piano and harpsichord. Interested singers may attend one or both music introduction sessions, where singers will gather for half-hour sessions with Len and Linda to sing through some of the music in vocal sections. These sessions will offer potential participants a chance to ascertain the level of difficulty and degree of individual preparation required. After the Introduction Sessions, there will be four three-hour rehearsals, leading to the November 13 performance.
Schedule: Music Introduction Sessions
Friday, September 30
Location: Lord of the Mountains Church, 56 Highway 6, Dillon, CO 80435, (970) 468-6809
6:30pm Sopranos
7:00pm Altos
7:30pm Tenor
8:00pm Basses
Saturday, October 1
Location: Lord of the Mountains Church, 56 Highway 6, Dillon, CO 80435, (970) 468-6809
10:00am Sopranos
10:30am Altos
11:00am Tenors
11:30am Basses
Rehearsals
Location: Lord of the Mountains Church, 56 Hwy 6, Dillon
Saturday, October 15, 10:00am to 1:00pm
Saturday, October 29, 10:00am to 1:00pm
Saturday, November 5 10:00am to 1:00pm
Saturday, November 12, 10:00am to 1:00pm
Performance Location: Lord of the Mountains Church, 56 Hwy 6, Dillon
Sunday, November 13, 4:00pm
Call Marcia Kaufmann, BMF executive director, at 970.453.9142
New 1st Runs at Breckenridge Brewery
The Breckenridge Brewery released two brand new beers -
taste them before they’re gone!
“Golden Homer” is a 7.5% ABV Strong Belgian Blonde and “Just the Tips” is a 6.1% ABV Rye Ale brewed with Colorado spruce tips.
Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra Series presents the highly anticipated annual favorite concert, “Swinging at the Summit: Hits from the Jazz Greats” featuring vocalist Christine Robertson under the direction of Michael Linville. The program will consist of popular hits from the swing era including ~ In the Mood, Sing Sing Sing, and many more chart-toppers from the likes of George Gershwin, Benny Goodman, and Glenn Miller.
Soprano Christine Robertson has had a versatile career as a leading lady in musical theatre and opera, and as a concert soloist. In addition to past appearances with the Breckenridge Music Festival, Ms. Robertson has appeared as a soloist with the Virginia Symphony, the Rockford Symphony, and the U.S. Air Force Heritage of America Band. She has numerous professional theatrical credits from around the Midwest, the Rocky Mountains, and the East Coast, including several productions at the historic Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. This fall, she will debut at the Skylight Opera Theatre in Milwaukee in the role of Lucy in the world premiere of The Rivals, by Kirke Mechem. In oratorio, Ms. Robertson has performed as the soprano soloist for Handel’s Messiah and Haydn’s Creation. Ms. Robinson’s operatic roles include Eurydice in Orpheus in the Underworld and Lucy in The Telephone. In the world of musical theater, she has played Amalia in She Loves Me, Laurey in Oklahoma! and Maria in The Sound of Music.
Whether you’re looking to relive the glory days of “swing fever” or simply get a taste of what it was like, you are in for a treat. As actor Nicholas Hope put it, “Swing is so much more than a dance, it’s a way of life. The music gets stuck in your mind and the dance is in your heart and the whole scene is engraved on your soul. You can fly.”
Please join Christine Robertson and the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra for a night of swing music at the Riverwalk Center on Friday, August 19th at 7:30 pm. For tickets ($25, $30, $35 Adults, $10 students, $7 juniors) call 970.547.3100 or log onto www.breckenridgemusicfestival.com.
The Breckenridge Music Festival (BMF) is pleased to present another exciting night of chamber music, “Eight is Enough,” featuring the music of Stravinsky, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn. The program will consist of an array of BMF musicians performing in three different octets: Stravinsky’s Octet for Wind Instruments, Beethoven’s Octet for Winds in E Flat Major, and Mendelssohn’s Octet in E Flat Major.
Regarding the evening’s octet theme, violinist Nathan Olson (BMF concertmaster and Dallas Symphony Orchestra co-concertmaster) stated: “An octet certainly does straddle the line between a chamber music group and a small chamber orchestra. It would be difficult to add any more players without needing to have a conductor to keep everything together. It definitely can be challenging to keep such a large number of people on the same page and moving as one unit without the help of someone on the podium, but it does give the composer a wider range of textures and dynamics from which to draw.” Flautist Amy Casper said of the octet, “Because of the larger instrumentation, these groups have the ability to sound like the smaller trios and quartets, but they can produce much fuller sounds as well. They have a great potential for expanding tone colors and dynamics.” Similarly, principal bassoonist Miles Maner stated: “An octet program is a nice contrast to other chamber programs because of the larger number of people on stage. The large size of an octet allows for a composer to explore more colors between more musicians and more instruments.”
Stravinsky’s Octet for Wind Instruments, premiered in 1923, is one of the earliest compositions of the neo-classical period of Stravinsky’s life, a period in which he re-examined the ideals of eighteenth-century masters such as Bach, Haydn, and Mozart. The Octet is rhythmically complex and extremely diverse in its influences, drawing from Gregorian chant, Haydn Symphonies, and Bach’s Two-part Inventions. Flautist Amy Casper states that the unique instrumentation of the Octet and the mixing of woodwinds and brass makes this piece particularly unique. Bassoonist Miles Maner says of the work, “Stravinsky’s Octet really is a gift to all bassoonists. His knowledge of the instrument’s many capabilities and characters results in a piece that is both challenging and rewarding.” Stravinsky made his conducting debut at the premier of this very piece at the Paris Opera House on October 18, 1923.
Despite the high opus number, the Octet for Winds in E Flat Major is still considered early for Beethoven. Composed between the years of 1792 and 1793, the work precedes almost all of his most well-known compositions. This particular octet is fairly reminiscent of Beethoven’s ties to the patronage system, a system in which musicians were hired by royal court to compose or perform, often in a salaried position. Interestingly enough, this is the very system in which Beethoven fought so hard to destroy, establishing a lasting independence between composer and royalty.
Mendelssohn’s Octet in E Flat Major is breathtakingly elegant, a work which he considered the favorite of all his compositions. Even more impressive is the fact that it was composed in 1825, when Mendelssohn was all of sixteen years old. It is widely considered the most outstanding major composition in the entire history of music by one so young, far surpassing comparable efforts of such famous child prodigies as Mozart or Schubert. According to Melvin Berger’s Guide to Chamber Music, “the Octet is more than an example of precocity; it is a consummate work of art, able to hold its own with the finest pieces of chamber music.” Regarding Mendelssohn’s chamber music masterpiece, violinist Nathan Olson remarked, “The Mendelssohn octet is a beloved piece among string players. It is truly one of the masterpieces in the whole chamber music genre, despite the fact that the composer wrote it at the age of 16. It would not be far-fetched to say that Mendelssohn was more of a child prodigy than even Mozart, based of the quality of writing we find here. It is an intoxicatingly vivacious piece which is a joy to play.”
Please join the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra for a night of chamber music at the Riverwalk Center on Tuesday, August 16th at 7:30 pm. For tickets ($25, $30, $35 Adults, $10 students, $7 juniors) call 970.547.3100 or log onto www.breckenridgemusicfestival.com.
Applause!
Breckenridge Applause! Thanks the community
Thanks to the Summit County community for making our 2011 Rockin’ In the Rockies fundraiser for the Breckenridge Music Festival the “coolest” success. The generosity of our corporate sponsors U.S. Bank and 125 River Park, Ltd., individual sponsors, patrons, and special donors of services and fabulous items for our auctions help make the BMF programs possible. Through their support, the BMF is able to provide summer and winter classical concert series, the Blue River concerts, the chamber concerts, Music in the Schools, and a summer Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel) program. A special thank you goes to Beaver Run Resort for their courtesy and cooperation in this event. Our appreciation to everyone for helping make Summit County such a fantastic place to live!
The Breckenridge Music Festival presents a special concert at Warren Station in Keystone featuring the brass players of the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra. Included in the evening’s entertainment will be arrangements of Copland’s Appalachian Spring and Clarke’s Prince of Denmark’s March. The 7:30 PM concert is preceded by a sold-out “A Taste for Music” Pre-Concert Dinner at The Ranch restaurant in Keystone.
Always a favorite with summer festival audiences, the brass players of the BMF match great music with a great deal of fun and information for an entertaining evening. A highlight of this concert will be an all-brass arrangement of Appalachian Spring, one of Aaron Copland’s most familiar works. Known for pioneering a quintessentially American musical style that evokes the national spirit of the past century, Copland paints musical pictures that evoke scenes of an American aesthetic. His Appalachian Spring sets a scene of simple pastoral beauty, and expands and develops the view through a series of variations on the classic Shaker hymn, “Simple Gifts.”
The full concert program includes selections from the following works: Dove’s, Fairest Isle Fanfare, Clarke’s, Prince of Denmark’s March, Praetorius arr. Purser, Dances from Terpsichore, Madsen’s, Divertimento for Brass and Percussion, Hallberg’s, Blacksmith’s Tune, “Once in my Youth,” and Copland’s arr. Snedecor, Appalachian Spring.
Thanks to the great success of last summer’s pre-concert dinners at the Briar Rose, Modis and Relish restaurants in Breckenridge, the Breckenridge Music Festival has scheduled a night out in Keystone for the 2011 Festival. “A Taste for Music” events pair dinner at one of the many fabulous Summit County restaurants with a lively presentation from a special eed the diners’ curiosity about whatever musical program will be taking place in that evening’s concert. The sold-out August 15th event will be at the The Ranch restaurant, a location that offers extraordinary cuisine in the rustic elegance of an original 1930s ranch homestead. Music Director and Conductor of the BMF orchestra Gerhardt Zimmermann will be the featured guest speaker at the event. The Ranch was one of the restaurants featured in the Entertaining! Summit Style cookbook released in 2010. Developed by Applause!, the fundraising committee of the BMF, the cookbook features, alongside the recipes, descriptions and photos of the activities and events that make life in Summit County so enjoyable. The cookbook is available for sale at BMF concerts as well as at retail locations in Breckenridge and Frisco.
Please join the brass players of the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra as they “Blow their Horns” at the Warren Station Center for the Arts in Keystone on Monday, August 15th at 7:30 pm. For tickets ($30 Adults, $10 Students, $7 Children/Youth) call the Keystone Mountain Concierge at 1-800-354-4386
or 970-496-4386.
The Breckenridge Music Festival (BMF) is pleased to present the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra and pianist Robin Sutherland in “Sutherland’s Mozart & a Spanish Caprice.” The evening’s performance will feature Mozart’s Overture to Abduction from the Seraglio, Mozart’s Piano Concerto #25 in C Major featuring pianist Robin Sutherland, Shostakovich’s Symphony for Strings and Percussion arranged by Maestro Gerhardt Zimmerman, and will conclude with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol.
While still an undergraduate at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Sutherland was appointed principal pianist with the San Francisco Symphony by Seiji Ozawa, an appointment reaffirmed by subsequent music directors Edo de Waart, Herbert Blomstedt and Michael Tilson Thomas. At the time, he was the youngest principal musician in the orchestra’s history.
Colorado native Robin Sutherland began piano studies at the age of four in the piano studio of Dr. Rita Hutcherson, head of the piano department of what was then Colorado State College. Sutherland’s association with the Breckenridge Music Festival has a long history, because shortly thereafter Sutherland was befriended by BMF founder Dr. Kenneth Evans, another CSC faculty member. This led to numerous musical experiences including the first of many solo performances with the Breckenridge Music Festival.
Q: Robin, what brings you back to the Breckenridge Music Festival every year?
A: I was born and raised within sight of the Front Range in Colorado, and am an alumnus of the Colorado Rocky Mountain School, Colorado Mountain College, and Aspen Music Festival. So the mountains here have always had a tremendous hold on me. In San Francisco I found my life’s work, but the Colorado summers are really what I plan my spiritual calendar around (that, and Hawai’i). My family is still living here, plus I have many of my very best friends throughout the state. But the happiest of my musical pursuits in Colorado for the last thirty years have been in Breckenridge, starting with BMI in the Bergenhof Restaurant, through the Event Tent, and now with BMF in the Riverwalk Center. Memories of performances here, and the friendships I made in those earliest years, have endured and will last a lifetime. If you can do what you love in the company of those you love, even the water is sweet. And then there’s that alpenglow on Baldy…
You will be performing the Mozart Piano Concert No. 25 in C Major. There are so many wonderful pieces including the Mozart piano concerto – why did you chose this particular piece?
I chose the magnificent Concerto #25 in C Major, K. 503, because it is celebrating its 225th birthday in 2011, and because any excuse for a celebration is fine by me. Mozart wrote twelve piano concertos in Vienna between 1784 and 1786 (roughly one every 2 months, unbelievably enough), and this one is the last of them. It stands at the summit of the piano concerto form, and it seems fitting that Summit County should be hosting it during this festive year. This year also marks my 24th appearance with the Breckenridge Music Festival, and with only two or three exceptions, we have been engaged in a journey that I hope will one day visit all of his piano concertos. Happily, we have several to go, although some merit a re-examination. This is the case this year with K. 503, which we last performed in Breckenridge, I believe, 17 years ago. In any case, the good news for me is that this is a journey which could go on indefinitely!
The Mozart Piano Concerto No. 25 was essentially considered a failure when written; however, today it is considered one of Mozart’s most beloved masterpieces. What do you feel qualifies this work as a masterwork?
The landscape of Western classical music is littered with pieces that are beloved today, but which were complete disasters upon their first hearing. This C Major Concerto is certainly not among those initial disasters, but it was not quick in catching on. Perhaps this is because of its difficulties, which are often extreme. Aesop (a fabulous dude if ever there was one) said that familiarity breeds contempt. But I like to think it can also breed affection — people tend to like what they know. We shouldn’t forget that a riot took place in Paris at the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and this was not even a century ago; but today the Rite is absolutely standard concert fare. And life without J. S. Bach would be unthinkable for me, but hearing his music performed in the 19th century was a relative rarity. So only in my own lifetime, really, has this C Major Concerto taken root. But now it would require powerful machinery to extract it from our musical gardens, and if I have had anything to do with that, it’s all good.
Please join Robin Sutherland and the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra as they present “Sutherland’s Mozart & a Spanish Caprice” at the Riverwalk Center on Saturday, August 13th at 7:30 pm. For tickets ($25, $30, $35 Adults, $10 students, $7 juniors) call 970.547.3100 or log onto www.breckenridgemusicfestival.com.
The Breckenridge Music Festival presents a Cabaret Concert, “By George” – a night featuring music from the iconic American composer George Gershwin. This concert will feature vocal soloists Jacquelyn Culpepper, soprano; Soon Cho, mezzo soprano, Bradley Howard, tenor and Daniel Boye, bass-baritone. Songs for the evening include Embraceable You, I’ve got a Crush on You, Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off, They Can’t Take That Away From Me, Someone to Watch Over Me, I’ve Got Rhythm, Slap That Bass, Strike Up the Band, The Man I Love.
George Gershwin is one of the most recognizable American composers of all time. Gershwin’s compositions spanned popular and classical genres, and his melodies are widely known. Among his best known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and An American in Paris (1924), as well as the opera Porgy and Bess (1935). His pieces have been widely used in numerous films, on television, and many are now considered jazz standards.
Now a tradition, the popular Cabaret Concerts are presented as part of the Breckenridge Music Festival’s Summer Series each year. New to the Music Festival this year is tenor Bradley Howard. With a career spanning the classical and modern choral works, solo recitals and operatic roles, Bradley Howard has developed a repertoire of some of opera’s most classic roles including Mozart’s Tamino in The Magic Flute and Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte, Puccini’s Rodolfo in La Boheme and title roles in Candide. Also new to the 2011 Festival, mezzo soprano Soon Cho, praised by Opera News for her “potent presence” and hailed by the Cincinnati Post as “regal and bearing, with vocal endowments to match…,” Soon Cho has gained recognition for her sensitive artistry on the concert and opera stages. Returning festival guest, soprano Jacquelyn Culpepper has performed over 85 roles in opera and oratorio as has had several national broadcasts including An Evening with Cole Porter and Salute to Masterpiece Theatre. Long-time Festival favorite, bass-baritone Daniel Boye has been widely featured as an operatic and musical theater performer and as an oratorio soloist. He has performed principal roles in over twenty-five Opera Carolina productions, including Zuniga in Carmen, Timur in Turadot and Bartolo in The Barber of Seville.
Please join these talented singers and musicians for Cabaret Night’s “By George” at the Riverwalk Center in Breckenridge, Wednesday, August 10, at 7:30 pm. For tickets ($25, $30, and $35 Adults, $10 Students, $7 Juniors) call 970. 547.3100. For more information or to order tickets online visit www.breckenridgemusicfestival.com
The Breckenridge Music Festival (BMF) is pleased to present pianist Robin Sutherland for one of the most highly-anticipated performances of the ongoing Tuesday Series concerts. The evening’s performance will feature a selection of five Debussy Preludes and Damase’s Quartet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet and Piano, and will close with Brahms’ breathtaking Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major.
While still an undergraduate at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Sutherland was appointed principal pianist with the San Francisco Symphony by Seiji Ozawa, an appointment reaffirmed by subsequent music directors Edo de Waart, Herbert Blomstedt and Michael Tilson Thomas. At the time, he was the youngest principal musician in the Orchestra’s history.
Colorado native Robin Sutherland began piano studies at the age of four in the piano studio of Dr. Rita Hutcherson, head of the piano department of what was then Colorado State College. Sutherland’s association with the Breckenridge Music Festival has a long history, because shortly thereafter Sutherland was befriended by BMF founder Dr. Kenneth Evans, another CSC faculty member. This led to numerous musical experiences including the first of many solo performances with the Breckenridge Music Festival.
At the age of 17, Sutherland was selected to be the sole participant from the United States at the International Bach Festival, held annually at Lincoln Center in New York. This prodigious achievement led him to the finals of the International Bach Competition in Washington DC. Sutherland has since performed the entirety of J.S. Bach’s keyboard works.
A frequent soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, Sutherland has been featured in Leonard Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety, an association which has taken him all over the world. Sutherland is an alumnus of the Juilliard School of Music, Aspen Music School and Festival, the University of Hawaii, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
A featured work on Sutherland’s August 9th concert, Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major was an early work in his output. Historians like to paint a picture of Brahms as a conservative, holding out against the excesses of the new music movement led by Wagner and Liszt, and as the voice of reason when compared to the ultra-romantic offerings coming from the pen of Schumann. However, beneath the skillful perfection of form of Brahms’s writing lies a barely suppressed poet, whose passions frequently roar to the forefront of his compositions.
The Brahms Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major was first published in 1854. Brahms was not satisfied with it, and expressed to his friend and mentor, Joseph Joachim, that he regretted signing it over to Breitkopf and Härtel (the world’s oldest music publishing house) before he was able to make more revisions. He finally reworked the entire piece in 1888. Always his own worst critic, at that time he told Clara Schumann, “You cannot imagine how I trifled away the lovely summer. I have rewritten my B major Trio. It will not be so dreary as before – but will it be better?” Better or not, though less formally cohesive than Brahms’s mature works, it does give us a glimpse of the youthful poet in Brahms – a poet that, even with maturity, never truly died.
Sutherland is joined by Festival instrumentalists Nathan Olson and James Holland for the Brahms Trio. Helen Blackburn, Sandra Stimson and Kenneth Krause join Sutherland for the Damase Quartet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet and Piano. Please join Robin Sutherland and the Breckenridge Music Festival as they present “Sutherland, Debussy & Brahms” at the Riverwalk Center on Tuesday, August 9th at 7:30 pm. For tickets ($25, $30, $35 Adults, $10 students, $7 juniors) call 970.547.3100 or log onto www.breckenridgemusicfestival.com.