BRAVO! MUSIC FESTIVAL’S SUMMER SERIES MEANS VAIL LODGING DISCOUNTS

hestras: the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Programming highlights for 2011 include explorations of the musical titans Beethoven and Mahler; two thematic series respectively showcasing American music and programmatic orchestral works; chamber music, jazz, and pops; and New York’s Gabriel Kahane as this season’s composer-in-residence. The impressive guest-star roster presents such conductors as Alan Gilbert, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Stéphane Denève, Jaap van Zweden, and Bramwell Tovey, and more than 50 soloists, including pianists Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Yuja Wang, and Kirill Gerstein; violinists Gil Shaham, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and Augustin Hadelich; and double bassist Edgar Meyer. As in previous seasons, chamber concerts will be held in the intimate Vail Mountain School and Vilar Performing Arts Center, while large-scale concerts take place in Vail’s spectacular Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, which accommodates 1,260 guests in covered seating and an additional 1,500 on the expansive grassy hillside, with its breathtaking view of the Rocky Mountains. Kyle MacMillan of the Denver Post observes: “The Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival gives classical-music fans something that no summer series anywhere else can match—the chance to hear multiple concerts by three top-drawer orchestras.”

Anne-Marie McDermott, a regular performer at the Festival, is just the third artistic director in Bravo! Vail’s 24-year history. The duo partner of Salerno-Sonnenberg and a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, McDermott has been called “one of the great pianists of her generation” (Philadelphia Inquirer). She succeeds flutist Eugenia Zukerman, who explains: “Having often performed with Anne-Marie, I know that her musical insights and creative ideas will be great assets to Bravo!” The Festival’s founder and executive director, John Giovando, confirms that this has already proved to be the case, observing: “What a season she has designed for summer 2011: exciting, innovative, fun, and all to be performed by world-class artists!” McDermott’s season-opening solo recital (June 26) is the first of her ten Festival appearances, which comprise both orchestral and chamber concerts, and the “Two-Piano Extravaganza” with which the summer concludes (August 3).

Bravo! Vail’s first artistic director and co-founder, violinist Ida Kavafian, joins McDermott and cellist Peter Wiley in traversals of Beethoven’s complete piano trios (June 27-28), from the humorous Op. 1 No. 1 to the profundity of the “Archduke.” Accompanied by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under its music director Jaap van Zweden, the same forces undertake the “Triple Concerto” (June 29). These three performances mark the opening of the “Beethoven: Architect of Humanity” series, a multi-event immersion in the composer’s art. Alongside the “Triple Concerto”, van Zweden leads the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in the “Egmont” Overture and Symphony No. 7 (June 29); Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, music director of the Dresden Philharmonic, conducts The Philadelphia Orchestra in the “Pastoral” Symphony (July 9); and the New York Philharmonic, under its music director Alan Gilbert, tackles the mighty “Eroica” (July 22). The composer’s incomparable body of chamber music is represented not only by the piano trios but also by two of his darkest, most soul-searching string quartets, the C-sharp minor and “Serioso”. One of Bravo! Vail’s ensembles of Young-Professionals-in-Residence, the “superb” (New York Times) Calder Quartet, performs these two works in the first of the Festival’s “Free & Easy” series, which presents hour-long concerts in a relaxed setting, with free admission (July 12).

The second of Bravo! Vail’s composer immersions is “Golden Twilight: Music of Gustav Mahler”, which explores the oeuvre of the great Austro-Bohemian who was, with Freud and Picasso, one of the makers of modern culture. Mahler died 100 years ago this year, and at the heart of the series is the Vail premiere of his intensely personal Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth), which was first performed the year he died. In a remarkable arrangement for just 18 musicians by Arnold Schoenberg, this centenary performance will present the “warm, supple, and richly expressive voice” (Washington Post) of mezzo-soprano Theodora Hanslowe, with tenor Zach Borichevsky, key members of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and McDermott on piano (July 14). Mahler’s symphonic cycle is the most influential after Beethoven’s. Gilbert leads the New York Philharmonic’s account of the monumental Fifth Symphony (July 23), while van Zweden directs the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s rendition of the Sixth, which—with its infamous “hammered blows of fate”—has never previously been performed in Vail (July 2).

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra demonstrates its versatility over the Independence Day weekend when guest pops conductor Jeff Tyzik returns to launch a third summer series, “Let Music Swell the Breeze: Sounds of America”, with three concerts showcasing different national musical styles. Tony Award-winner Debbie Gravitte, “one of the best voices on Broadway” (Associated Press), is one of “Three Broadway Divas” who join the orchestra on July 1. Virtuoso trumpeter and vocalist Byron Stripling, artistic director and conductor of the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, helps present both “A Night at the Cotton Club” (July 3) and, as befits Independence Day itself, “America the Beautiful” (July 4). The following weekend, Steven Reineke, music director of the New York Pops, leads The Philadelphia Orchestra in “From Broadway to Hollywood” (July 10).

The “Sounds of America” are not restricted to orchestral repertoire. For Bravo! Vail’s second “Free & Easy” concert, the Calder Quartet joins forces with another group of Young-Professionals-in-Residence—the Mana Saxophone Quartet, Grand Prize-winner at the international 2009 Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition—in an hour-long celebration of American music that is, once again, free for all (July 21). The final installment of “Let Music Swell the Breeze” (July 28) is a night with MacArthur Fellow and Grammy Award-winning bassist Edgar Meyer and mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile, whose collaboration dates back eight years and produced the revered Nonesuch album Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile. The duo’s Bravo! Vail program will consist of much of the bluegrass heard on that recording, as well as other selections. As McDermott explains, she is “incredibly proud that these two musical greats will be part of [her] first season as Vail’s artistic director.”

Representing a new generation of homegrown talent, Bravo! Vail’s 2011 Composer-in-Residence, Gabriel Kahane, draws on a vast musical landscape of classical, indie, rock, pop, folk, and musical theater. His “copious talent” impressed the New York Times, while the Wall Street Journal advised: “Something really good is starting to happen here, and it’s well worth checking out.” Festivalgoers will have two evening-long opportunities to do so. On July 19, Kahane presents one of the Festival’s four “Soirées”, which offers an intimate evening of song, hearkening back to the salons of Schubert’s time, as he hosts “An Evening with Gabriel Kahane: Music for the Ear, Intellect and Soul”. The following night, he offers “The Artistry of Gabriel Kahane”, supported by the genre-defying Calder Quartet and complete with the world premiere of a new Bravo! Vail commission.

This season’s fourth and final thematic series is “Symphonic Tales”, featuring powerful orchestral works inspired by stories. Van Zweden and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra open with Tchaikovsky’s “Manfred” Symphony, based on Lord Byron’s dramatic poem of the same name (July 6). Two days later, Frühbeck de Burgos leads The Philadelphia Orchestra in Scheherazade,Rimsky-Korsakov’s classic interpretation of the Arabian Nights (July 8). The Philadelphia Orchestra returns a week later, helmed by Stéphane Denève, chief conductor designate of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, with Richard Strauss’s tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life). Although Strauss was influenced by Nietzsche, his piece was apparently autobiographical, depicting himself as hero along with his wife and, less favorably, his critics (July 15). Next day, Giancarlo Guerrero, music director of the Nashville Symphony, directs The Philadelphia Orchestra, plus choirs and soloists, in Carl Orff’s stirring scenic cantata Carmina Burana, a setting of medieval Latin poetry (July 16). The series concludes with two performances by the New York Philharmonic: Gilbert conducts Act II from Tchaikovsky’s beloved Nutcracker, based on an E.T.A. Hoffmann fairytale (July 24), and Ludovic Morlot, music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, undertakes Ravel’s famous orchestral arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (July 27). Like the original piano suite, this depicts an imaginary tour of a collection by the artist Viktor Hartmann, whose untimely death affected Mussorgsky deeply.

Composers often forge their most potent musical ideas into works for just a few players. Bravo! Vail is noted for the quality of its chamber music offerings, which are presented this season for the first time as “Big Music for Little Bands”. In addition to the complete Beethoven piano trios, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, Gabriel Kahane with yMusic, and Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile (all detailed above), this series features three additional events. Joined by friends, the Miami String Quartet––praised by the New York Times as having “everything one wants in a quartet”— performs chamber works by Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Weber (July 7); pianist Jenny Chen, another Young-Professional-in-Residence, joins the Calder Quartet and Mana Saxophone Quartet for Ravel and Glazunov (July 18); and, closing the 2011 season, music director Anne-Marie McDermott teams up with three other celebrated pianists—Gramophone Award-winner Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, the innovative, versatile Stephen Prutsman, and Avery Fisher Career Grant-winner Joyce Yang—to play Rachmaninoff, Ravel, and Gershwin (August 3). Additional chamber events are provided by the remaining “Free & Easy” concerts and by evening “Soirées”, one of which presents an all-star performance of Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet with McDermott, Meyer, and Carter Brey, principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic (July 31).

The coming season also turns the spotlight on favorite piano and string music, boasting a stellar line-up of soloists in two additional series. “Quintessential Piano Concertos” presents the “jaw-dropping” (Washington Post) Yuja Wang, who returns to tackle Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto (July 8); Jean-Yves Thibaudet, recently inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame, in Liszt’s Second (July 9); Russian sensation Alexander Romanovsky, with Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (July 24); Gilmore Artist Kirill Gerstein, performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 (July 28); and Bavouzet, who plays the Ravel (July 29).

“String Sensations”, meanwhile, offers Norway’s Henning Kraggerud, whose playing impressed the New York Times with its “melting beauty”, and Paul Neubauer, in Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante (July 6); Avery Fisher Prize-winner Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg’s account of Bruch’s First Violin Concerto (July 13); Veronika Eberle, deemed a “star performer” by the Los Angeles Times, in Dvorák’s Concerto (July 22); Augustin Hadelich, whose eleventh-hour replacement of the scheduled soloist at last year’s Festival “easily confirmed his place on the shortlist of today’s top violin virtuosos” (Denver Post), playing Mozart’s “Turkish” Violin Concerto (July 23); and consummate virtuoso Gil Shaham, “one of the era’s star fiddlers” (Los Angeles Times), working his familiar magic with the Walton (July 27).

Rounding out the season’s generous programming are a free family concert of Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals (July 14) and a number of “Summertime Classics”—concerts to delight both the connoisseur and the neophyte—which involve Bramwell Tovey, Grammy Award-winning music director of the Vancouver Symphony, conducting the New York Philharmonic in such showstoppers as Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances (July 28) and Gershwin’s suite from Porgy and Bess (July 29). The 24th Annual Gala, comprising a dinner, dance, and auction to the theme of “Through the Looking Glass”, will be held on July 23.

The highlight of last season’s Festival was a recital by the multi-Grammy Award-winning cellist Yo-Yo Ma, with pianist Kathryn Stott. The Huffington Post reported that “a sellout crowd of 2,780 seemed to enjoy every minute of the much-anticipated concert as Ma and pianist Kathryn Stott received four standing ovations during the evening.”