Festival Showcase August 22, 2017: Alan & Asadour; a Woman Conductor at the 1949 Festival

By Chris Mohr

Published August 22, 2017 at 1:19 PM MDT

The final Festival Showcase program of the season is a wrap-up interview with Alan Fletcher and Asadour Santourian. What were the highlights for them of the season? What were some of the challenges? I asked them to spill the beans about what we can look forward to in 2018, and they obliged.

Then, I relate a little known tidbit of music history: the first major woman conductor, Antonia Brico, came to the first Aspen Music Festival season before it was even a Festival! Her copy of the original 1949 music festival program is the only known copy in existence, and it is now safely in the hands of the Aspen Music Festival library. More about her, and Albert Schweitzer, to wrap up this season's weekly Festival Showcase. See you next summer! --Chris Mohr

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Chris Mohr

Classical music reporter Chris Mohr has loved classical music since he was twelve. “And I owe it all to radio,” Chris explains. “I grew up in a farm town east of Cleveland. One day I turned on the local classical radio station. They were playing Vivaldi, and it was like the gates of heaven opened up to me!" Chris is also a composer, and is working on a 53-note-to-the-octave oratorio, "Melodies of the Shoreless Sea." This is his ninth summer working for Aspen Public Radio.

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