Festival Notes

Tonight at 8:30, the American String Quartet performs their annual concert at Harris Concert Hall.  On the program are works by Haydn and Brahms, as well as the dramatic First String Quartet by 20th-century Czech composer Leos Janacek.  

Gilmore Prize-winning pianist Kirill Gerstein returns to Aspen for a 7:30 p.m. recital of Haydn, Schumann and Berg at Harris Hall. 

And a special invitation to the public: hear a live broadcast of “Festival Showcase” from the Red Brick Center for the Arts, beginning at 3 p.m.  Festival Quartet-in-Residence the Omer String Quartet will play musical selections and answer questions from the audience.  Wine and cheese will be served.

"Fratres" by contemporary Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is part of an eclectic 6 p.m. program, presented by the Percussion Ensemble at Harris Concert Hall.

Weekend No. 5 at the Aspen Music Festival includes a semi-staged opera performance at the Benedict Music Tent and a live Sunday afternoon broadcast on Aspen Public Radio.

Pianist and faculty member Anton Nel performs a recital at Harris Concert Hall.  Included on his program is Schubert’s grand and final Piano Sonata in B-flat major.

Gil Shaham scales one of the most ambitious and Herculean projects for a solo violinist: the complete sonatas and partitas of Johann Sebastian Bach. Shaham's recital begins at 6 p.m. at Harris Concert Hall.

One of the hottest tickets of the summer, Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato makes her festival debut with a 7:30 p.m. voice recital at Harris Concert Hall.  She sings a varied program, familiar operatic arias by Mozart and Rossini, alongside lesser-known art songs and arias by Obradors, Giocomelli, Di Chiara, Hahn and Donaudy.

Violinist and longtime faculty member Sylvia Rosenberg joins faculty colleagues in a 6 p.m. chamber music performance of Mozart’s Piano Quartet in E-flat major, K. 493.

Weekend No. 4 gets off to an energetic start this evening at 6 with Gil Shaham as soloist in Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1.  On Sunday afternoon at 4, cellist Alisa Weilerstein performs Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto, music that has been famously linked to one of its legendary interpreters, the late Jacqueline du Pré.

Pianists Misha and Cipa Dichter perform a program of four-hand and two-piano music this evening at 6 at the Benedict Music Tent.   And two years after performing the complete string quartets by Beethoven, the Jupiter String Quartet returns to Aspen to play quartets by Britten, Hannah Lash and Dvorak.

A world premiere work by 32-year-old composer Adam Schoenberg is one of the main attractions of today's 6 p.m. Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra concert at the Benedict Music Tent.

At 7:30 p.m. at Harris Concert Hall, pianist Simone Dinnerstein and country singer-songwriter Tift Merritt perform together a concert that merges musical genres and landscapes.

Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" receives its third and final performance tonight at the Wheeler Opera House.  And this evening's 6 p.m. chamber music program at Harris Concert Hall features two ambitious works: Henry Brant's experimental "Angels and Devils" for flute choir and Schubert's hourlong Octet.

Concertos by Benjamin Britten are among this weekend's top offerings.

British violinist Daniel Hope performs a recital with friends this evening at 8 at Harris Concert Hall.  Hope is joined by violist Lawrence Dutton, cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han.  The second half of the program is a creative, recent take on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, a so-called "recomposition" by Max Richter.

Students of cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han perform a free 3 p.m. concert of piano trios at Harris Concert Hall.

Following their students’ performance, Finckel and Wu Han play an 8:30 recital program at Harris Concert Hall, consisting of sonatas by Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Debussy and Benjamin Britten.

The Takacs Quartet finishes its survey of the complete string quartets by Bela Bartok tonight at 7:30 at Harris Concert Hall.

At 10:15 a.m., the public is invited to the opening celebration and dedication ceremony of the new Bucksbaum Campus off of Castle Creek Road.

Piano music plays a significant role in Weekend No. 2 at the Aspen Music Festival.