Arts

Aspen Music Festival and School Music Director Robert Spano previews Sunday afternoon's season finale concert, featuring vocal music by Verdi and Wagner. Spano also drops a few hints regarding next season's programming.

And Aspen Opera Theater Center Director Edward Berkeley discusses the final opera of the festival season, Monteverdi's last masterpiece "The Coronation of Poppea."

The festival celebrates the 20th anniversary of Harris Concert Hall with a special concert.  VIP artists include violinist Robert McDuffie, guitarist Sharon Isbin and conductor Joshua Weilerstein.

Karen Thompson Walker is the author of The Age of Miracles, which was a New York Times bestseller. She was born and raised in San Diego and is a graduate of UCLA and the Columbia MFA program. A former editor at Simon & Schuster, she wroteThe Age of Miracles in the mornings before work--sometimes while riding the subway. She currently lives in Iowa with her husband.

For this final Monday of the 2013 festival, two recital programs are on tap.  Beginning at 6 p.m. at the Benedict Music Tent, festival faculty perform works by Bartok, Beethoven and young composer Luke Carlson. And at 8 p.m., be part of a live taping of the radio show "Performance Today" with host Fred Child.  

Highlights of this penultimate weekend of the 2013 festival are Sarah Chang performing Barber's Violin Concerto, a Saturday recital of Brahms and more by pianist Orli Shaham and conductor David Robertson leading the Aspen Festival Orchestra in Beethoven's Triple Concerto and Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring."