Colorado Chautauqua Auditorium Boulder CO

The Colorado Music Festival is a

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" al ...

festival in

Boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

. It was founded in 1976 by the

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

-born conductor and violinist,

Giora Bernstein Giora Bernstein (born 1933) is a conductor, classical violinist, and Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Colorado.International Leo Kestenberg Society He was the founder of the Colorado Music Festival and its Artistic Director for 24 y ...

and presents an annual summer season of concerts in Boulder's Chautauqua Auditorium performed by the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra as well as visiting artists and ensembles. The festival runs from late June to early August with a focus on orchestral and chamber music. Orchestra members representing many of North America's best professional orchestras come to Colorado to participate. Its current music director is

Peter Oundjian Peter Oundjian (born 21 December 1955) is a Canadian-American violinist and conductor. Early life Born in Toronto, Ontario, as the youngest of five children from an Armenian father and English mother, Oundjian also claims Scottish ancestry throu ...

History

The festival began life as the Colorado Chamber Orchestra founded in 1976 by Giora Bernstein, the newly appointed head of the

conducting Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance, such as an orchestral or choral concert. It has been defined as "the art of directing the simultaneous performance of several players or singers by the use of gesture." The primary dutie ...

program at

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University o ...

. In 1977, its first series of concerts were given in Boulder's First Presbyterian Church. Guest soloists in the five-concert initial season included the soprano

Judith Raskin Judith Raskin (June 21, 1928 – December 21, 1984) was an American lyric soprano, renowned for her fine voice as well as her acting. Life and work Raskin was born in New York to Harry A. Raskin, a high school music teacher, and Lillian Raskin, a ...

, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, cellist Leonard Rose and violinist

Sidney Harth Sidney Harth (5 October 1925 in Cleveland – 15 February 2011 in Pittsburgh) was an American violinist and conductor. Education Harth was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music and studied with Joseph Knitze ...

. Following restoration work in 1978, the Chautauqua Auditorium, a national historic landmark, became the festival's home. Its inaugural Chautauqua season brought the festival the first of five

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...

Adventurous Programming Awards. On Giora Bernstein's retirement in 2000, the American conductor, Michael Christie was appointed music director. After he stepped down, Jean-Marie Zeitouni was appointed to the position in 2014. Under Christie's directorship, the festival's ticket sales increased by 42 percent and more new works were added to the programming such as the 2005 world premiere of

Mark Grey Mark Grey is an American classical music composer, sound designer and sound engineer. Career Mark Grey attended San Jose State University in California, where he studied electroacoustic music and composition with Pablo Furman and Allen Stran ...

's ''Pursuit''. He also initiated Intermission Insights, where guest artists come back onstage after the first half of their performance for a ten-minute conversation with Christie about their performance followed by questions from the audience. In 2009, the Rocky Mountain Center for Musical Arts merged with the Colorado Music Festival to become its Education Division. As of January 2019, Peter Oundjian is the music director for the Colorado Music Festival.

Premieres

Regional and world premieres at the festival include: *

William Thomas McKinley William Thomas McKinley (December 9, 1938 – February 3, 2015) was an American composer and jazz pianist born in New Kensington, Pennsylvania). He wrote more than 300 musical compositions in what he called a neo-tonal style, of which Margalit Fo ...

's ''Concerto for clarinet and orchestra'' (world premiere, 1980) * Tōru Takemitsu's ''Dreamtime'' (North American premiere, 1983) *

Krzysztof Penderecki Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki (; 23 November 1933 – 29 March 2020) was a Polish composer and conductor. His best known works include ''Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima'', Symphony No. 3, his '' St Luke Passion'', '' Polish Requiem'', ' ...

's ''Concerto for viola and orchestra'', (North American premiere, 1995) *

's ''Pursuit'' (world premiere, 2005) *

Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for ...

's ''

Sun Rings ''Sun Rings'' is a Kronos Quartet project comprising pre-recorded sounds from space, images from space, music for string quartet and chorus composed by Terry Riley, and visuals by Willie Williams. It premiered 26 October 2002 at the Hancher Audit ...

'' (Colorado premiere, 2006) *Mark Grey's ''Elevation'' (world premiere, 2006) *Mark Grey's ''Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio'' (Colorado premiere, 2008) *

Behzad Ranjbaran Behzad Ranjbaran ( fa, بهزاد رنجبران; born 1955, in Tehran, Iran) is a Persian composer, known for his virtuosic concertos and colorful orchestral music. Ranjbaran's music draws from his cultural roots, incorporating Persian musical mo ...

's ''Seven Passages'', the third part of his ''

Persian Trilogy ''Persian Trilogy'' is a set of three orchestral works composed by Iranian classical musician, Behzad Ranjbaran. All three works were inspired by stories from the ''Shahnameh'' ("The Book of Kings"), the Persian epic poem written by Ferdowsi in 1 ...

'' (Colorado premiere, 2009) *

Tan Dun Tan Dun (, ; born 18 August 1957) is a Chinese-born American composer and conductor. A leading figure of contemporary classical music, he draws from a variety of Western and Chinese influences, a dichotomy which has shaped much of his life and ...

's ''Pipa Concerto'' (Colorado premiere, 2009) *

Aaron Jay Kernis Aaron Jay Kernis (born January 15, 1960) is a Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy Award-winning American composer serving as a member of the Yale School of Music faculty. Kernis spent 15 years as the music advisor to the Minnesota Orchestra and as D ...

's ''Elegy (for those we've lost)'', (world premiere, 2021) *

Hannah Lash Han Lash (born 1981) is an American composer of concert music who has taught at Yale School of Music, Mannes School of Music, and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Biography Han Lash was born in Alfred, New York, USA on November ...

's ''Forestallings'' (world premiere, 2021) * Joan Tower's ''A New Day'' (world premiere, 2021) * Joel Thompson's ''To Awaken the Sleeper'' (world premiere, 2021) * Timo Andres' ''Dark Patterns'' (world premiere, 2022) * Wang Jie's ''Flying on the Scaly Backs of Our Mountains'' (world premiere, 2022) *

Wynton Marsalis Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is an American trumpeter, composer, teacher, and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has promoted classical and jazz music, often to young audiences. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Award ...

' ''Herald, Holler and Hallelujah!'' (Colorado premiere, 2022)

References

Sources

*Blotner, Linda Solow
''The Boston Composers Project: A bibliography of contemporary music''
MIT Press, 1983. *Colorado Music Festival
Press release: "Colorado Music Festival and Rocky Mountain Center for Musical Arts Announce Plans to Merge"
13 April 2009. *MacMillan, Kyle
"Christie's back at home helming Colorado Music fest"
''

Denver Post ''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in Denver, Colorado. As of June 2022, it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 1 ...

'', 30 June 2008 *Siddons, James
''Toru Takemitsu: a bio-bibliography''
Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. *Shulgold, Marc

''

Rocky Mountain News The ''Rocky Mountain News'' (nicknamed the ''Rocky'') was a daily newspaper published in Denver, Colorado, United States, from April 23, 1859, until February 27, 2009. It was owned by the E. W. Scripps Company from 1926 until its closing. As ...

'', 12 June 1996 (accessed 13 December 2009 via subscription) *Fantz, Christy

'' Daily Camera'', 31 January 2019 *Allen, David (2022-08-05)
"A Road Trip to Sample America's Many, Many Music Festivals"
''The New York Times''.

ISSN An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs a ...

0362-4331.

External links

Official websiteColorado Music Festival's official YouTube channel
{{coord, 39, 59, 51.42, N, 105, 16, 46.64, W, type:event, display=title Classical music festivals in the United States Music festivals in Colorado Tourist attractions in Boulder, Colorado Culture of Boulder, Colorado