Aspen Music Festival and School

The Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) is a classical music festival held annually in Aspen, Colorado.

Aspen Music Festival and School
Founded1949
TypeClassical music
Focusclassical music festival, education
Location
Websitewww.aspenmusicfestival.com
The Benedict Music Tent during the 2015 Aspen Music Festival and School season

It is noted both for its concert programming and the musical training it offers to mostly young-adult music students.[1][2] Founded in 1949, the typical eight-week summer season includes more than 400 classical music events[3]—including concerts by five orchestras, solo and chamber music performances, fully staged opera productions, master classes, lectures, and children's programming—and brings in 70,000 audience members.[4]

In the winter, the AMFS presents a small series of recitals and Metropolitan Opera Live in HD screenings.[5]

As a training ground for young-adult classical musicians, the AMFS draws more than 650 students from 40 states and 34 countries, with an average age of 22.[4][6] While in Aspen, students participate in lessons, coaching, and public performances in orchestras, operas, and chamber music, often playing side-by-side with AMFS artist-faculty.[7]

The organization is currently led by President and CEO Alan Fletcher and Music Director Robert Spano.[7]

History

The Aspen Music Festival and School was founded in 1949 by Chicago businessman Walter Paepcke and Elizabeth Paepcke as a two-week bicentennial celebration of the 18th-century German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.[8] The event, which included both intellectual forums and musical performances, was such a success that it led to the formation of both the Aspen Institute and the Aspen Music Festival and School.[9]

In the summers that followed, the participating musicians returned, bringing their music students, and the foundation was set for the AMFS as it is known today. In 1950, Igor Stravinsky became the first conductor to present his own works with the Festival.[10][11] The following year in 1951, the School enrolled its first official class, with 183 music students.[12]

Early founding musicians included baritone Mack Harrell (father of cellist Lynn Harrell) and violinist Roman Totenberg (father of NPR legal correspondent Nina Totenberg). Early performance highlights include then-student James Levine conducting the Benjamin Britten opera Albert Herring in 1964, coinciding with Britten's visit to Aspen that summer to accept an award from the Aspen Institute.[13] In 1965, Duke Ellington and his orchestra came to the AMFS to perform a benefit concert.[14] In 1971, Dorothy DeLay joined the AMFS strings artist-faculty[15] and attracted more than 200 students each summer to her program. In 1975, Aaron Copland came to Aspen as a composer-in-residence[16] on the occasion of his 75th birthday. In 1980, John Denver performed with the Aspen Festival Orchestra for his TV special Music and the Mountains, which aired the following year on ABC.[17] Multiple artist-faculty members have also recorded albums while in Aspen, including the Emerson String Quartet, which recorded the Shostakovich: The String Quartets 5-disc set from AMFS venue Harris Concert Hall[18] and won the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Classical Album.[19]

Music Directors

Educational Programs

The Aspen Music Festival and School offers young musicians a choice of the following programs of study:[26]

  • Orchestra/Instrumental
    • Strings, Winds, Brass, Percussion, Harp
    • Center for Orchestral Leadership
  • Chamber Music
  • Aspen Opera Center
    • Voice
    • Opera Coaching
  • Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS (Beginning 2020)
    • Voice
    • Opera Coaching
  • Seraphic Fire Professional Choral Institute
  • Solo Piano
  • Collaborative Piano
  • Aspen Conducting Academy
  • Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies
  • Aspen Contemporary Ensemble
  • Classical Guitar

Facilities
The "Pond Cluster" at the Matthew and Carolyn Bucksbaum Campus

The Benedict Music Tent, which opened in 2000, is the Festival's primary concert venue and seats 2050.[27] The tent replaced an earlier tent designed by Herbert Bayer, which in 1965 replaced the original smaller tent designed by Eero Saarinen.[28] Concerts are held in the Benedict Music Tent on a nearly daily basis during the summer, and seating on the lawn just outside the Tent, where many choose to picnic during events, is always free.[29] The design has open sides; the curving roof is made of Teflon-coated fiberglass, a hard material also used by the Denver International Airport.

The 500-seat Joan and Irving Harris Concert Hall is located next door to the Benedict Music Tent, and was opened in 1993 at a cost of $7 million.[30] The Wheeler Opera House—a Victorian-era venue owned by the City of Aspen—is the home to Aspen Opera Center productions in the summer and the AMFS's Metropolitan Opera Live in HD screenings in the winter.

In 2016, the AMFS completed its $75 million, 105,000-square-foot Matthew and Carolyn Bucksbaum Campus, which serves as the center of its teaching activities. The Campus, located two miles from downtown Aspen, sits on a 38-acre site that is shared between the AMFS in the summer and Aspen Country Day School during the academic year.[31] Designed by architect Harry Teague, who also designed the AMFS's Harris Concert Hall and the Benedict Music Tent,[32] the Bucksbaum Campus includes three expansive rehearsal halls, numerous teaching studios and practice rooms, a percussion building, administrative offices, and a glass-enclosed cafeteria. The Campus was designed with Aspen's natural setting in mind: the buildings’ roof lines mirror the shapes of the surrounding mountains and hug the contours of the ponds and creek.[33]

See also

References
  1. Huizenga, Tom (2014-05-01). "10 Can't-Miss Classical Music Festivals". NPR.
  2. Harrison, Leah (2014). "2014 Summer Festivals: Selling Summer" (Spring). Symphony: The Magazine of the League of American Orchestras. p. 44.
  3. "Aspen Music Festival announces 'enchanted' 2017 summer season | AspenTimes.com". www.aspentimes.com. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
  4. Field, Kimberly (2014). "Aspen Music Festival and School". Colorado Expression (June/July). pp. 60–63.
  5. "Music fest's winter lineup stars Weilerstein, Shaham". Aspen Times. 2014-10-31. Archived from the original on 2015-08-19. Retrieved 2015-02-02.
  6. Rita Mead, "Aspen Music Festival and School" New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. 2001 p.115
  7. Wakin, Daniel J. "Robert Spano Named New Aspen Music Festival Music Director". The New York Times (2011-03-12).
  8. Bruce Berger (2001). Music in the Mountains: The First Fifty Years of the Aspen Music Festival. Big Earth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-55566-311-7.
  9. Proctor, Jacob (2013). "Avant-Garde Aspen". Aspen Sojourner (Midwinter).
  10. "Aspen Daily Times July 27, 1950 — Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection". www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org. Retrieved 2019-01-31.
  11. Hill, Brad (2006). American Popular Music: Classical. Facts on File. p. 13. ISBN 0-8160-5311-1.
  12. Allen, James Sloan (1986). The Romance of Commerce and Culture: Capitalism, Modernism, and the Chicago-Aspen Crusade for Cultural Reform. University of Chicago Press. p. 262. ISBN 0-226-01459-2.
  13. Hymen, Sidney (1975). The Aspen Idea. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 174. ISBN 0-8061-1306-5.
  14. Vail, Ken (2002). Duke's Diary, Part 2: The Life of Duke Ellington, 1950-1974. Scarecrow Press. p. 270. ISBN 0-8108-4119-3.
  15. Inglis, Anne (2002-04-02). "Dorothy DeLay". The Guardian.
  16. Copland, Aaron. "Letter from Aaron Copland to Mary Lescaze, July 1, 1975". Library of Congress.
  17. Terrace, Vincent (1985). Encyclopedia of Television: Series, Pilots and Specials 1974-1984. New York Zoetrope. p. 219. ISBN 0-9184-3261-8.
  18. "Shostakovich: String Quartets/Emerson String Quartet". ArkivMusic.
  19. "Past Winners". Grammy Awards.
  20. Small, Heather Ann (2006). "The Life and Teaching of Flutist Albert Tipton; 1917-1997". ) Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations. Florida State University. p. 23. Archived from the original on 2015-02-02.
  21. Gorner, Peter (1970-02-01). "Solomon—a Musical Builder Who Knows the Territory". Chicago Tribune.
  22. Goodfellow, William S. (1989-08-13). "Aspen at 40: Festival Still Highlights the New". Deseret News.
  23. "Aspen Music Festival Appoints New Director". The New York Times. 1990-08-17.
  24. Pasles, Chris (1995-08-20). "Barcelona Lures Foster from Aspen". Los Angeles Times.
  25. "Zinman Will Take the Music Helm at Aspen Festival and School in '97". Deseret News. 1996-06-30.
  26. "Programs of Study | Aspen Music Festival And School". www.aspenmusicfestival.com. Retrieved 2019-01-31.
  27. Beranek, Leo (2007). Concert Halls and Opera Houses (2nd ed.). NY:Springer. pp. 39–42. ISBN 0-387-95524-0.
  28. "Benedict Music Tent". Harry Teague Architects. Archived from the original on 2015-08-19. Retrieved 2015-02-02.
  29. Brazil, Ben (2004-08-08). "Aspen, Without the Trust Fund". The Washington Post.
  30. Oestrich, James R. (1993-08-24). "A Tuneful Inauguration for a New Concert Hall". The New York Times.
  31. "Big Music on Campus: Aspen Music Festival & School unveils final phase of makeover | AspenTimes.com". www.aspentimes.com. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
  32. "Aspen architect Harry Teague in the spotlight at the Red Brick | AspenTimes.com". www.aspentimes.com. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
  33. "Music for the Eyes | Arts & Culture | Aspen Sojourner". www.aspensojo.com. Retrieved 2017-02-03.

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