Filed under: News | Tags: Boulder Bach Festival, Marcia Schirmer, Rick Erickson
It is the time of year when I receive many new press releases concerning organizations and their opening concerts. I must say that one of the most exciting is going to be the Boulder Bach Festival opening concert; in fact, their whole season will be quite exciting because they have a new director, Rick Erickson, whom I wrote about in an article last January.
In that blog article, I said: “Erickson earned a master’s degree in organ performance and literature and received a performer’s certificate from the Eastman School of Music. He studied organ with David Craighead, Lucile Hammill Webb, and Russell Saunders, improvisation with Gerre Hancock, and conducting with Robert DeCormier and David Effron. Erickson holds a bachelor’s degree in music and German from the University of Wisconsin, Superior, where he has been honored as “Distinguished Alumnus” and cited as “one of the 100 distinguished graduates” in the school’s 100th anniversary year. A native of Superior, Wisconsin, Erickson began organ study at the age of fourteen.
“Rick Erickson brings passion and excitement that will carry the Boulder Bach Festival forward,” said Robert (Bob) Spillman, emeritus music director, Boulder Bach Festival, “and he has the artistry and the skills to provide the most exhilarating performances of Bach’s music for our community.
“Erickson also directs the renowned Bach Vespers series at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, where he presents more than 20 cantatas and other major Bach works each season with the all-professional Bach Choir and Bach Players on period instruments. During the past ten seasons, Erickson has more than doubled the number of performances for the Bach Vespers series. He has performed Bach’s complete organ repertoire twice and is in the midst of the third cycle.”
All of this is good news, of course, and (another of course) one would expect the Boulder Bach Festival to hire the best in the business. But, to my way of thinking, one of the most exciting aspects of this is that Rick Erickson truly believes that one of his responsibilities, and I received this information directly from Ms. Marcia Schirmer, who is the Executive Director of the BBF, is the education of the audience, and particularly, the young people in the audience. As most of you know, I have written about the direction music has been taking in the last twenty or thirty years, and I think that it is terrific that a musician in his position wishes to expand the Bach for Kids and the Kids for Bach concerts, and will take the time to do it. All of you granting organizations and foundations out there who read this, take note: this is outreach at its best. In addition, in February, on the 27th and 28th, there will be open rehearsals at the First Congregational Church in Boulder.
The Boulder Bach Festival will present its opening concert twice, and the first will be September 23, Friday, at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, which is in Denver at 2015 Glenarm Place. It will begin at 7:30 PM. Their second performance will be in Boulder on September 25, Sunday, at St. John’s Episcopal Church, at 1419 Pine Street. That concert will begin at 4 PM in the afternoon.
The opening concert will be comprised of three Brandenburg Concertos, Numbers 3, 5, and 6. Also on the program is the Chaconne in D minor from the Partita Nr. 2 for Violin, and one of Bach’s Chorale Preludes entitled O Lamm Gottes, Unschuldig, from the Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, for solo organ.
This is really quite something to look forward to. So no one in the Denver Metro area has an excuse for not attending one of these concerts. One is in Boulder, the other is in Denver. What could be easier than that?
Filed under: News | Tags: Bach, Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, Hsing-ay Hsu, Mahler, Michael Butterman
The Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra opens its 54th season, The Spirit of Boulder, on Saturday, September 17, 2011, at 7:30 p.m., with a program entitled Genius and Power, at Macky Auditorium, at CU-Boulder. Michael Butterman, music director with the Boulder Phil, will be conducting with guest pianist Hsing-ay Hsu.
The upcoming season marks Michael Butterman’s sixth season as music director of the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, a strong tenure reflected by a significant increase in subscribers and single ticket sales. Ticket sales are up 40% during the last two seasons, led by subscriptions, which are at a six-year high. The orchestra experienced four sell-outs at Macky Auditorium during 2010, including its highest-grossing concert of all time with the “Cirque de la Symphonie” production.
As the press release states: “The program opens with Concerto No. 1, by J.S. Bach, (the Busoni arrangement), featuring Steinway artist Hsing-ay Hsu (“Sing-I Shoo”), winner of numerous awards, including the William Kapell International [S]ilver [M]edal, and now artistic director of the Pendulum New Music [C]oncert [S]eries at CU-Boulder. “Bach was my first love in music, when I was five years old, and I love how his phrases seem to soar forever,” said Hsu. “He extends certain phrases or elides two phrases together at will; it gives us a sense of the tremendous breath that he works with—an infinite, eternal sense of time and space. It’s a wonderful challenge to communicate the complex character of this music, which is both invincible and vulnerable, anxious but measured, tragic and yet hopeful,” she said. “I get a thrill ‘handling’ such glorious musical substance, and Busoni’s use of additional range and parallel lines really help with sound projection in large concert halls.”
I am quite sure that everyone who heard the performance that Hsing-ay Hsu gave with the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra under Adam Flatt last October will be very happy to hear her again. She performed the Beethoven Piano Concerto Nr. 4, in G Major, and it was spectacular. If any of you readers have never heard her perform, you must hear this performance.
Since making her stage debut at age 4, Chinese pianist Hsing-ay Hsu (Sing-I Shoo) has performed at such notable venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, and abroad in China, Japan, Taiwan, the Czech Republic, Denmark, and France. Upon reaching the age of eligibility in her freshman year at Juilliard, Hsu captured the 1996 William Kapell International Piano Competition Second Prize. She is also winner of the prestigious Juilliard William Petschek Recital Award in 2000, a 2003 McCrane Foundation Artist Grant, a 1999-2001 Paul & Daisy Sows Graduate Fellowship, and a 1997 Gilmore Young Artist Award.
Ms. Hsu is currently the Artistic Administrator of the Pendulum New Music Series at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where she resides with her husband, composer Daniel Kellogg.
After the intermission, the Boulder Phil will perform Mahler’s Symphony Nr.1, in D major. Of this work, Michael Butterman states: “The second half of the program features Symphony No. 1, by Gustav Mahler, completed in 1888. Mahler originally conceived of this piece as a kind of tone poem based on the novel, Titan, by Jean Paul; but, he later dropped the “Titan” nickname from the symphony entirely. That first version also had an added movement, Blumine, which was not included in revised versions of the work. “So the version we are playing,” said Butterman, “should probably not be referred to with the Titan connection.”
There is no question that Butterman is absolutely correct when he says that this is probably the greatest “first symphony” that any composer has written. Every time I hear it I am constantly amazed. The entire symphony is filled with irony, and it would be quite interesting if the audience could see the tempo indications given by Mahler at the beginning of each movement. For example, at the beginning of the first movement, he gives the instruction which can be translated as “slow and dragging.” He really intends this to be an almost pastorale movement, because the main theme comes from the song “I went out this morning through the fields.” But I think what the audience will immediately spot, is the theme of the third movement, “Frère Jacques,” which he turns into a funeral march. I sincerely believe that this is Mahler’s attempt – one of the few – at humor. And every time I sit in the audience when this symphony is played, no one smiles. It is as though they are saying to themselves, “This cannot be even remotely humorous because it is Mahler, and he is always very serious.” Even though everyone knows that Mahler’s personality could be quite turbulent, I do think that he sometimes exhibited a very wry sense of humor.
Whether you agree or disagree as to its seriousness, this is a program of contrasts that really must be heard.
Filed under: News
The Boulder Philharmonic orchestra announced some very good news the other day, and that is that Michael Butterman has extended his contract with the orchestra for the 2013- 2014 seasons. In addition, he has extended his contract as music director with the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Jacksonville Symphony (his third season) and his 12th season as principal conductor for Education and Outreach with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
There is no question that this is good news, for he has made significant improvements in the Boulder Philharmonic orchestra, and he has implemented some very creative programming in the years that he has been the conductor.
It is also interesting and easy to see that the soloists who perform with this orchestra seem to enjoy very much working with Michael Butterman, not only because he has absolutely no difficulty communicating with the orchestra, but because he is a superior musician. It truly seems as though everyone in the Boulder Phil likes him. Isn’t that an interesting thing to say about a conductor?
I encourage all of you, with genuine enthusiasm, to become audience members of the Boulder Philharmonic. It is truly one of the finer orchestras in this state.
