- Colorado Music Festival
-
The Chautauqua Auditorium (Boulder, Colorado)
Colorado Music Festival's principal performance venueThe Colorado Music Festival is a classical music festival in Boulder, Colorado. It was founded in 1976 by the Vienna-born conductor and violinist, Giora Bernstein 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 June to August with a repertory encompassing both world music and traditional classical music. Its current Musical Director is Michael Christie.
Contents
History
The festival began life as the Colorado Chamber Orchestra founded in 1976 by Giora Bernstein, the newly appointed head of the conducting program at University of Colorado. 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, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, cellist Leonard Rose and violinist Sidney Harth.
Following restoration work in 1978, the Chautaqua Auditorium, a national historic landmark, became the festival's home. Its inaugural Chautauqua season brought the festival the first of five ASCAP Adventurous Programming Awards.[1] On Giora Bernstein's retirement in 2000, the American conductor, Michael Christie was appointed Music Director.
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's Pursuit.[2] 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.[3]
Premieres
Regional and world premieres at the festival include:
- William Thomas McKinley's Concerto for clarinet and orchestra (world premiere, 1980)
- Tōru Takemitsu's Dreamtime (North American premiere, 1983)
- Krzysztof Penderecki's Concerto for viola and orchestra, (North American premiere, 1995)
- Mark Grey's Pursuit (world premiere, 2005)
- Terry Riley's Sun Rings (Colorado premiere, 2006)
- Mark Grey's Elevation (world premiere, 2006)
- Mark Grey's Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio (Colorado premiere, 2008)
- Behzad Ranjbaran's Seven Passages, the third part of his Persian Trilogy (Colorado premiere, 2009)
- Tan Dun's Pipa Concerto (Colorado premiere, 2009)
References
Sources
- Blotner, Linda Solow, The Boston Composers Project: A bibliography of contemporary music, MIT Press, 1983. ISBN 0262021986
- 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, 30 June 2008
- Siddons, James, Toru Takemitsu: a bio-bibliography, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. ISBN 0313272379
- Shulgold, Marc, 20 Years of High Notes, Giora Bernstein Ignores Naysayers to Build the Award-winning Colorado Music Festival, Rocky Mountain News, 12 June 1996 (accessed 13 December 2009 via subcription)
External links
Categories:- Classical music festivals in the United States
- Festivals in Colorado
- Visitor attractions in Boulder County, Colorado
- Culture of Boulder, Colorado
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