NY Philharmonic to Return to Colorado’s Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, 7/20-27

The New York Philharmonic will return to Colorado's Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival for its tenth annual summer residency - during the Festival's 25th anniversary season - for six concerts, July 20–27, 2012. Music Director Alan Gilbert, The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair, will conduct three concerts, July 25–27, leading works by Brahms, Mozart, Nielsen, Respighi, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, and Vivaldi. Additional concerts will be led by conductors Andrey Boreyko (July 20) and Bramwell Tovey (July 21–22), in works by Bernstein, Brahms, Copland, Falla, Gershwin, Saint-Saëns, and Tchaikovsky. The Orchestra's residency will feature appearances by pianists Anne-Marie McDermott (artistic director of the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival), Yefim Bronfman, and Benjamin Grosvenor; Principal Associate Concertmaster Sheryl Staples; sopranos Tracy Dahl and Jennifer Zetlan; mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano; tenor Paul Appleby; and baritone Joshua Hopkins. The New York Philharmonic has performed at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival each summer since 2003.

Conductor Andrey Boreyko will launch the Philharmonic's 2012 residency with an opening night concert on Friday, July 20, 2012, featuring Falla's Ritual Fire Dance from El Amor brujo; Saint-Saëns's Piano Concerto No. 2, with Benjamin Grosvenor as soloist; and Brahms's Symphony No. 1.

The following evening Bramwell Tovey will return for his eighth summer with the New York Philharmonic at Vail to conduct two programs. The first, on Saturday, July 21, will feature an all-Tchaikovsky program: Festival Coronation March; Piano Concerto No. 2, with Anne-Marie McDermott as soloist; selections from Act IV of Swan Lake; and the 1812 Overture. The next evening, Sunday, July 22, Mr. Tovey will lead the Orchestra in Copland's Billy the Kid Suite; Bernstein's Three Dance Episodes from On the Town, and "Glitter and Be Gay" from Candide; Mr. Tovey's arrangements of Gershwin's "The Man I Love," "They Can't Take That Away from Me," "A Foggy Day in London Town," and "Fascinatin' Rhythm," with soprano Tracy Dahl as soloist; and Gershwin's An American in Paris. 

Music Director Alan Gilbert's first concert, on Wednesday, July 25, will feature Respighi's Fountains of Rome; Vivaldi's Spring and Winter from The Four Seasons, with Associate Principal Concertmaster Sheryl Staples as soloist; and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4. On Thursday, July 26, Mr. Gilbert will lead Nielsen's Symphony No. 3, Sinfonia espansiva, with soprano Jennifer Zetlan and baritone Joshua Hopkins as soloists, as well as Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 2, with Yefim Bronfman as soloist. The next evening, Friday, July 27, he will conduct the final New York Philharmonic concert in Vail: Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements, followed by Mozart's Mass in C minor, Great, with Ms. Zetlan, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, tenor Paul Appleby, and Mr. Hopkins as soloists, with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra Chorus, Duain Wolfe, director. 

This summer, the Very Young Composers of Eagle County - a joint venture of the New York Philharmonic and Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival - will present their fifth season of performances. The educational initiative features young composers, ages 9–13, who create and orchestrate their own original works to be performed by musicians from the Philharmonic at Vail  Valley Public Schools. The summer's performances will take place at the Vail Public Library on Wednesday, July 25 and at the Avon Public Library on Thursday, July 26, both at 1:00 p.m. The program was created by Young Composers Advocate Jon Deak (formerly Philharmonic Associate Principal Bass) in collaboration with Liz Campbell, Director of Education and Community Outreach for the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival; Bill Gordh, Co-Director and Mentor of the Very Young Composers of Eagle County; and Philharmonic Director of Education Theodore Wiprud. This initiative, based on the Philharmonic's Credit Suisse Very Young Composers, is underwritten by the Joyce and Bernard West family of Vail and New York.

The Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, now celebrating its 25th anniversary season, was founded by executive director John Giovando and violinist Ida Kavafian. Its artistic director since 2011 is pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, and in September 2012 James Palermo assumes the role of executive director when Mr. Giovando retires. All of the New York Philharmonic concerts will be performed in the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater and will start at 6:00 p.m.

To post a comment, you must register and login.