Colorado Music Festival Announces 2021 Season

The Colorado Music Festival (CMF) in Boulder, Colorado, under the leadership of Music Director Peter Oundjian, returns to the concert hall this summer for 22 concerts between July 1 and August 7.

The diverse offerings reflect Oundjian's commitment to presenting the work of living composers as well as music by masters of the canon; nearly half of the concerts will feature music created in the twenty-first or late-twentieth centuries. The Festival features world-class musicians from around the country who arrive in Boulder to perform as the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra under the direction of Peter Oundjian, along with 17 guest artists, three internationally acclaimed string quartets and three guest conductors.

"In our 2021 season, we wish to commemorate the challenges of the pandemic, while celebrating the return to live, communal music-making. This season's music offers the healing that our communities are yearning for, the creativity to clear our minds and hearts, and the inspiration to look toward the brighter days ahead," said Peter Oundjian, music director.

Guidance for safe social distancing practices will be observed closely in the months to come, and will most likely include limiting the number of orchestra members on stage. The event's venue, Chautauqua Auditorium, will implement a COVID-19 safety plan throughout the 2021 season, including the latest guidelines for spacing between seats, distance between performers and audience members, and mask requirements for all. More information about the safety plan will be available on the Chautauqua website prior to the season opening.

This season is the first year of CMF's five-year commitment to commissioning new works and presenting them in Boulder. The season opens on July 1 with the world premiere of "Elegy" by Aaron Jay Kernis, a work commemorating those lost to the COVID-19 pandemic and the first of four world premieres being presented this summer, three of which are CMF commissions. The opening-night program welcomes this season's artist-in-residence, violinist Augustin Hadelich, for Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64, and concludes with Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op 92. (The opening concert repeats on July 2.) Hadelich returns on July 28 and 29 for Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61.

• Hannah Lash's Forestallings, the second world premiere of the season, kicks off the festival's first-ever Music of Today Series, July 22-25, with three concerts exclusively dedicated to the work of living composers. Also on the opening concert program is Kevin Puts' Concerto for Marimba and Peter Oundjian's orchestration for string orchestra of Beethoven's groundbreaking String Quartet No. 14 (the one piece in the series orchestrated, but not created, by a living composer).
  
• The "Kaleidoscope" concert on July 23 pairs energetic and accessible contemporary music from an eclectic mix of composers with pianist Christopher Taylor, Ji Su Jung on marimba and members of the CMF Orchestra. That evening's program features:

Nebojsa Zivkovic, Trio per Uno (1995/1990)
Nico Muhly, Big Time for String Quartet and Percussion (2012)
Peter Klatzow, Concert Marimba Etudes (2013)
Derek Bermel, Turning (1995)
Keith Jarrett, The Köln Concert (Part IIC) (1975)
Leigh Howard Stevens, Rhythmic Caprice (1989)
William Bolcom, Piano Quintet No. 2 (2011)

• The series concludes on July 25 with a concert dedicated to the music of the great American composer Joan Tower, with the composer in attendance and featuring the third world premiere of the season, Tower's Cello Concerto, along with her Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 5 (1993), Made in America (2004), and Duets (1994).
  
• The final world premiere of the festival, on August 5, is a new work by Joel Thompson that shines a light on American writer and activist James Baldwin, weaving selections of Baldwin's own words into a musical profile on one of the most powerful Black voices of his generation. Thompson is perhaps best known for his 2015 composition Seven Last Words of the Unarmed. Dr. Eddie Glaude will narrate the performance.

Also new this year is the Robert Mann Chamber Music Series, named for the late Robert Mann, who was founding first violin of the Juilliard String Quartet; a friend and mentor to CMF Music Director Peter Oundjian; and a conductor and composer. The Tuesday evening series includes three quartets making their CMF debuts, beginning on July 13 with the group that carries on Mann's legacy, the Juilliard String Quartet, performing Ravel, Dutilleux and Dvořák. On July 20, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, once guided and coached by Mann himself, performs Haydn and Debussy as well as John Adams' String Quartet No. 1 (2008). The remarkable Danish String Quartet performs a program on August 3 of music by Purcell and Schubert and a collection of dances. Members of the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra perform two evenings of chamber music written for larger ensembles: the string quintets of Mozart and Brahms on July 6, and Beethoven's Septet for Strings and Winds and Quintet for Piano and Winds on July 27.

The 2021 season features a diverse group of guest musicians, including saxophonist Steven Banks; pianist Stewart Goodyear; percussion soloist Ji Su Jung; pianist Olga Kern; pianist Conrad Tao; cellist Alisa Weilerstein; and violinist Angelo Xiang Yu.

On Saturday, July 3 at 11 a.m., CMF will feature its Family Concert, "The Story of Babar," in partnership with Really Inventive Stuff, animateurs and vaudeville-inspired storytellers for orchestras. This program also includes Toy Symphony, which features noisemakers, kazoos and other toy instruments as part of the orchestra. Tickets are $10. Additionally, the concert will be live streamed for free.

During the 2021 season, the Colorado Music Festival and Center for Musical Arts will launch the Festival Fellows program, hosting a total of eight aspiring professional musicians to serve as Festival Fellows in Boulder, CO. Four of the fellows will be selected by the Sphinx Organization, whose goal is addressing "the social issue of underrepresentation of people of color in classical music."

To complement the live concerts in Chautauqua Auditorium, CMF is offering a remote viewing experience for the 2021 Colorado Music Festival with a selection of the performances available via live streaming. "After moving to a virtual festival in 2020, we look forward to offering safe, socially-distanced concerts, alongside streaming options for seven of this season's concerts," said Elizabeth McGuire, CMF executive director. "We want these performances to be available to as many people as possible. We know from friends and patrons that music has helped them through these difficult times and we're honored to play that role for our community."

For a full list of live-streaming performances and to purchase tickets beginning April 20, visit https://coloradomusicfestival.org/.

All concerts take place in the historic Chautauqua Auditorium in Boulder, built in 1898 as the meeting space for the recently established Colorado Chautauqua, a settlement that arose out of the Chautauqua education movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One of only 25 National Historic Landmarks in the state of Colorado, the auditorium is known locally for its electrifying acoustics, providing a unique listening experience in the unsurpassed landscape of Boulder's Flatirons in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

For more information about CMF, or to purchase tickets beginning April 20, visit ColoradoMusicFestival.org or call 303-440-7666.

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