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A Noted Scholar Looks at Beethoven
by Marc Shugold Ask Jan Swafford about his plans for a July 31 talk at the Academy Boulder, and you'll get something akin to a shrug. “I'm ready for anything,” the renowned author, music historian and composer confessed. When pressed, he suggested that he'll probably...
“Fantastic” In Every Sense: How Berlioz Burst the Boundaries
by Kelly Dean Hansen The word “fantastic” has largely lost its original connotation. The true definition of the word is “imaginative or fanciful; remote from reality.” Of course, the meaning has shifted toward the informal definition, something along the lines...
Doubly Demanding: Brahms’s Concerto for Violin and Cello
by Kelly Dean Hansen, Ph.D. “Guest blogger Kelly Dean Hansen has chosen one work from each of the six weeks of the 2019 Colorado Music Festival season to spotlight. He will be exploring these works with the aim of explaining what makes them lasting,...
My Life in the Tokyo String Quartet
1978 was a distinct year of growth and transition for me. I was 22 years old and I felt I was reaching a point of potential stagnation in my playing and education as a violinist. I transferred to a different school to study with a new teacher, which brought me to come...
Concerto in “F”lux? Gershwin and Classical/Popular Fusion
by Kelly Dean Hansen, PhD “Guest blogger Kelly Dean Hansen has chosen one work from each of the six weeks of the 2019 Colorado Music Festival season to spotlight. He will be exploring these works with the aim of explaining what makes them lasting,...
A Family Concert With a Twist
By Marc Shulgold If you've seen the beloved children's classic Peter and the Wolf performed as a cutesy costumed stage show, you may want to jettison those memories, when you bring the kids to the Colorado Music Festival Family Concert in Chautauqua Auditorium on...
Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto: A Jewel That Changed a Genre
by Kelly Dean Hansen, PhD "Guest blogger Kelly Dean Hansen has chosen one work from each of the six weeks of the 2019 Colorado Music Festival season to spotlight. He will be exploring these works with the aim of explaining what makes them lasting,...
Peter Oundjian discusses this season’s Beethoven theme
Well, I'm extremely excited about the 2019 Colorado Music Festival. It begins with a concept, really, about Beethoven and his influence on future composers. As we all know, 2020 is going to be a major anniversary of Beethoven; 250 years since his birth. And I thought...
The Woman Behind the Trombone, Principal Trombonist Donna Parkes
If you had the opportunity to attend a performance of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic Symphony during the 2018 season, you would remember the unrelenting, forceful trombone line Adams wrote to depict Lieutenant General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project. The...
Becoming a Boulderite
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that more and more people are choosing to live in Colorado every year. The appeal of urban living at the precipice of vast expanses of nature continues to spur rapid growth of mid-sized western cities. It’s a trend that shows...
10 Top Classical Music Festivals Around the World
The origin of music festivals dates back to ancient Greece: in the late sixth century BCE, at the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, the Pythian Games included musical performances. It may very well be the earliest music festival known. Today, we can enjoy classical music...
The King of the Cello Repertoire
Is there any piece of music that dominates the repertoire for its instrument as much as Antonín Dvořák’s Cello Concerto? Pianists might suggest Tchaikovsky’s First Concerto, but then someone could counter that with Rachmaninoff’s Second or Beethoven’s “Emperor” or...