Invitation to Dance

The 2016 Aspen Music Festival and School in Colorado, USA (music director Robert Spano) runs from 30 June until 21 August, and this summer invites you to feel the rhythmic influence of dance on music with its 2016 main theme, Invitation to Dance, featuring works by J S Bach, Vivaldi, Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Johann Strauss II, Dvořák, Lalo, Chabrier, Debussy, Richard Strauss, Granados, Ravel, Rachmaninov, Falla, Ligeti, Infante, Antheil, Piazzolla and Dominick Argento.

The Festival has, in addition, three mini themes - the four hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's death (with a performance of Berlioz's Béatrice et Bénédict), White Nights - music from the arctic north (featuring works by Sibelius, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, John Luther Adams and Finnish composer-in-residence, Kaija Saariaho), and mid-century American symphonists (Roy Harris, Charles Ives, Peter Mennin, Walter Piston and Roger Sessions).

The festival opens with Renée Fleming singing Strauss' Four Last Songs and closes with Orff's Carmina Burana. Don't miss the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, led by Manfred Honeck, in three post-season concerts (23, 24 and 25 August 2016) in the Benedict Music Tent, complementing the Festival's summer music programme with its own acclaimed sound.

Founded in 1949, the Aspen Music Festival and School is regarded as one of the top classical music festivals in the United States, noted both for its concert programming and its musical training of mostly young adult music students. The typical eight week summer season includes more than three hundred classical music events, including concerts by five orchestras, solo and chamber music performances, fully staged opera productions, masterclasses, lectures and children's programming, and brings in seventy thousand audience members. In the winter, the AMFS presents a small series of recitals and Metropolitan Opera Live in HD screenings.

Information: www.aspenmusicfestival.com

Posted: 29 June 2016

Next item: Sergei Cortez (1935-2016) >>