Vail Music Festival presents NY Phil residency from July 20

To launch its tenth anniversary residency at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, the New York Philharmonic presents the first of six concerts on July 20, when it hosts the debut of teenage piano sensation Benjamin Grosvenor, just named one of the year’s top ten Britons by London’s Daily Telegraph. Among other highlights of the residency are the Vail premieres of Mozart’s Mass in C minor and Nielsen’s Third Symphony, both led by music director Alan Gilbert; the Second Piano Concertos of Tchaikovsky and Brahms with Festival Artistic Director Anne-Marie McDermott and powerhouse pianist Yefim Bronfman, respectively; seminal symphonies by Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Stravinsky; guest conducting spots by Andrey Boreyko and Bramwell Tovey; and a program showcasing favorite Gershwin songs with Canadian coloratura soprano Tracy Dahl.
 
Now celebrating its 25th anniversary season, the Vail Music Festival runs for six weeks, from June 25 to August 4, in the heart of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Besides the New York Philharmonic, it boasts residencies by two other world-class orchestras – the Dallas Symphony and The Philadelphia Orchestra – plus chamber music, jazz, an impressive guest-star roster, numerous Festival premieres, a series juxtaposing time-honored classics with trailblazing new music, and multi-event immersions in the art of Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Gershwin. As before, large-scale concerts take place in Vail’s spectacular Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, which accommodates 1,260 guests in covered seating and an additional 1,300 on the expansive grassy hillside, with its breathtaking view of the Rocky Mountains.
 
New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert – the first native New Yorker to hold the post – began his tenure in September 2009, launching what New York magazine called “a fresh future for the Philharmonic.” “The Philharmonic has been playing splendidly for Mr. Gilbert,” agreed the New York Times, while Gramophone, one of numerous other media outlets to endorse the appointment, noted:
 
“The New York Philharmonic has made a magnificent choice: energizing, contemporary, inclusive and, if tonight’s combination of great programming and superb playing is anything to go by, hugely positive for the future.”
 
Brahms figures prominently in Vail Music Festival’s 2012 programming, and the New York Philharmonic launches its tenth residency with the great German Romantic’s Beethovenian First Symphony, under dynamic Russian guest conductor Andrey Boryeko. The July 20 program also presents Saint-Saëns’s popular Second Piano Concerto, with teenage piano soloist Benjamin Grosvenor, “a formidable technician and a thoughtful, coolly assured interpreter” (New York Times) who has just been named winner of the UK Critics’ Circle Award for “Exceptional Young Talent.”
 
To honor the silver anniversary season, a number of important works are being presented for the first time at this year’s Vail Music Festival. These premiere performances include Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto, with Anne-Marie McDermott – “one of the great pianists of her generation” (Philadelphia Inquirer) – who returns for a second term as artistic director. This concerto anchors an all-Tchaikovsky program that embraces such audience favorites as the 1812 Overture, guest conducted by Grammy Award-winner Bramwell Tovey (July 21).
 
On July 22, Tovey returns to conduct the third concert of the residency, an American program that highlights the “superlative coloratura” (Globe and Mail) of soprano Tracy Dahl in favorite songs by Bernstein and Gershwin (another composer whose work is explored in depth at this season’s Festival). Dahl and Tovey’s association is of long standing: the two previously collaborated on Love Walked In, a Gershwin collection album.
 
For its first appearance under the baton of music director Alan Gilbert, the New York Philharmonic partners Principal Associate Concertmaster Sheryl Staples as violin soloist in renditions of “Winter” and “Spring” from Vivaldi’s beloved Four Seasons, alongside Tchaikovsky’s epic Fourth Symphony, which the composer called “better than anything I’ve done so far” (July 25).
 
On July 26, for the residency’s penultimate night, Gilbert directs two of the Festival’s most important premieres: Nielsen’s Third Symphony, with wordless vocals by soprano Jennifer Zetlan and baritone Joshua Hopkins in the second movement; and Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat, with Grammy Award-winning pianist Yefim “Fima” Bronfman, dubbed “a marvel of digital dexterity, warmly romantic sentiment, and jaw-dropping bravura” (Chicago Tribune).
 
Finally, Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic conclude their Festival season on July 27 with Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements, coupled with the Vail premiere of Mozart’s monumental Mass in C minor. Zetlan and Hopkins return, accompanied by mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano and tenor Paul Appleby, with the support of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra Chorus. When the orchestra performed Mozart’s masterpiece with the same quartet of soloists at New York’s Lincoln Center this June, the New York Times reported:
 
“The soprano Jennifer Zetlan was potent and incisive; the mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, warmhearted and ingratiating. The tenor Paul Appleby and the baritone Joshua Hopkins…handled their assignments admirably.”
 
All told, the Times pronounced the orchestra’s performance “majestic,” while MusicWeb International confirmed that it was “exemplary.”
 
Tickets for the New York Philharmonic and other events in the Vail Music Festival’s 25th anniversary season are available for purchase at www.vailmusicfestival.org, and further details are provided below.
 
About the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival
 
The Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival was founded in 1987 by John Giovando, an attorney with a love of classical music, with eminent violinist Ida Kavafian. Through world-class performances, dedicated leadership, and generous support from the community, the Festival has grown from attracting a handful of attendees to an annual audience of more than 60,000. More than 30 distinguished soloists visit the Vail Valley to perform in chamber ensembles and as soloists with the three world-class resident orchestras. Running from late June through early August, Vail Music Festival presents the highest level of music-making in spectacular Vail Valley venues, touching the lives of thousands of people – many of whom come to the area specifically to experience the pleasures of the Festival and the beauty of the majestic Rocky Mountains. As the Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Patrick Stearns observes, “Few if any classical music institutions west of the Mississippi have flourished as Bravo! has.”
 
 
 
 
Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival 2012 Program Details
 
Friday, July 20 at 6pm
Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, Vail
Falla: Danza Ritual del Fuego (Ritual Fire Dance) from El Amor Brujo
Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68
New York Philharmonic / Andrey Boreyko
Benjamin Grosvenor, piano
 
Saturday, July 21 at 6pm
Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, Vail
Tchaikovsky: Festival Coronation March
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G major, Op. 44
Tchaikovsky: Excerpts from Act IV of Swan Lake
Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture
New York Philharmonic / Bramwell Tovey
Anne-Marie McDermott, piano
 
Saturday, July 21 at 8pm
Betty Ford Alpine Gardens, Vail
Under the Silvery Moon
25th Annual Gala
Dinner Dance and Auction
 
Sunday, July 22 at 6pm
Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, Vail
Copland: Suite from Billy the Kid
Bernstein: Three Dance Episodes from On the Town, and “Glitter and be Gay” from Candide
Gershwin: “The Man I Love,” “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” “A Foggy Day in London Town,” “Fascinatin’ Rhythm,” and An American in Paris
New York Philharmonic / Bramwell Tovey
Tracy Dahl, soprano
 
Monday, July 23 at 7:30pm
Cordillera Lodge and Spa
Free & Easy
Jasper String Quartet
   (J Freivogel, violin; Sae Chonabayashi; violin, Sam Quintal, viola; Rachel Henderson Freivogel, cello)
 
Tuesday, July 24 at 6pm
Sandi and Greg Walton Residence, Arrowhead
Soirée
Yefim Bronfman, piano
 
Wednesday, July 25 at 6pm
Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, Vail
Respighi: The Fountains of Rome
Vivaldi: Concerto No. 1 in E major, Op. 8, RV 269, La primavera (Spring)
Vivaldi: Concerto No. 4 in F minor, Op. 8, RV 297, L’inverno (Winter)
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36
New York Philharmonic / Alan Gilbert
Sheryl Staples, violin
 
Thursday, July 26 at 6pm
Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, Vail
Nielsen: Symphony No. 3, Op. 27
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 83
New York Philharmonic / Alan Gilbert
Jennifer Zetlan, soprano
Joshua Hopkins, baritone
Yefim Bronfman, piano
 
Friday, July 27 at 6pm
Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, Vail
Stravinsky: Symphony in Three Movements
Mozart: Mass in C minor, K. 427
New York Philharmonic / Alan Gilbert
Colorado Symphony Orchestra Chorus / Duain Wolfe
Jennifer Zetlan, soprano
Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano
Paul Appleby, tenor
Joshua Hopkins, baritone
 
Sunday, July 29 at 6pm
Concert Hall, Vail Mountain School
Big Music for Little Bands
Mendelssohn: Trio in C minor for piano, violin and cello, Op. 6 
Brahms: Quartet No. 1 in G minor for piano and strings, Op. 25
Opus One Piano Quartet
   (Ida Kavafian, violin; Steve Tenenbom, viola; Peter Wiley, cello; Anne-Marie McDermott, piano)
 
Monday, July 30 at 6pm
Carol and Pat Welsh Residence, Vail
Soirée
Calder Quartet
   (Benjamin Jacobson, violin; Andrew Bulbrook, violin; Jonathan Moerschel, viola; Eric Beyers, Cello)
Ida Kavafian, violin
Steven Tenenbom, viola
 
Monday, July 30 at 7:30pm
Brush Creek Pavilion, Eagle
Free & Easy
Jasper String Quartet
   (J Freivogel, violin; Sae Chonabayashi; violin, Sam Quintal, viola; Rachel Henderson Freivogel, cello)

Tuesday, July 31 at 6pm
Donovan Pavilion, Vail
Big Music for Little Bands – Silver Nights at the Donovan (Evening I)
Cosma: Promenade sentimentale from the film Diva
Couperin: L’âme-en peine (“The Anguished Soul”)
Evans: Turn Out the Stars
Scriabin: Etude No. 5 in C sharp minor, Op. 42
Korngold: (arr. Prutsman) Farewell Moon
Feldman: Intermission I
Scarlatti: Sonata K. 247
Crumb: Pastorale (from the Kingdom of Atlantis, ca. 10,000 BC) from Makrokosmos No.1
Debussy: Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Ouest (“What the West Wind Saw”)
7pm: Wine and Conversation with Performers and Composers 
Anne-Marie McDermott, piano
Pedja Muzijevic, piano
Stephen Prutsman, piano
 
Wednesday, August 1 at 6pm
Donovan Pavilion, Vail
Big Music for Little Bands – Silver Nights at the Donovan (Evening II)
Kahane: Come on all you Ghosts (a Bravo commission)
Adès: Arcadiana for String Quartet
Schubert: “Auf dem Wasser zu Singen”
Ives: “The Things Our Fathers Loved”
Schubert: “Suleika”
Ives: “Tom Sails Away”
Schubert: “Litanei”
7pm: Wine and Conversation with Performers and Composers
7:30pm: Works for solo and four-hands piano
Schumann: Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44
Gabriel Kahane, singer/composer
Calder String Quartet
Anne-Marie McDermott, piano
Pedja Muzijevic, piano
Stephen Prutsman, piano
 
Thursday, August 2 at 6pm
Donovan Pavilion, Vail
Big Music for Little Bands – Silver Nights at the Donovan (Evening III)
Mackey: Physical Property, I’ve Grown So Ugly – for String Quartet and Electric Guitar
Barber: String Quartet, Op. 11
Golijov: Nonet for two string quartets and double bass
7pm: Wine and Conversation with Performers and Composers
7:30pm: Schubert: Quartettsatz in C minor, D. 703
Glass: The American Four Seasons for violin and string quartet
Robert McDuffie, violin
Steve Mackey, electric guitar
Calder String Quartet
Jasper String Quartet
 
Saturday, Aug 4 at 6pm
Vilar Performing Arts Center, Beaver Creek
4 x 4 – A Two Piano Extravaganza REDUX
Alessio Bax, piano
Anne-Marie McDermott, piano
Pedja Muzijevic, piano
Stephen Prutsman, piano
 
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