GRACE LYDENFestival Focus writer

Violin phenomenon Joshua Bell and renowned double bassist and composer Edgar Meyer will join the Aspen Cham-ber Symphony at 6 pm this Friday, July 13, in the Benedict Music Tent, to play Meyer’s own Concerto for Violin and Double Bass, the second performance of the work follow-ing their premiere of it last Saturday. The concert will be one of the twelve orchestral events this summer led by conductor Robert Spano in his in-augural season as music director of the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS).

“Edgar Meyer’s music has that won-derful attribute of defying classifica-tion, having influences from great clas-sical music to a range of other styles. To have a concerto that features both his own virtuosity on the double bass, which is kind of unbelievable, along with Josh Bell, one of the greatest violinists in the world today, is an extraordinary treat,” Spano says. “And that Edgar has been creating this music knowing that the two of them are going to play it, I think that makes this an event not to be missed.”

Both Meyer and Bell are Grammy Award-winning musicians, Avery Fisher Prize-winners, and alumni of the Festival, where Meyer is now a member of the art-ist-faculty. But the impressive duo also shares a long history of friendship and musical collaboration.

“Edgar and I met at Indiana University, where he was going to school and I was

a thirteen-year-old also going to school, half-time,” says Bell, who attended high school and univer-sity jointly at the time. “He was this phenomenal bass player that every-one was talking about. He was kind of a freak of nature. He did things with the bass that no one had come close to trying.”

These words of praise come from

the violinist who appeared as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra at four-teen and made his Carnegie Hall debut at seventeen.

The first piece Bell remembers play-ing with Meyer was Schubert’s two-cello String Quintet, on which Meyer played the second cello part, but on his bass. To this day, Bell cannot listen to the piece

GRACE LYDENFestival Focus writer

Like so many fairy tales, the opera The Magic Flute begins with a handsome prince.

His name is Tamino, and he is in love with the beau-tiful Pamina, daughter of the Queen of the Night. With his best friend Papageno, Tamino sets off on an extraordinary adventure to rescue the kid-napped maiden, facing evil forces along the way. It all takes place in a magical realm where child-spirits roam and the chime of bells can protect one from harm.

But at the heart of young Tamino’s tale is the story of everyone who has ever been in love, and everyone who has ever had to grow up.

“It’s a coming-of-age fable about a young man finding himself,” says Edward Berkeley, longtime director of the Aspen Opera Theater Center (AOTC), which is part of the

Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS).The AOTC will open its 2012 season with Mozart’s

charming and beloved opera, performed almost a hun-dred times in Mozart’s short lifetime and now the most frequently performed opera worldwide. Performances

take place at 7 pm Thursday, July 12; Saturday, July 14; and Monday, July 16, in the Wheeler Opera House.

The object of Tamino’s desire is the kind-hearted, smart, and brave Pamina, played by soprano Ying Fang. Pamina loves Tamino, but faces a dilemma, for it is soon revealed that the Queen of the Night is a deceptive tyrant trying to prevent the couple’s happiness.

“As the daughter of the Queen of the Night, Pamina struggles between her love as a daughter and her love

Supplement to The Aspen Times Vol 23, No. 4

Joshua Bell performing at the Festival in 2010. Bell will perform a new double concerto by composer, bassist, and AMFS artist-faculty member Edgar Meyer on July 13.

Joshua Bell, Edgar Meyer Play New Concerto

Buy tickets now! (970) 925-9042 or www.aspenmusicfestival.com

The Palace of the Queen of the Night, set design for The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) for a pro-duction in Berlin, 1816 (watercolor), Karl Friedrich Schinkel, (1781-1841)/Deutsches Theatermuseum, Munich, Germany/The Bridgeman Art Library

When you do a new piece, you’re part of the birthing process. You’re bringing it to life for the first time,

and that’s a very special thing.

Joshua Bell

FESTIVAL FOCUS

AOTC Season to Open With The Magic Flute

YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

Monday, July 9, 2012

See BELL, Festival Focus page 3

ALEX IRVIN / AMFS

See OPERA Festival Focus page 3

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Call ahead to reserve your seats on the day of the concert.

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What makes something like Aspen unique is people are going to hear singers in the formation of their careers.

Richard BadoConductor of The Magic Flute

Page 2 | Monday, July 9, 2012 FESTIVAL FOCUS: Your Weekly Classical Music Guide Supplement to The Aspen Times

Buy tickets now: (970) 925-9042 • www.aspenmusicfestival.com

GRACE LYDENFestival Focus writer

One would never guess from his friendly demeanor and perpetual smile that Warren Deck, the respected tubist and twelve-year artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS), is no longer able to play the instrument he loves.

Deck still has dreams about playing the tuba the way he used to, before focal dystonia permanently impaired his upper lip.

Focal dystonia arises suddenly and has affected the right hands of famed pianists Leon Fleisher and Gary Graffman, but also numerous brass players. The cause of the neurological condition is unclear.

Deck had been playing with the New York Philharmonic for fourteen years when symptoms arose in 1993. He kept practicing and stayed at the Philharmonic for eight more years, but his playing was compromised, and he was discouraged. In 2001, he went to a specialist and was told he would never regain his former skill.

“The diagnosis, for me, was permission to stop, and stop banging my head against the wall,” Deck says.

Deck grew up with family who did not listen to classical music, but he was drawn to the register of the tuba when selecting an instrument to play in the school band. He knew he wanted to be a musician when he was a seventh grader living in Ann Arbor and a ninth-grade tubist returned from a year at the Interlochen Arts

Academy.“I heard this guy and thought, ‘oh my golly,’” Deck

says. “My parents never had to make me practice after that. He was the fire, the spark.”

Deck made his solo debut with the Philharmonic in 1989 with the premiere of Roger Kellaway’s Songs of Ascent and has made recordings with the Canadian Brass, a world-renowned chamber ensemble.

It was not easy for Deck to start teaching after a forced end to his brilliant performance career.

“I felt like a fraud,” Deck says. “I was asking people to do things that I couldn’t do anymore.”

Deck came to a realization, though, between his first and second years at the AMFS.

“All these athletes have coaches who don’t do it, but they can still help somebody else do it at a much higher level,” Deck says. “And so I thought, ‘I know what it sounds like, I know what it’s supposed to feel like, I know how this works—I can roll with this.’ From then on, it’s been easy.”

Even as an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan, Deck’s

tuba professor insisted Deck was a natural teacher, and his students agree.

“He is an expert at his craft, but he is also a master at relaying the various facets of that craft,” says Justin Benavidez, a student of Deck’s since 2010. “He has the ability to use different means of articulating his ideas and finding the best manner of connecting with a student. In studying with him, I have discovered not

only how to be a better performer on my instrument, but how to be a better teacher as well.”

Deck is now an instructor at the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver and says that what he loves most about teaching is “seeing a light bulb go on.”

“That’s the thrill of it.”

World-Class Tubist Warren Deck Turned to Teaching

He is an expert at his craft, but he

is also a master at relaying the various facets of that craft.

Justin BenavidezStudent of Warren Deck

AMFS artist-faculty member Warren Deck instructing students in a brass choir during the 2010 Music Festival. Deck has been teaching at the Festival for twelve years.

ALEX IRVIN / AMFS

Monday, July 9, 2012 | Page 3Supplement to The Aspen Times FESTIVAL FOCUS: Your Weekly Classical Music Guide

GRACE LYDENFestival Focus writer

The Emerson String Quartet, one of the premier quartets of our time, will return to Aspen at 8 pm this Thursday, July 12, in Harris Concert Hall with a diverse program of Mozart, Thomas Ades, and Shostakovich. But for the audience members who have been going to hear the group in Aspen for approximately thirty years, it may feel bittersweet.

This is the Emerson’s final performance at the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) with cellist David Finckel, who is leaving the Quartet at the end of the 2012–2013 concert season.

“It’s the end of an era,” says AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher. “They’ve been one of the longest running quartets in modern times, with the same personnel.” The Emerson String Quartet formed in 1976, and the last personnel change was in 1979.

The concert will open with Mozart’s String Quartet in D major, K. 575, which was actually the first piece ever performed in Harris Hall. The Emerson String Quartet was asked to play the second movement to test the Hall in 1993, when it had just been completed and before there were even seats.

The Mozart is followed by a piece written for the ensemble in 2010, The Four Quarters by British composer Thomas Ades, and the program will close with Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 in C minor.

Shostakovich dedicated this quartet to victims of fascism and war, but its four-note repetitive motif is based on the composer’s initials, adding a personal note. The piece was written in 1960, just after Shostakovich had joined the Communist Party and was “extremely depressed,” says violinist and founding member Philip Setzer, because Shostakovich had almost immediately realized his mistake.

“It’s clear from the unrelenting tragedy of this piece that it’s a very personal work, and it’s an extremely powerful end to the program,” Setzer says.

The dynamic work may resonate with Aspen audiences for another reason, though. The Emerson String Quartet recorded the Shostakovich String Quartets over the course of three summers at the AMFS, and the recording won two Grammy Awards, for “Best Classical Album” and “Best Chamber Music Performance,” in 2000.

“They’ve been a touchstone for greatness in the string quartet world,” Fletcher says.

Philip Setzer and Eugene Drucker were studying with the same violin teacher at the Juilliard School when they started the Emerson String Quartet, and the ensemble’s members were in their twenties when they started coming to the AMFS in the early 1980s. Since then, the Emerson has come nearly every year, often working with students or playing multiple concerts within a season.

Setzer says they feel a connection to all who come to the Festival: faculty, students, and, of course, regular concert-goers.

“Having any place that you go to consistently over the years becomes something very important to any artist, especially a group,” says Setzer. “I have this rush of memories of people who would be waiting for us backstage afterwards and would come out on a cold night, or a rainy night, or a beautiful day. They would take time out of their busy schedules to come hear us. It’s a wonderful support system.”

Finckel has always been a solo artist, in addition to working with the chamber group, so the decision to pursue personal artistic endeavors is not entirely a turning point for him. And to the pleasure of many, the Quartet will return to Aspen next year when Finckel is replaced by established cellist Paul Watkins.

“This concert will certainly have an emotional significance, but we’re thrilled, at the same time, that they’re returning next summer in the new formation,” says Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor. “It’s farewell, and hail.”

Bell: Two Virtuosos, Old FriendsContinued from Festival Focus page 1

without expecting to hear a double bass. When both were students at the AMFS in 1983, they played a duo concert, substituting bass for one of the violin parts in Wieniawski’s Études-Caprices for two violins.

This time, though, Bell and Meyer are reuniting to play one of Meyer’s originals, as they did in 1999 for Short Trip Home, an album of chamber music that has been described as “classical fusion.” Meyer’s original compo-sitions often show the influence of his childhood in Tennessee, and Bell says the new concerto is no different.

“His music is always evolving, and I find it’s getting deeper, per-haps as he questions limits of to-nality,” Bell says. “But there are always elements of his bluegrass roots, which means the music comes out of him in a very natural way. Some composers try to find that style artificially, but his is a very natural and unique voice.”

Bell says the piece’s complex rhythmic underpin-nings represent not only the composer’s native region, but also the fact that Meyer was a double major in math at Indiana. “Sometimes you need a calculator to figure out the tempo relationships,” Bell jokes.

The work premiered at Tangle-wood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, on Saturday, July 7, and will also be performed at the Hollywood Bowl on July 17 and 19.

“The BSO was so gracious to allow us and the Hollywood Bowl to pres-ent it in the same season in which they’re premiering it,” says AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher.

Meyer also wrote Bell a sonata in 2005, and the violinist has pre-

miered numerous new works during his career. He says he loves the freedom that accompanies playing a never-before-heard piece of music.

“It’s amazing to start with a clean slate,” Bell says.

“As a classical musician, every piece comes with a lot of baggage, good baggage and bad baggage, because the piece has been played thousands of times. But when you do a new piece, you’re almost part of the birthing process of the piece. You’re bringing it to life for the first time, and that’s a very special thing.”

The July 13 program will also include Schumann’s Symphony No. 4 in D minor, op. 120, and Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, op. 24.

Knoxville is Barber’s interpretation of a James Agee poem, and the text will be sung by acclaimed soprano Susanna Phillips. The work is characterized by an undu-lating rhythm that evokes rocking chairs and the seren-ity of an era gone by.

“The setting that Barber provided to the text very much captures that musical sepia of an old family por-trait sitting on the porch in the evening,” says Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice president for artistic administra-tion and artistic advisor. “It is a depiction of American life in a bygone era, and Agee was perfect, and Bar-ber was able to perfectly capture it within an orchestral setting.”

End of an Era for Emerson Quartet

for Tamino,” Fang says. “She experiences emo-tional breakdown, but also the happiness of be-ing in love.”

Fang is one of the many AOTC singers on the cusp of their professional careers. A master’s student at the Juilliard School, she played Ma-ria in the AOTC’s production of West Side Story last summer. Since then, she has had principal roles with the Juilliard opera program, as Fanny in Rossini’s La Cambiale di Matrimonio and Zer-lina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

But Fang, recipient of a prestigious AMFS fel-lowship, says AOTC gives her a taste of what her life will hold when she finishes school.

“The process of learning and preparing a role here is very close to the professional world,” Ying says. “For example, we have only two weeks to prepare The Magic Flute. I think this experience helps me, a young opera singer, to get ready for the real opera world.”

Richard Bado, the opera’s conductor, thinks audiences have a special opportunity when they see performers at this stage in their careers.

“What makes something like Aspen unique is people are going to hear singers in the forma-tion of their careers,” Bado says. “Then they see them down the road, performing internation-ally, and they can say, ‘I heard her do her first Pamina in Aspen, and now look where she is at this point.’”

Bado says the opera’s longevity results from a combination of attributes, including the de-lightful story and Mozart’s music, which “never gets old.” The music is a challenge, though, for both singers and instrumentalists.

“It’s not difficult to listen to, but it’s difficult to be true to the style of the period and then, tran-scend past the style so you bring real human emotion to what you’re playing in the piece,” Bado says.

James Alexander, the opera’s guest direc-tor, has set the opera in New York, circa 1960, and this interpretation will showcase the true breadth of the AOTC students’ talents.

“The concept is that it’s being performed in a stripped-away theater, so it really depends com-pletely on the individual characters to create the world of the opera,” Berkeley says. “Some of the magic of the opera is going to happen because of how stripped away it is.”

Opera: Mozart Starts the SeasonContinued from Festival Focus page 1

PHOTO BY LISA-MARIE MAZZUCCOCOURTESY OF THE EMERSON STRING QUARTET

Edgar Meyer’s music has that wonderful attribute of defying

classification.

Robert SpanoAMFS Music Director