United States Aspen Music Festival (6): American Brass Quintet debuts colorful new work, The Magic Flute set in New York, and Benabdallah flounders in Rachmaninov. 16/17/18.7.2012 (HS)
Harvey Steiman
Aspen V: Artists on Fire in the New and the Familiar
United States Aspen Music Festival (5): Meyer and Bell in Meyer’s new double concerto; Auerbach’s solo take on Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures’; Trpceski vivid in Tchaikovsky concerto. 13-15.7.2012 (HS)
Aspen IV: The Emerson’s, Hamelin and Weirdly Fascinating Crumb
United States Aspen Music Festival (4): Emerson Quartet wields powerful Shostakovich; Hamelin hammers and caresses the piano; Hope and Kahane mesh smoothly especially in Walton and Schulhoff; and a strange and wonderful program of Crumb and Mendelssohn. 10-12.7.2012 (HS)
Aspen III: Kick-starting Mahler and a Luminous Verklärte Nacht
United States Aspen Music Festival (3): Feltsman wrestles with Beethoven’s “Emperor” and Glover mesmerizes with Mozart; a luminous Verklärte Nacht; Daniel Hope tackles Prokofiev, Søndergård kick-starts Mahler 1. 9.7.2012 (HS)
Aspen II: Modern Baroque and Original Copland
United States Aspen Music Festival (2): David Finckel-Wu Han program explores audience responses, Anton Nel plays MacDowell concerto, McGegan leads Baroque with modern instruments, and Copland’s Quiet City impresses in its original instrumentation. 6.7.2012 (HS)
Aspen I: Spano, McGegan and a Parade of Pianists
United States Aspen Music Festival 2012 (1): On opening weekend, Spano leads energetic Gershwin and Bartók, McGegan makes Beethoven and Mendelssohn dance, and a series of pianists take on Gershwin, Mendelssohn, Wyner, Lutoslawski, Bolcom and, finally, Rachmaninoff. 1.7.2012 (HS)
San Francisco Symphony Unleashes a Terrifying “Bluebeard”
United StatesLiszt, Bartók: Jeremy Denk (piano), Michelle DeYoung (mezzo-soprano), Alan Held (bass-baritone), San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas (conductor), Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco. 21.6.2012 (HS)
Yuja Wang Scales the Peaks of the “Rach Three”
United States Faure, Sibelius, Rachmaninoff: Yuja Wang (piano), San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas (conductor), Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco. 15.6.2012 (HS)