Opening August 9, Bard Music Festival Explores Life and Times of Definitive French Romantic Composer in “Berlioz and His World”
Hector Berlioz in 1863. Photo by Pierre Petit
On Friday, August 9, the Bard Music Festival returns with an intensive two-week exploration of “Berlioz and His World.” In 11 themed concert programs, the festival’s 34th season examines Hector Berlioz, the visionary French composer who helped redefine musical Romanticism, first by contextualizing him within an age of Revolutionary Spectacle and Romantic Passion (Weekend One: August 9–11), and then investigating his crucial role in uniting Music and the Literary Imagination (Weekend Two: August 15–18). Aside from Program Six, presented in nearby Rhinebeck, all concerts take place in the stunning Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center for the Performing Arts and other venues on Bard College’s idyllic Hudson River campus. Six programs will also stream live to home audiences worldwide on Upstreaming, the Fisher Center’s virtual stage, and chartered coach transportation from New York City will be available for the final performance (see details below). A centerpiece of the 21st Bard SummerScape festival, the Bard Music Festival is set once again to prove itself “the summer’s most stimulating music festival” (Los Angeles Times).
“One of the most remarkable figures in the worlds of arts and culture” (NYC Arts, THIRTEEN/WNET), festival founder and co-artistic director Leon Botstein is music director of both the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) and Bard’s unique graduate training orchestra, The Orchestra Now (TŌN). In a concert with commentary by Botstein himself, he and TŌN open the festival with a pairing of Berlioz’s most famous work – the revolutionary, semi-autobiographical Symphonie fantastique – with its seldom-programmed sequel – Lélio, ou Le retour à la vie – for which they will be joined by British-American tenor Joshua Blue, bass-baritone Alfred Walker, and the Bard Festival Chorale [Program 1]. Botstein, TŌN, and the choir also give livestreamed accounts of Berlioz’s choral setting of the Te Deum hymn and of excerpts from his grand opera Les Troyens, featuring vocal soloists Megan Moore and Blue [Program 3]. With the ASO, Botstein conducts two substantive Romantic rarities, both overdue for restoration to the canon: Louise Farrenc’s masterly Third Symphony and Joseph Joachim Raff’s programmatic Tenth, “In Autumn” [Program 9]. To conclude the festival, Botstein and the ASO join forces with the Bard Festival Chorale for La damnation de Faust, Berlioz’s epic setting of Goethe’s tragedy, starring Blue as Faust, Walker as Méphistophélès, Stefan Egerstrom as the student Brander, and two-time Grammy-winner Sasha Cooke as Marguerite [Program 11]. All four orchestral concerts will be livestreamed.
As in previous seasons, the festival also presents a wide range of vocal and chamber music. Le dernier sorcier – a little-known two-act chamber opera by Berlioz’s colorful contemporary Pauline Viardot – will be heard in her original salon arrangement for voices and piano, in a semi-staged, livestreamed production by Sharyn Pirtle [Program 5]. Soprano Jana McIntyre, mezzo-soprano Rebecca Ringle Kamarei, tenor Maximillian Jansen, and baritone Tyler Duncan explore the rich variety of songs heard in the Parisian salon, in a concert with commentary by musicologist Byron Adams [Program 4]. Ringle Kamarei and Duncan later join tenor Noah Stewart for Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été, a jewel of the art song repertoire, which they perform in its first incarnation, with each song sung to piano accompaniment by a different vocalist [Program 8].
Tokyo International Viola Competition laureate Luosha Fang gives a complete, livestreamed account of Berlioz’s Harold en Italie, in Franz Liszt’s arrangement for piano accompaniment [Program 7]. The Cleveland Quartet Award-winning Balourdet Quartet performs the underrated C-minor String Quartet by Berlioz’s Czech-born teacher, Anton Reicha [Program 2] and joins Fang for the posthumously published Second String Quintet of Felix Mendelssohn [Program 8]. Among other chamber highlights, Noël Wan, the first Taiwanese harpist to take first prize at the USA International Harp Competition, plays the Introduction and Variations on Themes from Bellini’s “Norma” by Elias Parish Alvars, whom Berlioz considered “the Liszt of the harp” [Program 2]; festival favorite Anna Polonsky interprets piano music by Clara Schumann [Program 5]; and the New Hudson Saxophone Quartet plays Berlioz’s Chant sacré, in a reconstruction of the lost version for instruments developed by Adolphe Sax, on a program that also presents the Six Bagatelles by Hungarian modernist György Ligeti, and a performance of Edgard Varèse’s Density 21.5 by flutist Alex Sopp [Program 10]. “One of New York’s finest organists” (New York Times), Renée Anne Louprette plays works by Alfred Lefébure-Wély, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Olivier Messiaen on the newly renovated organ of the Episcopal Church of the Messiah in nearby Rhinebeck [Program 6].
Post Date: 07-30-2024
“One of the most remarkable figures in the worlds of arts and culture” (NYC Arts, THIRTEEN/WNET), festival founder and co-artistic director Leon Botstein is music director of both the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) and Bard’s unique graduate training orchestra, The Orchestra Now (TŌN). In a concert with commentary by Botstein himself, he and TŌN open the festival with a pairing of Berlioz’s most famous work – the revolutionary, semi-autobiographical Symphonie fantastique – with its seldom-programmed sequel – Lélio, ou Le retour à la vie – for which they will be joined by British-American tenor Joshua Blue, bass-baritone Alfred Walker, and the Bard Festival Chorale [Program 1]. Botstein, TŌN, and the choir also give livestreamed accounts of Berlioz’s choral setting of the Te Deum hymn and of excerpts from his grand opera Les Troyens, featuring vocal soloists Megan Moore and Blue [Program 3]. With the ASO, Botstein conducts two substantive Romantic rarities, both overdue for restoration to the canon: Louise Farrenc’s masterly Third Symphony and Joseph Joachim Raff’s programmatic Tenth, “In Autumn” [Program 9]. To conclude the festival, Botstein and the ASO join forces with the Bard Festival Chorale for La damnation de Faust, Berlioz’s epic setting of Goethe’s tragedy, starring Blue as Faust, Walker as Méphistophélès, Stefan Egerstrom as the student Brander, and two-time Grammy-winner Sasha Cooke as Marguerite [Program 11]. All four orchestral concerts will be livestreamed.
As in previous seasons, the festival also presents a wide range of vocal and chamber music. Le dernier sorcier – a little-known two-act chamber opera by Berlioz’s colorful contemporary Pauline Viardot – will be heard in her original salon arrangement for voices and piano, in a semi-staged, livestreamed production by Sharyn Pirtle [Program 5]. Soprano Jana McIntyre, mezzo-soprano Rebecca Ringle Kamarei, tenor Maximillian Jansen, and baritone Tyler Duncan explore the rich variety of songs heard in the Parisian salon, in a concert with commentary by musicologist Byron Adams [Program 4]. Ringle Kamarei and Duncan later join tenor Noah Stewart for Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été, a jewel of the art song repertoire, which they perform in its first incarnation, with each song sung to piano accompaniment by a different vocalist [Program 8].
Tokyo International Viola Competition laureate Luosha Fang gives a complete, livestreamed account of Berlioz’s Harold en Italie, in Franz Liszt’s arrangement for piano accompaniment [Program 7]. The Cleveland Quartet Award-winning Balourdet Quartet performs the underrated C-minor String Quartet by Berlioz’s Czech-born teacher, Anton Reicha [Program 2] and joins Fang for the posthumously published Second String Quintet of Felix Mendelssohn [Program 8]. Among other chamber highlights, Noël Wan, the first Taiwanese harpist to take first prize at the USA International Harp Competition, plays the Introduction and Variations on Themes from Bellini’s “Norma” by Elias Parish Alvars, whom Berlioz considered “the Liszt of the harp” [Program 2]; festival favorite Anna Polonsky interprets piano music by Clara Schumann [Program 5]; and the New Hudson Saxophone Quartet plays Berlioz’s Chant sacré, in a reconstruction of the lost version for instruments developed by Adolphe Sax, on a program that also presents the Six Bagatelles by Hungarian modernist György Ligeti, and a performance of Edgard Varèse’s Density 21.5 by flutist Alex Sopp [Program 10]. “One of New York’s finest organists” (New York Times), Renée Anne Louprette plays works by Alfred Lefébure-Wély, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Olivier Messiaen on the newly renovated organ of the Episcopal Church of the Messiah in nearby Rhinebeck [Program 6].
Supplementary events and companion book
Besides the 11 concert programs, there will be two free panel discussions: “A Revolutionary Life in a Revolutionary Era” and “Musical Romanticism and Literature.” These will be supplemented by informative pre-concert talks, all free to ticket-holders, by scholars Peter Bloom, Francesca Brittan, Christopher H. Gibbs, Dana Gooley, Sarah Hibberd, Jonathan Kregor, Hilary Poriss, and Richard Wilson. SummerScape and ASO also present the first American production in 47 years of Le prophète, a French grand opera by Berlioz’s contemporary Giacomo Meyerbeer (July 26–August 4). Edited by Bard’s 2024 Scholars-in-Residence – Case Western Reserve University’s Francesca Brittan, whose publications include Music and Fantasy in the Age of Berlioz, and the University of Bristol’s Sarah Hibberd, author of French Grand Opera and the Historical Imagination – the companion book Berlioz and His World is published by the University of Chicago Press.Round-trip bus transportation from New York City
Chartered bus transportation from New York City is available for the festival finale, Program Eleven (August 18). This may be ordered online or by calling the box office at 845-758-7900, and the meeting point for pick-up and drop-off is at Lincoln Center on Amsterdam Avenue, between 64th and 65th Streets. More information is available here.SummerScape Tickets
Tickets for mainstage events start at $25 and livestreams are $20. Panel discussions are free of charge and open to the public. For complete information regarding tickets, series discounts, and more, visit fishercenter.bard.edu or call Bard’s box office at (845) 758-7900.Post Date: 07-30-2024