Breathless, Sterrett said he arrived in Durango late that afternoon and hadn\u2019t heard the morning rehearsal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very honored for the chance to work with Greg (Hustis, artistic director of the festival) and to hear my prelude played for the first time. Greg called me a short while ago to commission the piece. It\u2019s all been pretty fast \u2013 two weeks!\u201d<\/p>\n
Inspired by the Colorado wildfires and the precarious situation the festival might be in, Sterrett said he decided to dedicate the work to the firefighters and the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to start the music with a sense of calm and in an expression of gratitude,\u201d he said. \u201cThe main character is slow and lyrical, almost hymn-like. I wanted to suggest a spirit of courage and sacrifice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe middle section is intense, darker and more frantic \u2013 the fire. When it dies away to almost nothing, the music gradually builds up again to a big, triumphant climax. Then the whole piece ends in a quiet mood again \u2013 just as it began.\u201d<\/p>\n
As promised by Executive Director Angie Beach, Sterrett\u2019s concert prelude will open each of the remaining classical music concerts.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, you\u2019ll hear two preludes, or short introductory works. Sterrett\u2019s \u201cBrighter than the Flames\u201d will open the concert followed by Modest Mussorgsky\u2019s Prelude to Khovanshchina: \u201cDawn over the Moscow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Sterrett, but 140 years ago, Mussorgsky was inspired by actual events and wrote music to express a time of crisis. Because of political censorship in Russia toward the end of the 19th century, Mussorgsky had to dip into history to criticize current political discord.<\/p>\n
In the early 1870s, Mussorgsky had finished his famous opera about Boris Godunov, the powerful tsar who died in 1605. He chose another historical figure: Prince Khovansky, who led a Moscow uprising in 1682 to overthrow Peter the Great. The prince wanted to install himself as regent. In today\u2019s parlance, Khovansky wanted to throw young Peter \u201cunder the bus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mussorgsky\u2019s \u201cKhovanshchina\u201d (The Khovansky Affair) focused on the rebellion and ended in mass immolation \u2013 more fire. But the composer died before he could finish the opera. Others worked on the piece, and the overture you will hear was orchestrated by none other than Dmitri Shostakovich.<\/p>\n
To fill out Saturday\u2019s program, Mozart\u2019s elegant Oboe Concerto in C, K.314 will be performed by the Festival Orchestra and soloist Katherine Steele, principal oboist of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. If you attended the opening concert, you heard Steele throughout the fulsome reading of Rimsky-Korsakov\u2019s \u201cScheherazade,\u201d memorable for all the solos and especially concertmaster Emmanuelle Boisvert.<\/p>\n If this isn\u2019t enough, to close Saturday\u2019s concert, guest conductor Andrew Grams will lead the orchestra in an audience favorite: Mussorgsky\u2019s \u201cPictures at an Exhibition.\u201d Throughout this imaginary stroll through an art show, you\u2019ll hear musical interpretations of what it is to promenade itself, plus an old castle, a beautiful garden, a marketplace, catacombs, old men arguing and a triumphant finale that musically conjures the Great Gate of Kiev.<\/p>\n With two preludes, a Mozart concerto and all that glorious Russian music, this is one concert that may well stay in memory.<\/p>\n Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association. <\/em><\/p>\n WHAT: Although not announced as a world premiere, it was the first time anyone, including the composer, had heard it. Sterrettdu1-i-syn Breathless, Sterrett said he arrived in Durango late that afternoon and hadn\u2019t heard the morning rehearsal. \u201cI\u2019m very honored for the chance to work with Greg (Hustis, artistic director of the festival) and to hear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[5252,2232],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-63958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-classical-music","tag-music-in-the-mountains"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63958"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=63958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}If you go<\/h4>\n
\n Music in the Mountains, \u201cBaba Yaga,\u201d works by Sterrett, Mussorgsky and Mozart.
\n WHERE:<\/strong>
\n Festival Tent at Purgatory Resort.
\n WHO:<\/strong>
\n Festival orchestra, guest conductor Andrew Grams, oboist Katherine Steele.
\n TICKETS:<\/strong>
\n Ranging from $5 (Grass Pass) to $56.
\n More information:<\/strong>
\n Visit
\n www. MusicintheMountains.com<\/a>
\n or call 385-6820.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"