The Denver Post: Your summer guide to the fine arts in Colorado
Colorado’s fine-arts calendar is rich in the coming months with an abundance of high-level live performances and gallery exhibitions. We looked across the state and assembled this list of offerings with serious potential.
The Denver Post
Ray Mark Rinaldi
The Philadelphia Orchestra with Hilary Hahn
(Bravo! Vail Music Festival, July 12)
Philadelphia Orchestra music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin is a true podium star, and his presence with the ensemble this summer in Vail is especially promising. The orchestra is set to perform Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3, a work that was the highlight of its 2022 Grammy Award-winning recording. Even better: The evening features popular soloist Hilary Hahn, who will take on the thrill ride that is Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.
New York Philharmonic Orchestra with Marin Alsop and Yunchan Lim
(Bravo! Vail, July 26)
The classical world’s personality of the moment is no doubt Yunchan Lim, who in 2022 — at the age of 18 — became the youngest-ever winner of the legendary Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. On this night, he will perform Rachmaninoff’s difficult Piano Concerto No. 3, while local fave Marin Alsop conducts from the podium. It’s a swell combo and just the kind of program that makes Vail a special place.
Read more here.
The Denver Post: Colorado’s Biggest and Boldest Art Moments of 2020
The pandemic was raging this summer when the Bravo! Vail Music Festival threw caution to the wind and went ahead with an abbreviated summer concert season. Sure, it was different than the usual fare. Instead of putting major international orchestras on stage, the programs featured small ensembles. And instead of packing the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater with throngs of classical fans, it played to the bare maximum, filling just a portion of the seats to keep spectators at safe distances. Not everything that was planned actually happened. But something about the effort felt epic, as the organization stood firm, as best it could, against its viral showstopper. It was also generous. Unlike other orchestras that took whatever cash they could this summer, Bravo! Vail also made the programming free online to anyone who wanted to see it. Those who clicked in will remember the concerts for a long time.
The Denver Post
Ray Mark Rinaldi
Playing on: Bravo! Vail Music Festival
The pandemic was raging this summer when the Bravo! Vail Music Festival threw caution to the wind and went ahead with an abbreviated summer concert season. Sure, it was different than the usual fare. Instead of putting major international orchestras on stage, the programs featured small ensembles. And instead of packing the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater with throngs of classical fans, it played to the bare maximum, filling just a portion of the seats to keep spectators at safe distances. Not everything that was planned actually happened. But something about the effort felt epic, as the organization stood firm, as best it could, against its viral showstopper. It was also generous. Unlike other orchestras that took whatever cash they could this summer, Bravo! Vail also made the programming free online to anyone who wanted to see it. Those who clicked in will remember the concerts for a long time.
Read more here.
Denver Post: It's OK to Stay Home
I can say, without hesitation, that the July 23 performance of Haydn’s String Quartet in D minor by the Dover Quartet was one of the best concerts I have experienced — ever.
Denver Post
Ray Mark Rinaldi
Live from Vail, the classical show goes on
The Bravo! Vail Music Festival has been attempting the improbable this summer, staging a series of concerts before a live audience during a pandemic that has shut down nearly every other classical fest in the country. It’s an abbreviated season, just a handful of small ensemble-chamber concerts instead of the usual orchestral fare, and there are just a few hundred spectators permitted in an amphitheater that normally seats 2,500…
I can say, without hesitation, that the July 23 performance of Haydn’s String Quartet in D minor by the Dover Quartet was one of the best concerts I have experienced — ever.
Read more here.