35th Bard Music Festival
Martinů and His World
"Part boot camp for the brain, part spa for the spirit" —The New York Times
The Bard Music Festival returns with an intensive two-week exploration of Martinů and His World. In eleven themed concerts featuring its boldest and most adventurous programming to date, the festival’s 35th season examines the life and times of Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959), one of the most fascinating and prolific composers of the 20th century, whose music is nonetheless largely unfamiliar to U.S. audiences today.
Schedule Of Events:
11:30 am - Program Ten - Martinů’s Legacy
Although he established no stylistic school, we find Martinů’s methods reflected in the work of other composers. This program pairs two of his chamber works with those of his peers and successors.
Witold Lutosławski draws on the folk traditions of his Polish homeland in a number of early works, the last of which was the Dance Preludes, his “farewell to folklore.” Both the Russian-born Alexander Tcherepnin, Martinů’s friend in interwar Paris, and Jaroslav Ježek, another Czech exile in wartime New York, share his folk-inflected pianistic invention. The late Chinese-American composer Chou Wen-chung blends Eastern and Western traditions in works like the Suite for Harp and Woodwind Quintet, while avant-garde Czech musician Iva Bittová integrates popular idioms with East European sounds to create her “own personal folk music.” There are echoes of Martinů in the rhythmic drive and rich timbral variety of Joan Tower’s Petroushskates as well as in the bold eclecticism of American icon Frank Zappa, who enjoyed hero status during Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution, receiving the title of “Special Ambassador to the West on Trade, Culture, and Tourism” from the new Czech leadership.
Program
11 am - Preconcert talk: Richard Wilson
11:30 am - Performance: Iva Bittová, vocals and violin; Alex Sopp, flute; Danny Driver & Andrey Gugnin, piano; Austin Wulliman, violin; Thomas Mesa, cello; and others
Alexander Tcherepnin (1899–1977)
Ten Bagatelles, Op. 5 (1912–18)
Chou Wen-chung (1923–2019)
Suite for Harp and Woodwind Quintet (1951)
Witold Lutosławski (1913–94)
Dance Preludes (1954)
Frank Zappa (1940–93)
Ruth is Sleeping (1993)
Jaroslav Ježek (1906–42)
Étude (no date)
Joan Tower (b. 1938)
Petroushskates (1980)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Quartet for Oboe, Violin, Cello, and Piano, H315 (1947)
Songs by Bohuslav Martinů and Iva Bittová (b. 1958)
Location: Olin Hall
3:00 pm - Program Eleven - The Opera of Dreams: Martinů’s “Julietta”
“Leon Botstein, the conductor and tireless champion of overlooked works, considers Julietta an operatic masterpiece that at least deserves a place in the repertory…He has done his part by bringing a worthy and original opera to attention.” —The New York Times
Many consider Martinů’s eighth opera to be his finest work. Based, like Ariane, on a French play by Georges Neveux, Julietta is a surreal psychological drama that explores the intersection of dreams and reality. In 2019, Leon Botstein helmed the opera’s overdue American premiere at Carnegie Hall, where he led “a winning cast and the American Symphony Orchestra in a vibrant concert performance” that was selected as a “Critic’s Pick” by The New York Times. Now, the Festival presents the conductor and ASO in a semi-staged revival of the opera, featuring three members of that same winning cast: tenor Aaron Blake and bass-baritones Philip Cokorinos and Alfred Walker, who also appears in this year’s mainstage SummerScape opera. So too does soprano Erica Petrocelli, who headlines Julietta, lending her “searing intensity” (Los Angeles Times) to the opera’s title role. Anchored by Botstein and the ASO, their performance draws the Bard Music Festival—and all seven weeks of Bard SummerScape—to a gripping close.
Program
2 pm - Preconcert talk
3 pm - Semi-staged opera performance: Erica Petrocelli, soprano; Megan Marino & Krysty Swann, mezzo-sopranos; Aaron Blake & Rodell Rosel, tenors; Alfred Walker & Philip Cokorinos, bass-baritones; Kevin Thompson, bass; members of the Bard Festival Chorale, James Bagwell, choral director; American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein; directed by Marco Nisticò; projection and video design by John Horzen (plus livestream)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Julietta, H253 (1937) (Martinů, after Georges Neveux)
Location: Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater
