On July 21, in the foothills of the Boulder Flatirons, excited concertgoers socialized outside Chautauqua Auditorium in anticipation of a performance by the Colorado Music Festival (CMF) Orchestra. Founded in 1976, CMF presents an annual summer season of classical music concerts, and the 2024 iteration – running July 5 – August 4 – includes works by nine living composers. While the majority of the festival’s 19 concerts have at least one work by a contemporary composer, women composers of the 20th and 21st centuries were exclusively featured on the July 21 program, the cornerstone of which was the world premiere of a newly commissioned work by Gabriela Lena Frank featuring the Boulder-based Takács Quartet as soloists with the CMF Orchestra.
The program began with a string orchestra arrangement of Florence Price’s Adoration, a work originally written for organ. Though simple in structure and texture, the strings’ luminous sound immediately drew the audience in. The low strings provided ample bass accompaniment as the violins presented Price’s tender melody with a beautiful balance of effortlessness and poignancy.
Next came the premiere of Frank’s Kachkaniraqmi (Quechua for “I still exist”). According to the composer, the thought-provoking title “speaks to the resilience, even insistence, of a racial soul through the generations.” Frank and Harumi Rhodes of Takács introduced the four-movement work through the lens of their long-time collaboration and friendship. Their discussion underplayed work’s programmatic and philosophical ideas, instead giving deference to the performance, which was at once existential, evocative, and almost spiritual in the sound world it created.
Gabriela Lena Frank, Harumi Rhodes, and Peter Oundjian — Photo by Geremy Kornreich
Each movement of Kachkaniraqmi depicts a different scene inspired by Frank’s Peruvian ancestry. Soulful folk melodies played by the violas set the work in motion, with bird-like slides in the violins and cellos providing an enchanting and rustic musical landscape. After the preludial first movement, Takács burst into their soloistic roles with impassioned tremolos and a rhapsodic cadenza for violinist Edward Dusinberre. The quartet was the most in their element throughout this second movement, using the extended solo passages to build their hallmark synergy and intensity, which was answered by the CMF Orchestra strings.
By far the most complex was the third movement, driven relentlessly by rapid figurations and accentuated clusters of dissonance. Violist Richard O’Neill ushered in the final movement, his full-bodied sound setting the lamenting tone meant to depict a child’s wake. This surprisingly dark turn in the finale invited the audience to distinguish the work from others, which have historically drawn exclusively on the lighthearted elements of non-Western cultures. The movement ended with Dusinberre playing haunting tremolos in the highest range of the violin while the low strings grumbled, drawing toward a resigned, open-ended conclusion.
The uniqueness of the concerto grosso format highlighted Frank’s gift for creating compelling narratives through her music. The alternation between ensemble and solo passages presented the musical equivalent of plot and inner dialogue and put the potent expressive power and artistic depth of Takács on prominent display. Frank asked them to not only give their own voices as soloists and as a quartet, but also to lead sections of the orchestra in the Baroque tradition. They were also tasked with managing the nuanced emotional transitions of the piece, an opportunity that showcased the ensemble’s seemingly endless arsenal of timbres and effects.
The second half was dedicated to Joan Tower’s Concerto for Orchestra, a 30-minute tour de force that has been a recent addition to the repertoire of CMF Music Director, Peter Oundjian. Tower, who was also present at the concert, gave a self-effacing introduction to the piece, her opening line being, “I’m alive… barely.”
Peter Oundjian and Joan Tower — Photo by Geremy Kornreich
The music, by contrast, was anything but modest in terms of its atmosphere and the challenge it posed to the orchestra. In Part 1, the music unfolded from a single ominous note sustained by the low winds and strings. Motion built as flutes and clarinets played short chromatic fragments, which were later picked up by the strings and trumpets, expanded into dizzying, seemingly endless chains of notes blasted with incredible force and speed.
The piece positions contemporary interpretations of virtuosity as more than mere physicality, athleticism, or ego, instead defining virtuosity as the comprehension and execution of complex musical systems with incredible precision and consistency. And unfortunately, the orchestra’s intense focus was mostly used up during the first half of the piece. In Part 2, after grippingly intense solos from the principal violins, french horn, and tuba, the orchestra lost a touch of its precision. However, once the thematic material from Part 1 returned, the ensemble caught their second wind. With the battery of percussion reaching maximum decibels, Oundjian drove the piece to a riveting conclusion.
The evening’s emphasis on modern repertoire was heartening, even if presented within the conventional overture-concerto-symphony model. In several ways, the program responded to some of the major questions faced by symphony orchestras and summer music festivals at present, such as: “What is an effective way to program large-scale contemporary works?” and “How can orchestras commission works that will resonate with audiences?” Through the evening, the light commentary from the conductor, composers, and soloists endeared them to the audience, creating an ambience of familiarity and intimacy. And witnessing the energy of the performers brought to mind the words of one of my musical mentors, who frequently reminded me that “modern music performed well will always be appreciated by a modern audience.”
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