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Bravo! Vail Music Festival announces summer lineup for 30th season

The New York Philharmonic 2017 Bravo! Vail Music Festival residency honors the conclusion of Alan Gilbert’s eight-year tenure as music director and features major symphonies by Gustav Mahler, Antonin Dvorak and Ludwig van Beethoven.
Zach Mahone | Special to the Daily |

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Bravo! Vail Music Festival subscription packages are on sale now, featuring three or four select concerts: Receive 15 percent off, purchase before the general tickets go on sale, and receive subscriber benefits. Packages start at $69 for lawn and $111 for pavilion seats. Chamber Packages and Classically Uncorked presented by Arietta Wine packages are also available, starting at $72 and $126, respectively. General ticket sales begin Tuesday, April 18. To purchase tickets, email ticketing@bravovail.org, buy online at bravovail.org, or call the box office at 877-812-5700.

VAIL — The Bravo! Vail Music Festival this week announced its milestone 30th season with an expansive lineup of canonical masterpieces, world-class performers, audience favorites and new music.

Running Thursday, June 22, to Friday, Aug. 4, the 30th season also offers Bravo! Vail audiences the chance to see two longtime friends of Vail — Jaap van Zweden and Alan Gilbert — in their final Vail appearances conducting the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and New York Philharmonic, respectively, as music directors.

With the launch of the festival’s New Works Project, Bravo! Vail also presents a record number of commissioned world premieres, marking the next step in a festival dedicated to celebrating and fostering creativity in classical music.



Building on the strength and popularity of its chamber music offerings, Bravo! Vail welcomes seven string quartets — its largest lineup ever — to perform throughout the season. The quartets include the Emerson String Quartet, the newly formed New York Philharmonic String Quartet, Calder Quartet, Aeolus Quartet, Lyris Quartet, Danish String Quartet and Zora String Quartet.

Orchestral residencies

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London’s acclaimed chamber orchestra the Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber Orchestra opened the 2016 festival with a sold-out residency that electrified the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater and had Vail audiences clamoring for encores night after night.

Led by violin virtuoso and music director Joshua Bell, the Academy returns to kick off the 30th season on Thursday, June 22, with an evening of music by Felix Mendelssohn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the world premiere of a new work by American composer and bassist Edgar Meyer.

The Academy also will perform on Saturday, June 24, featuring works by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Antonin Dvorak and Sunday, June 25, with works by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Johann Sebastian Bach and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, respectively, both featuring cellist Steven Isserlis soloing and dueting with Bell.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra begins its residency on Wednesday, June 28, with an all-Tchaikovsky program conducted by van Zweden and featuring pianist Garrick Ohlsson. On Friday, June 30, van Zweden conducts Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, featuring Simone Lamsma in her Bravo! Vail debut, and the world premiere of “Dos Piezas Para Orquesta,” by Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra.

On Saturday, July 1, van Zweden leads the Dallas Symphony as music director for the last time in Vail before returning in 2019 as the New York Philharmonic music director, in a program that includes Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.”

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s residency continues on Sunday, July 2, as Jeff Tyzik leads “John Williams: Music from the Movies” and a Patriotic Concert on Tuesday, July 4. The residency concludes on Wednesday, July 5, with Tyzik conducting “Return to the Cotton Club,” featuring trumpeter Byron Stripling, vocalist and tap dancer Ted Louis Levy, vocalist Miche Braden and others.

The Philadelphia Orchestra returns on Friday, July 7, for a concert with James Ehnes performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. On Saturday, July 8, the orchestra presents a screening of the film “E. T. The Extra Terrestrial,” set to a live performance of Williams’s Academy Award-winning score, conducted by Stephane Deneve.

For the Sunday, July 9, concert, Deneve leads the world premiere of “Les Regrets,” by French composer Guillaume Connesson, and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 4, featuring pianist Haochen Zhang in his Bravo! Vail debut. Music director Yannick Nezet-Seguin leads both the Thursday, July 13, concert, featuring music by Bach and Brahms, and the Friday, July 14, concert, which includes Gil Shaham performing Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3. For the orchestra’s final program on Saturday, July 15, Nezet-Seguin leads works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Mason Bates.

The New York Philharmonic opens its residency on Friday, July 21, with works by Charles Ives, Leonard Bernstein and George Gershwin conducted by Bramwell Tovey and featuring mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. Gilbert conducts Brahms’ Violin Concerto, featuring New York Philharmonic artist-in-residence Leonidas Kavakos, on Saturday, July 22, and Kavakos conducts works by Bach and Schumann on Sunday, July 23.

The concert on Wednesday, July 26, conducted by Gilbert, includes Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World,” Gershwin’s Concerto in F, featuring pianist Anne-Marie McDermott and the world premiere of a new work by American composer Julia Adolphe.

Gilbert conducts Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 on Thursday, July 27, and on Friday, July 28, he leads his final concert in Vail as the orchestra’s music director. The all-Beethoven program includes the Piano Concerto No. 2, featuring Inon Barnatan, and the Symphony No. 9, with soprano Susanna Phillips, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, tenor Joseph Kaiser, bass Morris Robinson and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra Chorus.

Small ensembles

Bravo! Vail’s Chamber Music Series features four concerts held on Tuesday nights at Donovan Pavilion, with artists including the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble, the renowned Emerson String Quartet, McDermott and Anton Nel with the Bravo! Vail Piano Fellows and the New York Philharmonic String Quartet.

Classically Uncorked presented by Arietta Wine pairs chamber music with wines inspired by some of the series works, along with hors d’oeuvres. The series is held at Donovan Pavilion, Tuesday, Aug. 1, to Thursday, Aug. 3, and features the Aeolus, Calder and Lyris quartets in works by leading contemporary composers, including the world premiere of Pangea for Strings and Piano by American composer David Ludwig.

The Linda and Mitch Hart Soiree Series features intimate performances by festival musicians in Vail Valley private residences. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres are served before each performance, and a gourmet three-course meal prepared by a local chef is served afterwards.

The 30th Annual Gala will be held on Sunday, July 16, at The Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch and will feature opera star Patricia Racette and acclaimed pianist Chris Terry in Racette’s cabaret show, “Diva on Detour.” Proceeds from the event will benefit Bravo! Vail’s education programs and free concerts.

On Friday, July 21, Saturday, July 29, and Friday, Aug. 4, Bravo! Vail After Dark presents vibrant young musicians in unusual repertoire performing in three of Vail Valley’s most popular bars and alehouses.

The Free Concert Series features Bravo! Vail’s Piano Fellows and Young Ensembles-in-Residence in chamber performances and solo recitals at venues throughout the valley. For the first time, Bravo! Vail will present two free family concerts instead of one. On Wednesday, July 12, Gershwin’s “Magic Key,” produced by Classical Kids Music Education and presented by Bravo! Vail and the National Repertory Orchestra, will be performed both at the Ford Amphitheater in Vail and the Lundgren Amphitheater in Gypsum.

For more information on the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, visit bravovail.org.


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