August 6

Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra
Robert Spano, program director

Magnus Lindberg

Arena

Magnus Gustaf Adolf Lindberg was born on June 27, 1958, in Helsinki, Finland. His orchestral work Arena was composed in 1994–95 on a commission from the International Sibelius Conductors’ Competition. It premiered on June 30, 1995, in Porvoo, Finland, with the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, Sakari Oramo conducting. The score calls for two flutes (second doubling piccolo), three oboes, three clarinets, two bassoons (second doubling contrabassoon), two horns, three trumpets, three trombones, percussion, piano (doubling celesta), harp, and strings.

At the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, young Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg studied composition with Einojuhani Rautavaara and Paavo Heininen. It was Heininen especially who encouraged Lindberg to look beyond conservative Nordic inspirations and embrace the avant-garde. And with this in mind, Lindberg and some of his fellow students (most notably Esa-Pekka Salonen and Kaija Saariaho) formed the nucleus of the Ears Open Society (Korvat auki) at the Academy, an informal group of new-music devotees who were deeply interested in the European avant-garde. These three giants of Finnish contemporary music have remained in close collaboration since their student days, but each has taken their music in different directions.

Lindberg and Salonen both studied with Franco Donatoni at the summer courses in Siena. Lindberg also studied with Brian Ferneyhough at Darmstadt, and privately in Paris with Gérard Grisey and Vinko Globokar, who instilled in him an “aesthetic of the extreme.” With influences drawn from Serialism, musique concrète, the New Complexity, Spectral music, Stravinsky, Minimalism, and the vernacular traditions of Punk and Free Jazz, Lindberg’s compositional palette is large and varied.

Widely known for his vibrant orchestral scores, Lindberg has described the orchestra as “his favorite instrument,” a crucible for his sound experiments. He was composer-in-residence with the New York Philharmonic from 2009 to 2012, and with the London Philharmonic from 2014 to 2017.

After writing his largest orchestral work, Kraft (1985), with a score more than three feet high and an opening that includes a seventy-two-note chord, Lindberg felt he had reached a creative cul-de-sac. He spent several years rediscovering and refining his voice. His later works, while still powerfully eclectic, employ rich harmonies and timbres in a more Classicist vein that almost hints at tonality. A key work in this stylistic evolution is Arena for orchestra, completed in 1995.

Arena was commissioned for the First International Sibelius Conductors’ Competition in May 1995, where it was used as a test piece to be rehearsed by all competitors. As such, it contains myriad complexities—shifting tempi, meters, textures, rhythms, and colors—designed specifically to assess a conductor’s technique.

The work opens with bustling figures that multiply and overlap to create intricate textures. A falling-third motive recurs ubiquitously in this rich mosaic. The activity relaxes a little in the middle sections, but never truly settles. As the orchestral fabric rises and falls, it gathers new momentum each time, and brass fanfares periodically proclaim themselves through the thick harmonies. In the second half the texture begins to thin, revealing soloistic passages against a sustained backdrop. But the rhythmic energy increases again, swirling kaleidoscopically among the orchestral families. Ornamental ideas develop into new motives, proliferate, and are then quickly subsumed back into the texture from which they emerged. A lush, quasi-Romantic climax near the end finally descends into a sustained cluster that fades to the conclusion. — © Luke Howard

Aaron Copland

Clarinet Concerto

Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 14, 1900, and died in North Tarrytown (now Sleepy Hollow), New York, on December 2, 1990. His Clarinet Concerto was composed between 1947 and 1948 and premiered via radio on November 6, 1950, with Benny Goodman and the NBC Symphony of the Air conducted by Fritz Reiner. Along with the solo clarinet, the work is scored for harp, piano, and strings.

In 1947 Aaron Copland received a commission from a rather unique source—Jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman. Alongside his popular music career, Goodman fostered an interest in living classical composers, and had premiered works by Stravinsky and Bartók. Copland eagerly accepted the clarinetist’s request. Writer’s block and an interruption to write the film score for The Red Pony led to a sporadic composition process, and Goodman’s piece wasn’t completed until the fall of 1948. Goodman was pleased with the final Concerto but—to Copland’s annoyance—suggested some minor edits to make the difficult second movement more feasible. Goodman put off a first performance for almost two years; the premiere was finally given in November 1950, first over the radio and then in concert later that month. The Concerto was not received well at first, but it has since become a staple of the clarinet repertoire.

The first movement opens with pizzicato bass and harp creating a relaxed, waltz-like feel. The clarinet then enters on a long-spun melody. Though the accompanying ensemble is quite intimate—only harp, piano, and strings—Copland still manages to conjure his spacious sound world. The waltz feel disappears briefly in the freer middle section of the movement’s A-B-A form, but it returns at the end of the movement with added embellishments in the harp. Eventually the strings hold a C-major ninth chord, hailing the arrival of the cadenza connecting the Concerto’s two movements. This solo moment starts off slowly, gradually becoming more spectacular and virtuosic as hints of Jazz begin to sneak into the texture. An ascending run to the top of the clarinet’s range leads directly into the rambunctious second movement.

Here, the musical styles change often, as if someone is indecisively switching the dials of a radio. The Minimalist pulse of the opening morphs into other episodes, eventually giving way to a cheeky dialogue between clarinet and slap bass. The music sounds at times reminiscent of Jazz, Blues, and other popular music styles, though listeners will also pick out allusions to Copland’s works inspired by Latin America, including El Salón México.

The music eventually grows into a wild, unpredictable dance that brings together various ideas from throughout the movement. Highly dissonant strings announce one last solo moment for the clarinet, who careens up to the stratospheric limits of its register. The Concerto then ends with a dramatic flourish from the strings and a “jazz smear” from the soloist—a possible homage to the famous opening of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

— © Kevin McBrien

Ludwig van Beethoven

Symphony No. 7 in A major, op. 92

Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized in Bonn, Germany, on December 17, 1770, and died in Vienna on March 26, 1827. He began the Seventh Symphony in the fall of 1811, completed it in the spring of 1812, and led the first public performance in Vienna on December 8, 1813. The Symphony is scored for two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, and trumpets, plus timpani and strings.

The first performance of the Seventh Symphony, which took place in Vienna on December 8, 1813, at a charity concert that also included the premiere of Wellington’s Victory, Opus 91, was one of the most splendid successes of Beethoven’s life. The concert was repeated four days later at the same benefit prices, and raised a large sum of money for the aid of Austrian and Bavarian troops wounded in the Battle of Hanau. More important from the musical point of view was its confirmation of Beethoven as the greatest living composer not only in fact, but also in the public imagination.

In truth, it was probably the potboiler Wellington’s Victory at the end of the program that spurred the most enthusiasm. Wellington, after all, was allied with the Austrians in opposing Napoleon, and a degree of patriotic fervor infected the proceedings. Moreover, the piece was simply calculated to appeal to a broad, general audience more than the lengthy, abstract Symphony that had opened the concert.

Beethoven, of course, knew that the Symphony was the greater piece. He called it “one of my most excellent works” when writing to Johann Peter Salomon (for whom Haydn had written his symphonies 93–101), asking him to use his connections with a London publisher to sell a group of his works there. And, because of the special popularity of Wellington’s Victory (a popularity which was even more assured in England than in Vienna), Beethoven adjusted his prices accordingly: a London publisher could have the “grand symphony” (the Seventh) for thirty ducats, but the so-called “Battle Symphony” would cost eighty! Those fees do not in any way reflect Beethoven’s view (or ours) of the relative merits of the two works; he was simply asking what he thought the market would bear.

The new Symphony contained difficulties that the violin section declared unperformable during rehearsals. Beethoven persuaded the players to take the music home to practice, a concession then almost unheard of! The rehearsal the next day went excellently. The composer Louis Spohr, who was playing in the violin section for that performance, has left in his memoirs a description of Beethoven’s conducting during the rehearsal—a remarkable enough feat since Beethoven’s hearing was by now seriously impaired:

Beethoven had accustomed himself to indicate expression by all manner of singular body movements. So often as a sforzando occurred, he tore his arms (which he had previously crossed on his breast) with great vehemence asunder. At a piano he crouched down lower and lower as he desired the degree of softness. If a crescendo then entered he gradually rose again and at the entrance of the forte jumped into the air. Sometimes, too, he unconsciously shouted to strengthen the forte.

Spohr realized that Beethoven could no longer hear the quiet passages in his own music. At one point during the rehearsal, Beethoven conducted through a pianissimo hold and got several measures ahead of the orchestra without knowing it.

[He] jumped into the air at the point where according to his calculation the forte ought to begin. When this did not follow his movement he looked about in a startled way, stared at the orchestra to see it still playing pianissimo and found his bearings only when the long-expected forte came and was visible to him. Fortunately this comical incident did not take place at the performance.

The extraordinary energy of the Seventh Symphony has generated many interpretations from critics, among the most famous of which is Wagner’s description, “Apotheosis of the Dance.” The air of festive jubilation was certainly linked by the first audiences with the victory over Napoleon, but many later writers have spoken of “a bacchic orgy” or “the upsurge of a powerful Dionysiac impulse.” Even for a composer to whom rhythm is so important a factor, the rhythmic vehemence of this Symphony is striking.

At the same time, Beethoven was beginning to exploit far-ranging harmonic schemes as a framework for his musical architecture. Where the Sixth Symphony had been elaborated from the simplest and most immediate harmonic relations—subdominant and dominant—the Seventh draws on more distant keys, borrowed from the scale of the minor mode. The spacious slow introduction moves from the home key of A major through C major and F major (both closely related to A minor), before returning to A for the beginning of the Vivace. That introduction, far more than being simply a neutral foyer serving as entry to the house, summarizes the architecture of the entire building: A, C, and F are the harmonic poles around which the Symphony is built. Nowhere, not even in the opening movement of the Fifth, does Beethoven stick so singlemindedly to one rhythmic pattern as in the Vivace of the Seventh.

The slow movement was a sensation from the start; it was encored at the first two benefit concerts. The dark opening, stating the accompaniment to the entire march theme before the melody itself appears; the hypnotic repetition of a quarter note and two eighths; the alternation between major and minor, between strings and winds; the original fusion of march, rondo, and variation forms—all of these contribute to the fascination that surrounds this movement.

The Presto of the third movement is a headlong rush, broken only briefly by the contrasting trio. Beethoven brings the trio around twice, and hints that it might return yet a third time (necessitating still one more round of scherzo) before dispelling our qualms with a few sharp closing chords.

The closing Allegro con brio brings the Symphony to its last and highest pitch of jubilation. It is murder on the lips of brass players, and its constant drive and motivic repetition led the contemporary American composer John Adams to refer to it, only half jokingly, as the first Minimalist symphony.

— © Steven Ledbetter

Japanese-American conductor Ken Yanagisawa is music director of the Boston Opera Collaborative and the Boston Annex Players, associate conductor of the Boston Civic Symphony, assistant conductor of the New Philharmonia Orchestra, and assistant professor at Berklee College of Music. A 2024 Aspen Conducting Academy Fellow and James Conlon Conductor Prize recipient, Ken has previously served as a conducting apprentice with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and has assisted/covered at the National Symphony Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Berlin Academy of American Music, and Opernfest, among others. Ken holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Orchestral Conducting from Boston University.

Harris Han is assistant conductor of the Palm Beach Symphony. In 2025 he led the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra in Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra on the recommendation of Jaap van Zweden. Harris has worked with the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Ypsilanti Symphony Orchestra, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and has performed with the Symphony of the Americas, West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, and Bach and Beyond Festival. A 2025 Solti Foundation Career Assistance Award recipient, he trained at the George Enescu Masterclass; the Pierre Monteux School; the University of Miami, where he earned a master’s in conducting; and Ithaca College. He attends Aspen on a Conducting Academy Fellowship in memory of Albert Tipton.

Tobias Gjedrem Furholt is a Norwegian conductor and percussionist. He started conducting concerts at age fourteen. He has been mentored by Bjarte Engeset since age seventeen. Tobias has conducted orchestras such as Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, and Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Tobias is also a versatile percussionist. He completed his bachelor of percussion at the Stuttgart Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst (University for Music and Performing Arts) with the highest grade. In addition to appearances as soloist and ensemble musician, he has performed with orchestras such as the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, Staatsorchester Stuttgart, and Bachakademie Stuttgart. His summer at Aspen is supported by a Lionel Newman Conducting Fellowship.

Hong Kong-born conductor and violinist Enoch Li is a Harvard/New England Conservatory dual-degree program candidate pursuing a bachelor’s in mathematics and a master’s in violin performance under Nicholas Kitchen. Enoch’s conducting teachers include Yip Wai Hong, Samuel Pang, and Federico Cortese, and he has been selected for masterclasses with Tim Redmond, Mark Laycock, Joseph Bastian, David Itkin, and Michaelis Economou. He is the conductor of multiple orchestras and opera companies at Harvard, and has also conducted the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, PKF-Prague Philharmonia, Asian Youth Orchestra, and the University of North Texas Symphony Orchestra. Li is a 2025 recipient of the David A. Karetsky Memorial Fellowship for a Young Conductor.

Giovanni Fanizza will join the Jette Parker Artists Program at the Royal Opera House in London for the 2025–2027 seasons, where he collaborates with the Royal Ballet. He is a 2025 Conducting Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival. He joined the Gstaad Conducting Academy in 2024, working with Johannes Schlaefli and Jaap van Zweden. In 2024–25 he interned at the Grand Théâtre de Genève for the production of Salome under Jukka-Pekka Saraste. He is currently completing a Master of Arts in Orchestral Conducting at the Haute école de musique de Genève with Laurent Gay. Giovanni Fanizza’s work in Aspen is supported by the Aspen Conducting Academy’s Fellowship in honor of Jorge Mester, with additional support from the Luciano and Giancarla Berti Scholarship Fund.

Mariano García Valladares is a Mexican conductor trained under Iván López Reynoso. He has served as assistant conductor at the Ópera de Bellas Artes in Mexico City and has led concerts with major orchestras in Mexico. Later this year he will make his international debut at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville conducting Mozart’s Don Giovanni. He returns to Aspen this summer after receiving the Robert Spano Conducting Prize, an award given by Mrs. Mercedes T. Bass.