Summer Season

For opening night, “brilliant pianist” Orli Shaham (The New York Times) returns to Sun Valley to perform Ravel’s beautiful and jazz-influenced Piano Concerto in G Major. Continuing the jazzy theme, the program also includes Delights and Dances, a rhythmic and soulful composition by Academy Award-nominated American composer Michael Abels. The Season opens with The Star-Spangled Banner, of course, followed by Rossini’s Overture to the Barber of Seville.

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 stands out for its upbeat enthusiasm, a quality it offers in abundance despite the composer’s advancing deafness when he wrote it. Brimming with extremes and surprises, the piece exhibits an exuberance and cheerfulness not heard again until—perhaps—his Ode to Joy in the ninth symphony. The concert opens with Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, a piece he wrote for his wife, Cosima. Wagner hired a small group of musicians to play the piece in the front hallway of his house to awaken her on her birthday morning.

Orli Shaham will open this concert with Ravel’s gorgeous and instantly recognizable Pavane for a Dead Princess. Following, she’ll join Festival Musicians for Reena Esmail’s Saans. The title means “breath” in Urdu, and Esmail wrote this lovely piece for a friend’s wedding (and later her fiancée played it at her own!). Then back to Ravel for his masterful Trio in A Minor For Violin, Cello, and Piano, a piece whose four movements progress from a dreamy beginning influenced by Basque dances through several sparkling and haunting melodies, to an energetic—even heroic—conclusion.

Mozart fans may realize that the Festival has been slowly working its way through the great composer’s concertos for winds. This evening features his Concerto for Oboe, performed by the Festival’s Principal Oboe, Erik Behr. One of the most famous pieces ever written for the oboe, it offers a melodic showcase for the instrument’s range of expression. Wind instruments are also featured prominently in Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera’s Variaciones Concertantes. Each variation gives the melodic lead to a different instrument, including the flute, clarinet, and with an oboe and bassoon duet. And the final variation brings everything home with an exuberant, Latin-American flair.