Schedule your Colorado Gives Day donation today.
If you get to one of this weekend’s Boulder Chamber Orchestra concerts, you’ll notice something unusual: half the ensemble is missing. The strings step aside in deference to winds, brass and percussion.
The one notable string instrument will be front and center: a beautiful 1673 Rugeri cello in the hands of soloist Inbal Segev. She’ll play an unusual jazz concerto by Friedrich Gulda.
Inbal Segev plays Gulda’s jazz concerto at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Broomfield Auditorium, 3 Community Park Road in Broomfield; and 7:30 p.m. Saturday at First United Methodist Church, 1421 Spruce St. in Boulder. The program also includes Stravinsky’s Octet for Winds and Mozart’s Serenade for Winds in C minor.
Gulda, an Austrian pianist, was famous for his Beethoven and Mozart interpretations but also loved jazz as both a performer and composer. Segev says Gulda’s concerto from the 1980s offers a “tasting menu” for the cello, encompassing everything from jazz to Renaissance-flavored tunes to virtuosic circus music.
Improvisation is key to jazz, and this concerto offers the same opportunity for the soloist. Segev strays from the printed page to only a minimal extent, admitting “I cheat and prepare at home.”
Gulda’s concerto shows that he doesn’t “take himself too seriously … and that he knows the instrument really well,” Segev said. Click the audio above to hear the full interview.
Segev will also to play Bach’s Cello Suites No. 1, 2 and 4 at 1 p.m. Sunday at Grace Lutheran Church in Boulder.
Stay in touch with our hosting team at CPR Classical and learn more about the classical events occurring in the community. Sign up here for our monthly newsletter.
It takes a good day’s drive to cover Colorado, but we’ll help you do it in a few minutes. Our newsletters bring you a closer look at the stories that affect you and the music that inspires you.
Colorado Postcards are snapshots of our colorful state in sound. They give brief insights into our people and places, our flora and fauna, and our past and present, from every corner of Colorado. Listen now.