Interview: Colorado Music Festival announces 2015 season schedule

(Photo: Courtesy Colorado Music Festival)

The Colorado Music Festival, the Boulder summer classical series at Chautauqua Auditorium, unveiled its 2015 lineup today.

The season marks the debut of conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni as CMF’s music director. Zeitouni is only the third music director since CMF’s founding in 1976, following founder Giora Bernstein and successor Michael Christie, who left in 2013.

A few of the scheduled highlights:

• An opening night concert on July 1 featuring Debussy’s “La Mer,” Respighi’s “Pines of Rome” and Ravel’s “Scheherazade” interspersed with poetry readings by Timothy Orr of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival.
• For the week of July 14, a “Cellobration” featuring performances of Bach’s Cello Suites, Beethoven’s Cello Sonatas and other cello-centric pieces. Soloists include Desmond Hoebig, Julie Albers and Guy Fishman.
• The return of the classical mashup series by conductor Steve Hackman. This year Hackman presents two concerts: a Bjork/Bela Bartok mashup on July 7 and a Bon Iver/Aaron Copland concert on July 21. Previous seasons included Radiohead/Brahms and Coldplay/Beethoven mashups.
• A “Beyond Fairy Tales” program on July 23 and 24 featuring Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” and Stravinsky’s “Firebird” Suite.
• On July 30 and 31, a program pairing Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 and Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony No. 6 with projected images by Colorado photographer John Fielder.

(Photo: CPR/Brad Turner)

Zeitouni talked with CPR Classical about some of the seasons's highlights, what he thinks orchestral musicians want from a conductor, and the Dvorak score that changed his life. Click the audio link above to listen.

Read more at Colorado Music Festival’s website.