Saturday May 16 – MahlerFest XXXIII Symposium

Saturday, May 16, 9 a.m. – 4:15 p.m.  FREE
Grusin Hall, Imig Music Building, 1020 18th Street, Boulder

An engaging and informative day of talk about Mahler, Wagner, the visual arts, and much more. 

  • Henry Fogel – former president and CEO of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and former president of the American Symphony Orchestra League 
  • Gavin Plumley – cultural historian, author and broadcaster
  • Kenneth Woods – Artistic Director: Colorado MahlerFest and English Symphony Orchestra 
  • Philip Sawyers – 2020 Visiting Composer
  • On Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer – Colorado premiere of Jason Starr’s newest short film, See the trailer here

 

Lunch will be available for $15.

What to Expect

The symposium is a formal educational event masquerading in informality. The entire event, except for lunch, will take place in Grusin Music Hall in the Imig Music Building on the CU-Boulder Campus. You can come and go as you like and wear whatever you like. There will certainly be some scholars attending but there are always ‘lay people’ at each talk who enjoy it and are able to learn something from the speakers.

Each speaker will give an engaging presentation covering the topic at hand, usually with audio and/or visual aids. There is often time for questions and discussion at the end of each talk as well.

Lunch will be announced soon but is usually ‘fancy’ sandwiches and sides with some soda and other drinks. This is a great chance to chat with the speakers and other attendees in a casual atmosphere.

9:00 – Gavin Plumley

Two Gustavs: Mahler and Klimt
Gustav Klimt and his colleagues broke away from Vienna’s imperially endorsed art institutions in 1897 to found the Secession. The same year, Gustav Mahler took charge of the city’s Court Opera. Both Gustavs proved brilliant but belligerent in their pursuit of utopia through art, not least at the Beethoven Exhibition of 1902. Placing Mahler and Klimt’s work in context, this talk asks what links and divides them.

10:15 – Philip Sawyers in conversation with Kenneth Woods

Composing with Mahler’s Legacy
Philip guides listeners through his musical world, including the four symphonies, concertos and the two tone poems based on painting, The Valley of Vision (based on paintings by Samuel Palmer) and Hommage to Kandinsky. Sawyers will be talking about how a deep engagement with the Central European symphonic tradition has relevance for him as a composer today.

11:30 Kenneth Woods

Mahler and Wagner: Composing Conductors
MahlerFest’s Artistic Director, Kenneth Woods, talks about the importance for both Mahler and Wagner of the synergy between their work ing composition and conducting, and the influence of Wagner, particularly The Ring, on Mahler’s own music. He also takes listeners inside the process of rehearsal and score study that goes into a performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony.

12:15 Lunch ($15 on-site)

1:00 PM Henry Fogel

Mahler in Performance, Then and Now
Mr. Fogel’s wide ranging talk begins with an exploration of some of the earliest recordings of Mahler’s works, before taking time to examine the mid-20th Century neglect of his music in the USA and Europe. In the final part of his talk, Fogel shares his insights into the working methods, rehearsals and performances of eminent Mahlerian interpreters he worked closely with at the Chicago Symphony and elsewhere, including Sir Georg Solti, Leonard Bernstein, Raphael Kubelik and Klaus Tennstedt. If you’ve ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes at one of the world’s greatest Mahler orchestras, this is your chance to find out!

2:15 PM Gavin Plumley

Color, Tone, Violence: Expressionism in Vienna and Beyond
The Secession rejected artistic conservatism within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, yet would itself be renounced by the next generation. Helmed by Schoenberg’s friend Richard Gerstl and Egon Schiele in Vienna and Wassily Kandinsky in Munich, expressionism found both visual and musical forms. This talk goes to the heart of the urgent artistic movement that erupted before the outbreak of World War I.

3:30 Film

On Mahler’s “Songs of a Wayfarer” (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen)
Colorado premiere of Jason Starr’s newest short film, followed by a screening of last year’s performance of the work featuring the MahlerFest Chamber Orchestra, Kenneth Woods and Joshua DeVane.

(4:15 finish)