Classical Tahoe

the FS Foundation, PBS Reno, RenoTahoe, The University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe, The Carol Frank Buck Foundation, Linda and Alvaro Pascotto, Dick and Charlotte McConnell, Ian Weiss.

Classical Tahoe is a festival in Incline Village, Nevada that happens every year for three weeks.

We're all from different orchestras with different styles, and we come together.

There are musicians here from San Francisco, LA, Saint Louis, Pittsburgh, all over the country.

It's like an all star team.

This is an inspirational place to be.

And, getting to work with this incredible orchestra.

So, so enjoyable.

The feeling is so friendly, so open and so relaxed.

Its a beautiful place to play music.

And I think the interaction between the audience members and the musicians really makes it what it is, makes it very special.

We can seat a little bit short of 400 people in our outdoor venue here.

It's a small, intimate space, it almost feels like the audience members are on stage with you.

The people that come to support us and listen to our concerts are intensely, addicted to what we do.

And they show us that love all the time.

I've made friends in the audience and it's sort of like my summer family now.

Thanks to our relationship with PBS, we've been able to bring these concerts to all over the United States The increased visibility that that brings and the reach that we have as an organization, really, expands what we're able to do.

And it's very inspiring to those of us on stage Making music anywhere is spectacular.

Here in Tahoe, getting to wake up.

Smell the pine trees.

When Vivaldi is writing in his score.

You know, the summer and his Four Seasons.

Wonderful, unique situation where you can bring so many great musicians together and have these fantastic concerts, working with great conductors, and soloists.

Every year the orchestra gets stronger and the music making gets more beautiful.

[Applause] Today's program features music by Duke Ellington, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Debussy, and Prokofiev.

[Applause] Duke Ellington, obviously one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, A Sophisticated Lady, it's a standard, it's in the repertoire.

But the treatment of this piece that Morton Gould used.

So it's string orchestra, it's the celeste, and it's harp.

So we're talking about very specific sounds, middle 20th century over-the-top romanticisms, you know, the type of Hollywood sounds that we all love from the movies of that time period.

Vivaldi's Four Seasons, one of the great, celebrated pieces of the classical repertoire.

For all the right reasons.

It is so captivating.

Every color that he asks for is there.

Every nuance is very clearly written.

It's actually four different violin concertos.

And each concerto represents a different season.

Laura Hamilton, an incredible violinist and such an incredible collaborator.

as Laurie is a member of this orchestra and of course, the artistic director of Classical Tahoe, clearly has the understanding of how an ensemble comes together in the most beautiful way.

We are playing with modern instruments, But there are, elements of historical performance practice that we are, enjoying in this performance, Including all the violins and violas standing.

The concertos in themselves are brilliant and expressive.

We're doing it with a narrator who, is narrating these sonnets that Vivaldi included with the scores.

I think having the additional information of the sonnets, which he was clearly, referencing so directly with his music, I think that makes it just even more of a whole experience.

L'Estate.

Summer.

Under the heat of the burning summer sun.

Languish man and flock.

The pine is parched.

The cuckoo finds its voice.

And then the turtledove and goldfinch sing.

A gentle breeze blows.

But suddenly the north wind appears.

The shepherd weeps because overhead lies the fierce storm.

And his destiny.

His tired limbs are deprived of rest.

By fear of lightning and fierce thunder.

And by furious swarms of flies and hornets.

Alas, How just are his fears.

Thunder and lightning fill the heavens and hail slices the tops of the corn and other grain.

L'Inverno.

Winter.

Frozen and trembling in the icy snow.

In the severe blast of the horrible wind.

As we run, we constantly stamp our feet.

And our teeth chatter with the cold.

So now, we go into the Snow is Falling.

and you hear at the very beginning the violins going, [Vocalizing] You can see the snow, snow falling down.

Prokofiev Symphony Number One.

The classical symphony.

It's a real string showcase.

The basses and cello really pass a lot of melodies back and forth.

We actually get the melodic line a lot, which is, very unique for the low strings to take over the melodies from the upper strings in the winds.

Prokofiev symphonies are pretty extraordinary.

The first one is very special because it's very different from the others.

Unlike his Fifth Symphony or some of the other ones that are much more politically motivated and deep and wrought with, tension.

This is a very light, airy, quite difficult to perform symphony.

He wrote it in sort of quasi classical style, but very tongue in cheek and almost satirical.

The classical symphony is based on old dance forms.

You can basically imagine those people coming in and those all those characters, the third movement, for example, there's some, really funky, harmonic modulations going on.

It's a gavotte, but it feels to me like somebody stumbling out of a pub with the gavotte stuck in the head after quite a few beers.

And, that's why there's.

theres such a roughness sometimes and so many liberties.

And it's not just, serious and straightforward.

And that's the kind of characters that I love about his writing.

[Applause] Funding for this program has been provided by the FS Foundation, PBS Reno, RenoTahoe, The University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe, The Carol Frank Buck Foundation, Linda and Alvaro Pascotto, Dick and Charlotte McConnell, Ian Weiss.