YOUR AD HERE »

Aspen Music Festival and School scores opera grant

The Aspen Music Festival and School has been given a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to co-commission a new opera by composer and Aspen Music Festival faculty member Steven Stucky. The $55,000 grant is the largest given this year to a Colorado organization by the National Endowment for the Art’s Arts Works program.

The new one-act opera, “The Classical Style,” will be performed in Aspen in the 2015 summer season. The opera is based on Charles Rosen’s 1971 book about Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Jeremy Denk, a pianist, alumnus of the Aspen Music School and MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient, is writing the libretto.

“The Classical Style,” expected to be 50 minutes long, is being co-commissioned by the Ojai Music Festival, Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley, and Carnegie Hall. Robert Spano, music director of the Aspen Music Festival, will conduct all three performances, scheduled for Ojai, Carnegie Hall and Aspen. The Aspen production will be semi-staged and will be directed by Edward Berkeley, director of the Aspen Opera Theater Center.