2008 Highlights:

The performers who come over Independence Pass every summer to play in Salida, after taking time out of their busy schedules at the Aspen Music Festival, say they love it!

It’s the small town atmosphere, the hospitality, and the eagerness on the part of the audience to hear really great music performed really well. Even the biggest stars such as the American Brass Quintet, Joyce Yang and John O’Conor, who are used to playing formal concert halls throughout the world, look forward to the informality of Salida’s 400-seat high school auditorium or the intimacy of the newly restored Steam Plant Theater by the river.

Chamber music, classic and contemporary, with small town informality and the chance to chat with local folks, not just about music—that’s what makes Salida Aspen Concerts unique. So say musicians and audiences alike. And, you have to love the ticket prices that would cost four times as much in the big city.

It was no different this past 2008 summer season.

The American Brass Quintet, perennial favorites in Salida, kicked off the 2008 season, having played here every year since 1978. Their concert June 28 started with a musical pub crawl recalling some famous old English saloons experienced through the music of Eric Ewazen, Colchester Fantasy, 1987. Then they mixed some traditional 16th choir music before coming up to date with Andre Previn’s Four Outings. Salida expects its adopted sons to return in 2009 and bring with them another student quintet from Aspen to double up the glorious sounds of brass.

Music by Bach, Schubert and Ravel was on the program for the second concert July 7. Darrett Adkins, known as a great interpreter of modern and Norwegian music, played Bach’s Suite No 2 in D minor for solo cello. Ann Schein, artistic director of the Innsbruck Institute and faculty member in Aspen since 1984, performed Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy on piano. The finale, Ravel’s Piano Trio in A Minor, featured Adkins and Schein with David Halen, concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony.

Joyce Yang, the young Korean pianist, who won the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition at the age of 19, starred in the season’s third concert in Salida July 12 shortly after performing in Denver and Aspen. Young, engaging and brilliant, she captured hearts in Salida in 2007 and wanted to come back. She played Schumann’s Carnaval Op. 9 (1835). Then she teamed up with two other relatively young artists, violinist Kathryn Eberle of Nashville and cellist Nicholas Finch of Boston, to finish the concert with Mendelssohn’s highly melodic Piano Trio No 1 in D minor.

The Buena Vista concert (one is always played there) July 19 featured the Sybarite Chamber Players, young string musicians who like to break down barriers between classical and modern music. They got their start playing on street corners in Aspen and have since gone separate ways. They played Quintet in G Op. 77 by Antonin Dvorak and selections from their Radiohead Remixed Project 22 based upon the work of the English alternative rock band from Oxfordshire. The members were violinists Maxine Kuo and Sarah Whitney, violist Angela Pickett, cellist Laura Metcalf and bassist Louis Levitt.

The Aspen Contemporary Ensemble led by jazz musician Sydney Hodkinson, filled the house with syncopation for the fifth concert July 26. Members of the ACE were Shanna Gutierrez, flute; Lisa Raschiatore, clarinet; Donovan Seidle, violin; Nicholas Jeffrey, viola; Nicholas Finch, cello; David Friend, piano and Gina Ryan, percussion. They played music of Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu, a forerunner of the modern sound, and works by living composers David Dzubay All Water Has a Perfect Memory and Barbara White My Barn Having Burned to the Ground I can Now See the Moon.

The after-concert party for John O’Conor hosted by local volunteers lasted well into the night and proved the Irish pianist to be as equally charming in person as on stage. He has been called a “true poet of the piano” for his masterly interpretations of Beethoven and Schubert. In Salida Aug. 9 for the last concert of the season, O’Conor performed Beethoven’s Sonata No 31 in A flat major and Schubert’s Sonata No 13 in A major. Following intermission he played a series of tender impromptus and nocturnes, one by the Irishman John Field who O’Conor likes to champion as the creator of the nocturne style in the 19th Century.

We hope our patrons will be back in 2009 and will bring their friends for more good music without the box office shock.

What is Salida Concerts, Inc?

Salida Concerts, Inc., acting in collaboration with the prestigious
Aspen Music Festival and School, is a 501(c)(3) organization
whose mission is to present a summer chamber music concert series.  The Series, held in Salida and Buena Vista Colorado, features incredibly talented, internationally-known artists, as well as exciting new artists making their debut at the prestigous Aspen Music Festival.  The Series offers an amazing opportunity to hear these world class artists in a quaint mountain community nestled in the heart of Colorado.

Find out more about the caliber of artists by clicking find out more!

Thanks to many generous supporters and advertisers, ticket prices are only $15 each and are available at the door 1 hour before curtain time.  Tickets are also available by clicking on Tickets.  

A limited number of free tickets for students will also be available.