Boulder Opera’s “Operatizers,” Boulder and Longmont symphonies’ Beethoven 3 and 9 By Peter Alexander April 17 at 4:30 p.m. The Boulder Symphony will present Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3—known as the “Eroica”—along with Grieg’s Piano Concerto and the “Lullaby” for string orchestra by George Gershwin Friday evening (7:30 p.m. April 19; details below). Devin Patrick Hughes will conduct. Soloist for the Grieg Concerto will be Canadian pianist Lorraine Min, who has toured and performed extensively in North and South America, Europe and Asia.  Originally written as a composition exercise on the ..read more

Please note that the final concert by the Colorado Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra with conductor Cynthia Katsarelis and guest soloist Nicolò Spera, originally scheduled for April 6, was postponed due to inclement weather and the widespread power outage on that date. The concert will be rescheduled pending the availability of the musicians and the venue. The new date will be announced as soon as arrangements have been confirmed. You may read the original story here. This is the full program for the concert: “Nicolò!” Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra, Cynthia Katsarelis, conductor With Nicol ..read more

Joan Szymko will lead her own works in Boulder and Cherry Hills Village By Peter Alexander April 10 at 5:15 p.m. Composer Joan Szymko has set to music poems by several of the leading poets of our times, including Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry.  A conductor as well as composer, Szymko will lead Boulder’s Ars Nova Singers in performing her own works Friday in Boulder and Saturday in Cherry Hills Village (7:30 p.m. April 12 and 13; details below). Joan Szymko As a composer, Szymko does not limit her choice of texts to widely honored, prize-winning poets. As she herself points out, she also h ..read more

Mini-Chamber 4 with pianist Hsing-ay Hsu and BCO members By Peter Alexander April 2 at 11 a.m. The Boulder Chamber Orchestra (BCO) will present their 2023-24 artist in residence, pianist Hsing-ay Hsu, performing with members of the orchestra on a mini-chamber concert Saturday (8 p.m. April 6; details below). Pianist Hsing-ay Hsu The performance, titled “Mixed Timbres,” will be the fourth and final mini-chamber concert of the 2023-24 season. The program features works for piano with clarinet and cello, with cellist Chas Bernard and clarinetist Kellan Toohey from the orchestra. Beethoven’s Op. 1 ..read more

Cynthia Katsarelis leads final concert with guitarist Nicolò Spera as soloist By Peter Alexander April 2 at 10 a.m. Boulder will have one less orchestra after this weekend. Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra strings with conductor Cynthia Katsarelis. Photo by Glenn Ross. The Colorado Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra will play their last concert Saturday (7:30 p.m. April 6; details below), after 17 years of steadfast leadership from conductor and artistic director Cynthia Katsarelis. Katsarelis recently moved from Colorado to South Bend, Ind., where she is on the faculty of Sacred Music at Notre ..read more

New artistic director at Central City has experience and hopes for CCO By Peter Alexander March 22 at 6:20 p.m. Alison Moritz’s career in opera started with a hot-air balloon. The new artistic director of Central City Opera (CCO), Moritz saw her first opera in St. Louis when she was nine. It was Offenbach’s La belle Hélène, a very Parisian spoof of the the story of Helen of Troy. At nine, the innuendo did not make much of an impression.  “I think the sexual politics went over my head,” she says. “I was just impressed by the hot-air balloon onstage!” Alison Moritz: Destined for opera? Ball ..read more

Vadim Gluzman, Ray Chen and the Colorado Symphony in Boulder and Longmont  By Peter Alexander March 19 at 4:06 p.m. The Boulder Bach Festival (BBF) will present the Ukrainian-Israeli violinist Vadim Guzman in a program that spans centuries, from J.S. Bach to Arvo Pärt. The final concert of BBF’s 2023–24 season, Gluzman’s performance occurs on Bach’s birthday, at  4 p.m. Thursday, March 21 (Dairy Arts Center; details below). He will perform with the BBF CORE (COmpass Resonance Ensemble) and be joined by BBF music director Zachary Carrettin for Bach’s Double Violin Concerto. Known fo ..read more

“Mahler at the Museum,” Saturday, March 16 By Peter Alexander March 13 at 5:25 p.m. The Longmont Symphony and conductor Elliot Moore will present the last of their concerts at the Longmont Museum’s Stewart Auditorium for the 2023–24 season, a sold-out “Mahler at the Museum” performance, Saturday (March 16). The program features a chamber version of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde for orchestra with alto (or baritone) and tenor soloists. Based on German translations of Chinese poems, the score was completed in 1909, near the end of the composer’s life. Although Mahler called it “A Symphony for T ..read more

Haydn and Dvořák complete program for March 10 and 11 By Peter Alexander March 5 at 5:08 p.m. The violist and composer Nokuthula Ngwenyama burst onto the classical musical scene in 1993, when she won the Primrose International Viola Competition at the age of 16. Nokuthula Ngwenyama Ngwenyama followed that distinction by winning the Young Concert Artist International Auditions the following year, and later an Avery Fisher Career Grant. An American of Ndebele (Zimbabwean) and Japanese descent, she attended the Coburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles and the Curtis Institute in Philadelph ..read more

Takács Quartet violist plays music by Telemann and Piazzolla Saturday By Peter Alexander Feb. 29 at 11:07 p.m. Violist Richard O’Neill has a wide-ranging background, both geographically and musically. Richard O’Neill For example, when he plays as soloist with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra Saturday (7:30 p.m. March 2; details below), he polished one of his pieces by playing with members of Germany’s distinguished early-music ensemble Musica Antiqua Köln, and the other he researched near the docks in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The first would be the Concerto in G major for viola by the prolific Ba ..read more