The Colorado Music Festival’s 31st season sounded off to a strong start Sunday night.
Performing to a full house at the delightfully rustic, barnlike Chautauqua Auditorium, at the base of Boulder’s Flatirons, music director Michael Christie – in his seventh year at the helm of the festival – proved himself as innovative as ever in his fresh approach to Carl Orff’s gripping “Carmina Burana,” two contemporary selections and even a musical invention of his own.
Featuring the CMF Chamber Orchestra and Chorus, as well as singers from the Rocky Mountain Children’s Choir, Christie drew out the primordial power and ethereal sensibilities of “Carmina Burana,” ably voicing the flowing, breezy melodies and impassioned rhythms of the hour- long cantata.
Soloist Christina Major, soprano, brought forth a wonderfully refined, sculpted tone complemented by baritone Troy Cook, whose voice, while not as powerful as Major’s, was nevertheless resonant and nimble.
Pianist Vivienne Spy also deserves high praise for her authoritative role and nuanced delivery of the work’s many piano complex passages.
The program opened with a brief work by John Corigliano, commissioned for Christie’s inaugural concert with the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra. “Salute” is a study of rhythm and whimsy in the space of a mere fleeting snapshot in time.
Terry Riley’s “In C” immediately followed, an exercise based on 53 rhythmic and melodic fragments, set off by an initial pulse on the piano from which the vocal and instrumental performers then injected their own musical inspiration at will over a 20-minute duration.
While this inventive exploration of minimalism was a calming and oddly moving experience with audience as its nucleus, it also arguably stretched on too long, diminishing its effect.
“Work for Orchestra & Audience,” Christie’s own well-intentioned though somewhat tedious version of the same musical construct, closed the program with the audience divided into sections, clapping rhythms as projected on screen.
The festival concludes Aug. 3.
