Music in the Mountains, the fast-approaching summer festival, has already revved up its dandy mobile stage. It’s chugging through the Four Corners this weekend. On July 14, Conductor, Artistic Director and chief engineer Guillermo Figueroa will raise his baton and formally launch the 2023 season by conducting the first of nine major concerts – more than ever before. Figueroa will hand over the controls only once – to Richard Kaufman for Pops Night on July 22. The maestro will finally steer the MiTM train full speed to its destination on July 30, for an evening of memorable music titled “Heart & Soul.”
Figueroa’s demanding new role as solo artistic director is an ambitious scheme. The new chapter has been set in motion by the departure last season of Greg Hustis, former artistic director and pooh-bah organizer of the overall festival roundhouse. Hustis began his MiTM affiliation in 1988 as a musician and then took on leadership roles beginning in 2007.
If you go
WHAT: 37th annual Music in the Mountains.
WHEN: July 6-30.
WHERE: Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College, First Presbyterian Church, Sky Ute Event Center.
TICKETS: $50 to $200. ($5 Family Concert on July 19).
MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.musicinthemountains.com or call 385-6820.
Since 1987, and with only one exception, the 2020 pandemic summer, the annual classical music festival has flourished. It has undergone organizational and venue changes, attracted top musicians from all over the country, and witnessed the passing of seminal figures like Mischa Semanitzky and Arkady Fomin. In 2008, a new leadership team, Hustis and Figueroa, brought high energy and imagination to the festival with fresh programming and new soloists. Last season, after a brilliant run at reshaping the festival, they moved it from the mountain to the mesa, Hustis announced his retirement. And now Figueroa, with the able assistance of Executive Director Angie Beach and an active Board of Directors, is the driver of a premiere summer music festival.
“I’m a bit apprehensive about this summer, and I’m experiencing some trepidation,” Figueroa said in a recent interview. “Greg isn’t here, and it’s all up to me. For years, Greg was our go-to person. He always spoke quietly, but always in a common-sense way. Now, his role has fallen to me. It’s a challenge.”
Over the last two years, MiTM has settled into the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College, established the outreach program, upgraded a first-rate website and renewed the mission. That’s a train-load of changes. Figueroa said he’s “prepared – and yet a bit apprehensive.”
He will conduct all nine classic music concerts this season, double what he has done in the past. He said he’s equally excited about the soloists and the programming.
“Erin Schreiber will open our festival playing the Korngold Violin Concerto,” Figueroa said. “I asked Erin to play a concerto, and she gave us some choices. Korngold wrote the concerto in 1945 for Heifetz, and some may remember we performed it once before here – with Vadim.
If you go
WHAT: Music in the Mountains Mobile Stage Performances.
WHEN: Friday and Saturday (July 7 and 8).
WHERE: July 7: Woodwind Ensemble: 11 a.m. Boyle Park, Mancos; 2 p.m. Claire Viles Park, Durango; 6:30 p.m. Buckley Park, Durango. July 8: Brass Ensemble: 11 a.m. Shoshone Park, Ignacio; 2 p.m. Eagle Park, Bayfield; 6:30 p.m. Buckley Park, Durango.
TICKETS: Free.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.musicinthemountains.com or call 385-6820.
“Erin and I played together last year and the year before on the mobile stage – before the festival formally began,” he said. “I thought her playing was so special, so excellent, that I asked if she’d come back. She said yes. She loves Durango and is an avid bird watcher. We’re hoping to make us her summer thing.”
The July 14 concert will begin with a new work, Figueroa said, Jennifer Higdon’s 1999, “blue cathedral.” one of the most performed contemporary works on American concert stages. And after the Korngold concerto, the orchestra will conclude with Tchaikovsky’s Symphonic Fantasy after Dante, “Francesca da Rimini.”
The Fantasy dates from 1876, Figueroa said, and it is about a woman. “The Korngold Concerto was written for Heifetz in 1945, and it’s an amazing piece.” With a very new work to open the entire festival to Tchaikovsky’s Romantic Fantasy, that’s quite a journey, he added.
In addition to violinist Schreiber, Figueroa will welcome other favorite soloists from past summers: pianist Avi Reichert and violinist Philippe Quint. New to festival goers will be pianist and singer Tony DeSare, guitarist Jason Vieaux and flutist Néstor Torres.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.