Timothy Weiss conducts chamber works by Hartke, Fauré, and Schumann — With the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble
Aspen Music Festival and School 2025
Cast
Xak Bjerken — Pianist
Kathleen Winkler — Violinist
Stephen Wyrczynski — Violist
Darrett Adkins — Cellist
Anton Nel — Pianist
James Dunham — Violist
Michael Mermagen — Cellist
Program notes
An evening of exceptional chamber music awaits you at the 2025 Aspen Music Festival and School, featuring the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, conductor Timothy Weiss, and a lineup of chamber experts in the thought-provoking Ship of State by Stephen Hartke, "one of the most distinctive and important living composers" (New York Times)! This acclaimed 2017 chamber concerto, which takes up the age-old metaphor of the state as a ship navigating stormy seas, is written for piano and no fewer than 20 other performers. The program continues with two more beloved works: Gabriel Fauré's supremely elegant Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor, melancholy and measured; and Robert Schumann's passionate Piano Quartet in E-flat, one of the high Romantic pinnacles of chamber music writing.

