Performance Today®

Susanna Malkki was the only woman in her conducting class in Helsinki ten years ago, but she doesn't want to talk about being a female conductor. Malkki says "If I forget about it then others may forget about it too." Malkki led the BBC Symphony Orchestra last month at the BBC Proms in London, in a lean and rhythmically-charged performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 4.

Karen Geoghegan was 19 years old, and bored. So she signed up to take part in "Classical Star," a TV talent show for young classical musicians in England. As a bassoonist, her expectations were low...but to her surprise she made the final round, and came in second during a live national TV broadcast. She's become something of a celebrity in the UK, she has a record contract, and three weeks ago made her debut at the big summer music festival in London, the Proms. We'll hear the now 21 year-old Karen Geoghegan give a knockout performance of Mozart's Bassoon Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

It could be "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in the style of Claude Debussy. Or "Somewhere over the Rainbow" in the style of Beethoven. Every week, composer Bruce Adolphe takes a familiar tune and re-writes it in the style of a classical composer. See if you can guess the hidden tune, and the composer whose style Bruce is imitating.

Alan Fletcher is President and CEO of the Aspen Music Festival, and he's a composer. He used to think novelists were silly when they would say "my characters speak to me." But then Fletcher noticed that the concerto he was working on seemed to take on a life of its own, and he felt himself observing and even assisting the piece, rather than merely composing it. This week's 21st century work is the Clarinet Concerto by Alan Fletcher, from a concert at the 2009 Aspen Music Festival and School.

The big venue at the Aspen Music Festival is a Teflon-coated fiberglass tent, hardy enough to withstand Rocky Mountain winters. We'll hear a couple of summer 2009 concerts under the Benedict Music Tent: violinist Adele Anthony and pianist Inon Barnatan (EE-nohn BARN-a-tun) play the Violin Sonata by Cesar Franck. And Andrey Boreyko leads the Aspen Chamber Symphony in Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8, the "Unfinished" Symphony. We'll also talk with some of the locals who like to sit outside the tent, and listen to concerts under the Rocky Mountain sky.

It could be "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in the style of Claude Debussy. Or "Somewhere over the Rainbow" in the style of Beethoven. Every week, composer Bruce Adolphe takes a familiar tune and re-writes it in the style of a classical composer. See if you can guess the hidden tune, and the composer whose style Bruce is imitating.

Our week of highlights from the Aspen Music Festival and School continues with Music Director David Zinman talking about the mysterious art of conducting. (Zinman compares conducting to being a traffic cop and to riding a horse, and adds that you must be the "conscience of the orchestra," and in the end, the conductor must "BE the music.") Zinman talks the talk, and walks the walk - we'll hear him conduct the Aspen Festival Orchestra in Dvorak's rollicking Carnival Overture. And the Takacs Quartet plays Robert Schumann's A-Major Quartet.

There are so many venues to choose from in Aspen: the big white tent, the cozy underground concert hall, the historic opera house, the top of the mountain. We'll sample music from nearly all the Aspen venues as we begin a week-long celebration of the Aspen Music Festival and School. We'll hear from the 2009 opening concert by pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin, an all-star performance of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, featuring violinist Gil Shaham and conductor Nicholas McGegan. And we'll take the gondola to the top of Aspen Mountain to hear from an outdoor concert under the Rocky Mountain sky featuring a student brass quintet.

While he was composing it, the working title for one of Aaron Copland's most beloved works was simply, "Ballet for Martha." Martha was Martha Graham, and just before it premiered, the ballet got its name, "Appalachian Spring." We'll hear music from "Appalachian Spring" on today's show, courtesy of the Marlboro Music School and Festival in the southern hills of Vermont.