Colorado College Summer Music Festival begins

Tuesday through June 29, Packard Hall, 5 W. Cache La Poudre St., and Cornerstone Arts Center, 825 N. Cascade Ave., Colorado College, some free concerts, others $25-$30; 389-6000, ticketswest.com, colorado college.edu

For 20 days in June, Colorado College becomes an epicenter of classical music.

With its mix of faculty and student chamber music and Festival Orchestra concerts, CC's Summer Music Festival routinely wows audiences that pack into campus venues.

As usual, the 49 scholarship students will be comprised of almost all first time attendees. Many of the same faculty will be back from last season, but there are two very notable additions.

After being away for 12 years, violinist Frank Almond, the concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony, will be back for the first half of the festival.He made international headlines in January when his 1715 Lipinski Stradivarius was stolen and then recovered. His good friend violinist Stefan Hersh returns after an absence of two years.

Festival music director Susan Grace brings in Steven Beck, her partner from the piano duo Quattro Mani, to perform Mozart's great 'Concerto K. 365' for the festival's concluding concert on June 29.

Grace programmed Debussy's exquisite 'Sonata for flute, viola and harp' for the June 28 faculty chamber music concert. She phoned violinist/violist Toby Appel, a festival regular who is on faculty at the Juilliard School, to help make the performance possible.

'I said 'I'm looking for a harpist. Do you think there's any chance Nancy Allen might be in the area?''

Allen, one the world's great harpists, is the principal for the New York Philharmonic and also teaches at the Juilliard.

'He just calls her up. She has the date open and will fly in the day before and fly out the day after,' said Grace. 'Peer to peer. That's the best way.'

David Sckolnik, Special to The Gazette

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