Conductor

AMFS artist-faculty, all top musicians from renowned orchestras, opera companies, and conservatories, come together to play their favorite chamber music works. Always a joyful and creative 75 minutes of music-making.

EPSG:4326

Chamber Music 2024 Concert 8

Aspen Meadows Resort

Longtime faculty member and clarinet virtuoso Joaquín Valdepeñas conducts top wind students. The program opens with Richard Strauss’s lyrical and melodious Serenade, composed when he was only 17. British composer William Alwyn was also an accomplished conductor and flutist, who showcased his instrument in a 1980 concerto inspired by memories of his youth. In Alwyn’s words, the work “came (to me) like recollections of joy once experienced. I just wanted to write a piece of musical beauty." The program concludes with the Swiss Romantic composer Raff’s sunny and technically brilliant Sinfonietta. Raff was the first composer to use the term to describe a work in several movements similar to a symphony, but shorter and lighter in content. Hear top students in a delightful program of rarities for wind ensemble!

Wind Orchestra Recital 2024 Concert 2

Michael Klein Music Tent

Chamber Music 2024 Concert 6

Longtime Aspen alumni artists curate bespoke programs to share music, reminiscences, and stories of their decades in Aspen.

Anniversary Reminiscences Program: Gil Shaham violin and Adele Anthony violin

In 2024, the Aspen Music Festival and School celebrates its 75th anniversary season.The premier training ground for hundreds of the worlds' most talented young musicians, the AMFS presents hundreds of events during the Festival, which runs June 26 to August 18, 2024. To learn more and for a full season calendar, including daily free events, visit aspenmusicfestival.com/events or contact the AMFS Box Office at 970-925-9042. Tickets on sale in April.

AMFS: Wind Orchestra Recital

Klein Music Tent

Faculty artist Joaquín Valdepeñas conducts top students in Russian composer Edison Denisov’s adventurous 1961 piece for eleven wind instruments and timpani, followed by Mozart’s sublime Serenade for 13 Winds known as the “Gran Partita.” It’s one of the composer’s most beloved works in any genre and undoubtedly one of the greatest masterpieces ever written for wind band. In Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus, the character Salieri gives a vivid and emotional description of the adagio movement, saying” "On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse - bassoons and basset horns - like a rusty squeezebox. Then suddenly - high above it - an oboe, a single note, hanging there unwavering, till a clarinet took over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I'd never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me that I was hearing a voice of God."

Wind Orchestra Recital 2024 Concert 1

Chamber Music

Some of the most accomplished young musicians and promising stars from around the world are showcased in this student-only wind orchestra performance. 

Joaquín Valdepeñas

Conductor

Events

Past events

Aug 17, 2024

Chamber Music 2024 Concert 8 · Aspen Music Festival

Aug 6, 2024

Wind Orchestra Recital 2024 Concert 2 · Aspen Music Festival

Future and recently performed repertoire

Conductor in Serenade No. 11 by Mozart

Aspen Music Festival

Conductor in Serenade No. 10 (Gran Partita) by Mozart

Aspen Music Festival

Conductor in Symphonies of Wind Instruments by Stravinsky

Aspen Music Festival

Conductor in Wind Octet in E-flat major by Beethoven

Aspen Music Festival

Conductor in Octandre by Varèse

Aspen Music Festival

Conductor in Music for Eleven Wind Instruments and Timpani by Denisov

Aspen Chamber Resort Association

Clarinet in Clarinet Quintet in A major by Mozart

Aspen Music Festival

Conductor in Serenade in E-flat major by Strauss

Aspen Music Festival

Conductor in Sinfonietta by Raff

Aspen Music Festival

Clarinet in Clarinet Quintet in B minor by Brahms

Aspen Music Festival

Conductor in Concerto for Flute and Eight Wind Instruments by Alwyn

Aspen Music Festival

Conductor in Wind Serenade in B-flat major by Mozart

Aspen Chamber Resort Association

About

Joaquín Valdepeñas hasn't added a bio