Spiritual influences season Angel Fire’s classical menu
Music From Angel Fire is celebrating its 35th season with Mozart, Mirabal and Bernstein.
Taos Pueblo flutist Robert Mirabal will open the series on Friday, Aug. 17, at Taos Center for the Arts with a performance with festival artistic director Ida Kavafian and Haram Kim on violin, Steven Tenenbom on viola and Arlen Hlusko on cello.
“He’s been with our festival in the past,” Kavafian said of Mirabal. “He’s so supportive, and he has a so-different and spiritual outlook on music.”
The 35th season will honor Mozart with his six string quintets for violins, viola and cello. The composer lived to be just 35.
“Mozart was the first composer who wrote for that combination,” Kavafian said. “He played the viola and often played the second viola on these pieces. They were very special pieces to him.”
Composer-in-residence Andrea Clearfield will premiere a new piece called “Earth Door/Sky Door” at the Angel Fire Community Center on Aug. 22.
“She’s writing it now, so we’ll see it in about a week or so,” Kavafian said. “She’s very influenced by Tibetan music, Buddhist music. Between that and Robert Mirabal, it’s going to be a nice balance to all the classical stuff.”
Taos residents will hear the piece the next night at Taos Center for the Arts.
Music From Angel Fire will honor the centenary of Leonard Bernstein on Aug. 25, again at the Taos Center for the Arts.
“He didn’t write that much chamber music, but I wanted to pay tribute to his birthday,” Kavafian said. “It’s the exact date.”
Kavafian and University of New Mexico piano professor Pamela Pyle will play a recent arrangement of selections from “West Side Story,” including “I Feel Pretty,” “Somewhere” and “America.”
A professor who teaches both violin and chamber music at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, Kavafian brings many of her students to perform in the series, as well as her colleagues.
“One of our mainstay musicians calls it ‘Summer camp for adults’,” she said. “We cook together, we hang out together and of course we rehearse. We go on dog hikes together. We feel (like) they’re our second family.”