Funding for this program has been provided by the FS Foundati bringing together adults of all abilities and backgrounds as they pursue passion, prosperi and purpose.

Linda and Alvaro Pascotto the Carol Franc Buck Foundation in memory of Carol Franc Buck.

Additional support provided by these funders.

The repertoire that we're presenting this week is really exciting and and keeps us on our toes for sure.

For instance, Schubert's work was really, really innovative at the time for sort of being a precursor to romanticism.

And he wrote this incredible symphony when he was a teenager.

He wrote the piece when he was 18 years old.

Early in his life, he only lived to be 37, I believe.

So he didn't live a very long life anyway, but he was a very transitional character who wasn't really acknowledged much during his life.

And most of his symphonies weren't even published during his life.

So this third symphony, I believe, was not published until after he passed away.

And it was afterwards that other composers looked at his works and said, This is really genius.

And then he developed notoriety as one of the great composers that ever lived.

He, like Beethoven, started out at the tail end of the classical era.

So when music was really almost for the court or for, you know, as background music, and then they took it into Beethoven leading into Schubert and then to others like Mendelssohn and then coming on to Rachmaninoff.

That was more of the romantic era.

So you hear changes in the expressivity of the music This is still very innocent, melodious, happy, lighthearted music.

We had to be extremely virtuosic but still in this heightened, refined classical style, almost as though we were playing chamber music, but with 30 or 40 musicians on stage.

And so you can hear classical music in it.

You can hear the lines and the way the writing happens is you'll have, the clarinet will start a melody then the flute will finish the melody or repeat it, or then they'll have it together like they're dancing together.

And so not only do I get to I get treated because I get to hear them play that.

But it's bringing to life that music that at one point was really not even acknowledged.

Meeting Isabel Leonard I remember watching her maybe ten years ago with my kids when she was on Sesame Street and it was Meet the People in Your Neighborhood.

And here was this opera singer from the Met.

And she's elegant and beautiful and funny and and bilingual in Spanish and in English.

And I just thought, I wonder if she's really like that.

This is a great venue.

It's easy to sing in, which is wonderful because a lot of times you get nervous when you're outside.

You don't know what's going to happen to your sound and whether you're going to get your sound back at all and which, you know, allows you not to stress.

So this is wonderful.

Literally, she's been starring all summer at Santa Fe Opera.

She came up to do one show this weekend.

These short trips, especially over the summer, are definitely one of a kind.

You know, it's not as usual.

You'll bounce around so much, especially climatewise.

Literally flew with, I think, her ball gown or her her costume in a, in a-- a carry on bag.

From Vail to Denver.

Denver to Reno, Reno to Tahoe, yeah.

She came to rehearsal, was completely relaxed.

It's like seeing your family, you know, which is nice.

So when I came in today and saw everybody, you know, was like, oh, hi, hi, hi!

How are you?

And some of my friends that work at San Francisco and, you know, we tend to after many years, you tend to know people in various places.

And so it's nice because it gives you a sense of belonging every time you travel.

Now, remember, we're in the middle of the Sierra Nevada.

This is such high altitude.

She didn't miss a note, a beat and anything.

She's such a pro.

So going from Santa Fe to Denver actually felt okay.

And then I felt it a little bit in Vail, and then -- I feel fine -- altitude wise.

I feel great actually here.

So the dryness, I can I can feel it.

But you just you just drink a lot of water and hope for the best... (laughs) ...really.

She was every bit a Sesame Street character and star, a mega opera star, And then this completely cool mom that showed up with her 11 year old to perform here in between starring at Santa Fe Opera.

So that, that was, that was a delight.

You know, most of the time when somebody gets to see Isabel Leonard, you're probably in the nosebleed section of some three or five thousand person opera house.

And here there wasn't a seat that's more than 17 rows.

So you saw every breath, every facial expression, every wink, she performs with sarcasm and humor.

And that's what makes Classical Tahoe so unique, is the intimacy of our venue, that you can see all of those moments so up close.

The piece that I'm most looking to presenting this summer is Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet Suite.

It's one of Prokofiev's best known, some of his best known music.

This story has been used by so many, including Bernstein, with his West Side Story.

Prokofiev, of course, came before and Tchaikovsky before him.

So we have this lineage of composers who have wanted to take this extraordinary love story and this tragedy to music, and in this case, also in terms of dance as a ballet.

That's actually the piece of music that introduced me to the violin and to orchestral playing.

I was maybe six years old and my parents took me to a Minnesota Orchestra concert since I'm originally from Minneapolis and there was a Tchaikovsky violin concerto on the first half and Prokofiev on the second half.

And I was just I was just immediately transfixed with the sound of the strings and the violins in the in the the Montagues and Capulets and I and I remember I tugged my moms sleeve and I said, You can play the violin for a job?

And I said, I want to do that!

Because it was so successful.

He decided he would create three suites that sometimes get performed together.

But it's a lot of music and so a lot of conductors like myself, we create our own collection of suites.

I am presenting basically my own selection and also order in which I think some of these movements can, can function.

Very dramatic with a range of expression featuring all the instruments, including a saxophone.

We're going to have a saxophonist, we're going to have several saxophonists with us.

So we start with this movement called Montagues and Capulets, which of course introduce you to the two warring families.

And when I first heard this opening live as a boy, it just blew me away because you could tell the extraordinary power and the fierceness and also the tragedy that we're about to witness.

I mean, that is the power also that Prokofiev has, to get that kind of startling sound out of an orchestra.

And anyone who is going to be there right in front, you know, they're going to have this moment where they're going to hold onto their seats.

Then this whole story unfolds of the posing of the two families.

Hey, you know, we're we're great you know, what are you doing in our neighborhood?

That kind of a thing.

And this whole thing starts.

We have six movements that go from this introduction of the two families to having the masks here, where, where Romeo and Juliet meet.

Everybody's dancing and being at the carnival and then the balcony scene, of course, where he's there.

of him, and, you know, and we hear everything, all the details of him trying to climb up, you know, you know, these effects that that Prokofiev creates.

And and she's saying, no, no, no, don't come up here.

My parents will hear, you know, all these kinds of things.

And then, of course, the love scene, the embrace.

And then also at the very end, you know, we have this big fight of Tybalt that we hear.

So this fighting scene where we hear the swords clashing and all of that.

Many people end with that because it's sort of a big, nice ending.

But I make sure that I add the last movement of the tragedy of, of, you know, the two of them really finding death because the other is found seemingly dead.

And to me, it's sure that we kind of end the story.

We don't always need to have a happy ending, but it teaches us something.

So, you know, this is the Prokofiev in its mastery that still to this day sounds extremely modern.

Funding for this program has been provided by the FS Foundati bringing together adults of all abilities and backgrounds as they pursue passion, prosperi and purpose.

Linda and Alvaro Pascotto the Carol Franc Buck Foundation in memory of Carol Franc Buck.

Additional support provided by these funders.