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Michael Fine's 'Chamber Symphony' has world premiere at Colorado College Summer Music Festival / Colorado Springs Gazette

Radar on. Six incoming entities detected. Alert! It's the annual contemporary chamber-music program in Packard Hall at the Colorado College Summer Music Festival. In a classical-musical world dominated by DWEMCs (Dead White European Male Composers), this concert's compositions were penned by five composers who are alive and thriving. The prevailing sentiment is that such a concert wouldn't be of much interest. But more audience engagement was apparent at this fourth of five festival-artist concerts than at any other presented at this festival.

Gran Turismo by the 1979-born Andrew Norman commenced festivities with the wildest ride of the evening. This work for eight violins, composed in 2003, explores the intersection of contemporary art and video games. The animation and energy was provided by Scott Yoo, Stefan Hersh, Andrew Wan, Stephen Rose, Steven Copes and festival fellows Julia Mirzoev, Russell Iceberg and Katelyn Emery.

The more conventional Chamber Symphony by Michael Fine had its world premiere next. The performers were Alice Dade, flute; Elizabeth Koch, oboe; Anton Rist, clarinet; festival fellow Alec Manasse; bass clarinet, Michael Thornton, horn; Kevin Cobb, trumpet; Tonya Jilling, harp; Steven Copes, violin; Virginia Barron, viola; David Ying, cello; Susan Cahill, bass; and Scott Yoo, conductor.

At first overloading the limited sound envelope of Packard Hall, Yoo settled the ensemble so the positive light and sweetness of this thickly textured composition was easy to discern. These great musicians shared their excitement at making musical history by using their intelligence and virtuosity to fully honor the composer's vision.

The work was in four movements. The first was a beachhead for the hopefulness, homophony and lyricism that dominated throughout; the second channeled the neoclassical spirit of Stravinsky toward a vision of a better place (Fine was contending with his wife's severe illness when he composed this); the third was a waltz-like expression with some particularly brilliant sounds produced by Kevin Cobb; and the fourth a culmination of what had gone before, with a dose of Disney wonder splashed in for good measure.

The musicians' absolute trust in one another to make this new music shine was a marvel to behold.

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