Expect to see stars at the Sierra Summer Festival

In the midst of the 2015 Perseid meteor shower, the Sierra Summer Festival showcases musical stars in two orchestral concerts Friday and Saturday, Aug. 13 and 14.

The programming is heavenly, starting with a concert Friday night at 8 p.m. in St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. Conductor Emeritus Bogidar Avramov leads the Sierra Summer Festival Orchestra in Mozart’s Overture to the opera “The Marriage of Figaro,” Mozart’s Flute Concerto, and Mendelssohn’s joyful 4th Symphony.

Edwin Outwater, the prestigious young conductor who regularly leads the Chicago and New World symphonies, conducts Saturday night’s performance of Haydn’s Symphony 102, Ligeti’s Concerto Romanesque and Beethoven’s remarkable Violin Concerto.

Both concerts feature soloists who have won the Horton-Kohl Young Artists Award. Messrs. Horton and Kohl are from Los Angeles and believe in giving high-school-age musicians the opportunity to play a complete concerto with an actual orchestra.

This experience is rare for a kid, says Festival Director Aimee Kreston. “Usually it’s just a movement.” Here, the young soloists play all the movements, paying attention to pacing, dynamics, and the entire work.

Roger Justo, 17, is the flutist award winner for 2015. He plays the Mozart flute concerto.

Geneva Lewis, also 17, is already an experienced soloist. She’s won several violin competitions, including the ENKOR, one of a new breed of competitions based entirely on a video performance and judged by an international panel of 100 judges. Geneva is the violin soloist in the much-loved Beethoven Violin Concerto.

Kreston’s vision is to have “young, extremely talented people sitting next to seasoned pros” in the orchestra. “Kids can make years of progress in one week,” she says.

In addition to having the time to explore details and spread out into the music, the musicians are here in the mountains.

“It’s a very different feeling here in Mammoth,” Kreston says. “Fresh air and space. It helps the music somehow.” Besides, so many of the works they play were written in the mountains.

This festival orchestra is composed of local musicians and both professional and youth musicians from Southern California. The age range runs from nine to 80, which aligns with the fascinating aspect of musical generations, in which a student of nine can be learning from a teacher of 80, whose teacher had a similar experience. “You look at the teachers and realize that Mozart, for instance is only four generations away from someone studying now,” Kreston says.

Kreston is pleased to note that music is coming back into education. Whereas President Obama championed the educational STEM method, which calls for an emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math in educating people for global leadership, educators are now incorporating STEAM lessons, which add the very important arts back into the mix.

It’s not all music. Kimberlea Daggy, one of LA’s most popular classical music hosts, gives fascinating pre-concert talks for both concerts (Thursday and Friday at 2 p.m. at St. Joseph’s). In Friday’s talk, she’ll give a glimpse of the composers and what was going on in their lives at the time they wrote the works to be performed—where they were, how they were inspired to compose the music. Pre-concert lectures enhance the enjoyment of the music and provide context for the pieces.

In this 36th year of the Sierra Summer Festival’s orchestra concerts, Kreston implores Mammoth to build its performing arts center. “This town has everything but that. You can be a cultural destination. It’s a thought that resonates with many.”

Tickets are available online at sierrasummerfestival.org/tickets.