Classical music, intimate atmosphere | Arts and entertainment

The High Country Sinfonia will conduct its 2024 Fall Concert Series with two concerts taking place on Friday and Sunday in Aspen and Carbondale. The ensemble includes Aspen High School graduate Kurt Kowar, who will also perform as a soloist.

Friday’s concert will be at Christ Episcopal Church in Aspen at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday’s show will be at River Valley Ranch Old Thompson Barn in Carbondale at 4 p.m. Both concerts are free for the Aspen Music Festival and School and Kinhaven Music School to attend, with a suggested donation of $20 per person to support the orchestra’s operating costs and its mission to provide music to the Roaring Fork Valley .

The High Country Sinfonia is a professional, musician-led chamber orchestra founded in 2015 by Wendy Larson, a musician, teacher and conductor in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley. Larson recruited local musicians to form the all-volunteer group to rehearse and perform works from the classical string orchestra literature.

The Sinfonia has performed a wide range of music, from the Renaissance to the present, from Matthew Locke to Piazzolla – with Bach, Mozart, Debussy, Elgar, Holst, Britten and many others in between.

Invited guests and members performed solo works with the Sinfonia, including works for solo voice, piano, organ, trumpet, cello and violin. The Sinfonia has also collaborated with other groups, including two longstanding local organizations, the Aspen Choral Society and Symphony in the Valley.

This weekend’s series will be the 16th in HCS history. According to a press release, the ensemble’s goal is to “provide high-quality, intimate concerts that engage and inspire audiences of all ages and enrich the Roaring Fork Valley community with accessible performances of diverse classical music.”

A highlight of this weekend’s program will be Kowar’s solo performance of Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33.”

“This will be Kurt’s first concert performance with the Sinfonia,” Larson said. “Tchaikovsky’s piece is a virtuoso piece that demonstrates his technical ability and highlights his maturity as a player.”

Kowar has been a member of the local music community since he was seven years old. Kowar’s first instrument was the piano, which he began playing at the age of 5. He attended the Colorado Suzuki Institute in 2017, was a student in the PALS program at the Aspen Music Festival, and was a member of the Roaring Fork Youth Orchestra from 2014 to 2019.

Kowar began playing with the High Country Sinfonia in 2021 and attended the Kinhaven Music School in Vermont in the summer of 2022 and the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina in 2023, where he studied and performed cello for six weeks.

In the summer of 2024, Kurt attended the Aspen Music Festival and School and studied with Professor Richard Aaron.

When asked about his future goals with the cello, Kowar replied: “I want to attend a music school or a conservatory with the ultimate goal of becoming a soloist and traveling the world playing the cello.”

The fall program also includes JS Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto No. 6” and Antonin Dvorak’s “Serenade for Strings.”

HCS’s goal is to produce accessible and intimate performances. To encourage interaction between musicians and audience, there will be a reception after each concert with light refreshments provided by Local Spirits and Paradise Bakery.