In Saturday’s (7/23) Denver Post, Kyle MacMillan writes, “A little more than a year ago, the Aspen Music Festival and School was in crisis. Its music director had abruptly resigned, and its embattled administrative head had been fired and then rehired a month later, setting off ugly rancor among the 62-year-old organization’s board, faculty and management. But as the classical festival and summer school enters the fifth week of its annual eight-week summer season, virtually everyone connected with the event agrees that emotions have cooled and it is again moving in a positive direction. … Among the reasons is an effort by Alan Fletcher, the festival’s chief executive, to give faculty members a bigger voice in how things are run and the willingness of many of them to set aside differences for the good of the festival. But the biggest change was the March appointment of Robert Spano, 50, as music director, a position that formally begins in 2012. He holds the same post with the Atlanta Symphony and is a professor of conducting at the Oberlin (Ohio) Conservatory of Music. Faculty and administrators credit his approachable ways and openness for making the festival a warmer place.”
Posted July 25, 2011
