“After a quiet 2020 amid the novel coronavirus pandemic and the historic cancellation of last summer’s in-person season, the Aspen Music Festival and School on Thursday announced a 52-day, 150-event lineup for July and August,” writes Andrew Travers in Thursday’s (4/8) Aspen Times (Colorado). “With vaccines continuing to roll out, virus cases declining and public health restrictions loosening, the Aspen institution’s slate of summer concerts will return for its 72nd anniversary season. ‘We’re very excited,’ festival president and CEO Alan Fletcher said Wednesday…. ‘And we are monitoring, hour by hour, what health rules and best practices are.…’ ” The festival opens on July 1 and closes on Aug. 22, “with well-known works from the repertoire along with rarer pieces and music by living composers…. New initiatives including a robust season-long program featuring works by composers who identify as AMELIA (Africa-American, Middle Eastern, Latin, Indigenous, and Asian) resulting from a multi-year internal process at the festival evaluating diversity, equity and inclusion.… Hosting smaller, distanced orchestras this summer means the festival couldn’t program larger works … and could not program anything with a chorus. But all of Beethoven’s symphonies … were doable (four are scheduled).”
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