Mahlerfest 38

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MahlerFest 38 is a celebration of defiance, protest, resistance, and remembrance through music. This year’s festival is centered around Mahler’s Sixth Symphony—a work that embodies the struggle against inevitable fate with courage and determination. From its thunderous hammer blows to its soaring themes, the symphony is a powerful tribute to those who fight against all odds, whether on the battlefield, in moments of personal adversity, or through acts of quiet defiance. The festival’s lineup explores this theme across a range of musical expressions, from Viktor Ullmann’s darkly satirical opera The Emperor of Atlantis, written in the Theresienstadt internment camp, to Erwin Schulhoff’s String Sextet, infused with the energy of protest and the aftermath of war. Through these works, MahlerFest 38 offers a reflection on art’s ability to inspire, commemorate, and push back against despair.

The festival also showcases a rich and diverse repertoire beyond Mahler, including Bohuslav Martinu’s Memorial to Lidice, a poignant tribute to a Czech town destroyed during World War II, and William Grant Still’s Dismal Swamp, a moving musical journey from oppression to freedom. Korngold’s triumphant Symphony in F-sharp, written as a post-war statement of hope and gratitude, highlights the weekend’s orchestral offerings. Alongside these major symphonic works, MahlerFest 38 will feature a protest song recital, an adventurous chamber music program, and a late night folk/roots music performance. With these bold offerings, we invite audiences to experience the indomitable spirit of music and its enduring power to illuminate the human experience, even in the darkest times.

Opening Night: Death Goes on Strike

Wednesday, May 14, 7:30 PM

Mountain View United Methodist Church

https://mahlerfest.org/event/death-takes-a-vacation/

ULLMANN | Der Kaiser von Atlantis oder Die Tod-Verweigerung

Viktor Ullmann, a German-speaking, Austro-Hungarian Jew like Mahler, wrote this satirical opera while imprisoned in the Theresienstadt ghetto. Ullmann was later killed in Auschwitz, but the manuscript was saved by the camp’s librarian who survived the war. The opera is a thinly veiled satire of Hitler in which Death is fed up with facilitating a government founded on perpetual war and murder and so goes on strike. But what happens to the living when there is no death?

Songs of Protest and Resistance

Thursday, May 15, 3 PM

Canyon Theater at the Boulder Public Library

https://mahlerfest.org/event/protest-and-defiance/

MAHLER | “Revelge” – Reveille (July 1899)

SAWYERS | Songs of Loss and Regret

MAHLER | “Der Tamboursg’sell” – The Drummer Boy (August 1901)

MAHLER | “Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen” – Where the Fair Trumpets Sound

SCHUBERT | Kriegers Ahnung – Warrior’s Foreboding

SHOSTAKOVICH | “Réponse des Cosaques Zaporogues au Sultan de Constantinople” from Symphony No. 14 – Response of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Sultan of Constantinople

MAHLER | “Lob des hohen Verstandes” – Praise of Lofty Intellect (June 1896)

From the battle cry of “La Marseillaise” in the French Revolution to the unforgettable strains of “We Shall Overcome” in the Civil Rights era, when we raise our voices in the most important protests, we do so in song. From Mahler’s damning indictments of the futility of war and insanity of monarchy to Shostakovich’s profane denunciation of Stalin in his 14th Symphony, our assembled team of world-class singers presents an afternoon of song like no other.

Chamber Music: Determination & Defiance

Friday, May 16, 7 PM

Roots Music Project

https://mahlerfest.org/event/determination-defiance/

SCHULHOFF | String Sextet

SHOSTAKOVICH | String Quartet No. 7 in F-sharp minor, Op. 108

BLOCH | Suite No. 3 for Solo Cello
WALKER | Raise the Roof!
McKEE | Escape

Erwin Schulhoff, a talented Austro-Czech composer in the generation after Mahler, fought in World War I and incorporated jazz in his compositions as the ultimate protest music of the 1920s. Dmitri Shostakovich, similarly defiant, used recurrent themes and sharp transitions to capture the tightening of a society closing in on itself in his String Quartet No. 7.

Rhythm, Roots, & Resonance

Friday, May 16, 9 PM

Roots Music Project

https://mahlerfest.org/event/rhythm-roots-resonance/

Jones/Butterfield Duo

The Jones/Butterfield Duo is returning to MahlerFest after participating in the festival in 2018. The duo performs music that is informed by a collective study of roots, jazz, rock, and classical practices, as well as various world music traditions.

MahlerFest 38 Symposium

Saturday, May 17, 10 AM – 3 PM

Roots Music Project

https://mahlerfest.org/event/mf38-symposium/

Mahler’s Judaism: Understanding Mahler’s Music Through a Jewish Lens

Kalanit-Liat Chalstrom, Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Arizona

Plotting a New Pathway to an Unknown Peak: Hiking the Andante moderato of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony

Marilyn McCoy, Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University

William Grant Still’s Dismal Swamp: Origins and Background

Leah Claiborne, Author of Expanding the Repertoire: The Music of Black Composers

The Music of Diaspora – in Four Perspectives

Ryan Hugh Ross, Author of Julius Bürger: Composer – Conductor – Vocal Coach

Celebrating Peace

Saturday, May 17, 7:30 PM

Macky Auditorium

https://mahlerfest.org/event/celebrating-peace/

PRITCHARD | Seven Halts on the Somme, Concerto for Trumpet and Strings

MAHLER | Totenfeier

KORNGOLD | Symphony in F-sharp, Op. 40

Pritchard’s concerto is based on paintings by Hughie O’Donoghue depicting the seven locations where Allied and German forces endured one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War.  Korngold, who attended Mahler’s rehearsals as a child and whom Mahler referred to as a “musical genius,” refused to write concert music while Hitler was in power. After the war, he composed his violin concerto and his only symphony, a celebration of peace and hope for the future, which he dedicated to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Resistance

Sunday, May 18, 3:30 PM

Macky Auditorium

https://mahlerfest.org/event/resistance/

MARTINU | Memorial to Lidice

STILL | Dismal Swamp

MAHLER | Symphony No. 6 in A-minor

Where there is resistance, there is hope. Of all of Mahler’s symphonic protagonists, it is the hero of his Sixth who fights the most bravely, even when all hope seems lost. Similarly, when Hitler’s forces massacred almost the entire population of the Czech town Lidice, Martinu raised his voice in symphonic protest, ensuring that the victims would never be forgotten. And in pre-Civil War America, enslaved Americans built their own path to freedom through the perilous territory of the Dismal Swamp.