Summer arts extravaganza

   The Colorado College Summer Music Festival will enter new territory Sunday and Monday when soprano Measha Brueggergosman, a quartet of vocal soloists, the Colorado Vocal Arts Ensemble and the festival's student orchestra conducted by Scott Yoo christen the Cornerstone Arts Theater with performances of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Barber's "Knoxville: Summer of 1915."

   Locally, the 451-seat theater is the largest new professional performing arts space since the Pikes Peak Center opened in 1984. But the theater has national significance: It's one of the first in the country with acoustics that can be electronically "tuned" for any kind of situation, so that a lecture or a play or a concert will all be equally effective.

   It's an innovative way to deal with the realities of tight budgets and audiences that are growing slowly - where they aren't shrinking. 

   "New halls will have to be built, and old halls refurbished, but colleges and communities are going to be loathe to dedicate money for facilities that are just for live acoustic music or theater," said David Sckolnik, marketing consultant for this summer's festival. "Here, with a flick of a switch, you can turn a relatively dead acoustic into Carnegie Hall. It's frightening, and it's genius."

   Sckolnik said to expect to be amazed by the student orchestra.

   "They're all on scholarship," Sckolnik said. "The festival is getting the hottest talent in the country. And these kids are so hungry for the music and so inspired by Scott."

   Despite all that, Sckolnik said the most intriguing presence may be Brueggergosman, the African-Canadian soprano who will perform Barber's lyrical masterpiece before continuing on to the Aspen Music Festival.

   "She's about the hottest thing going in the singing world right now," Sckolnik said. "Gramophone magazine went nuts over her latest CD. She is at the very top of her game."

   And of course there are the faculty concerts, featuring musicians from such organizations as the American Brass Quintet, the Cleveland Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the faculty of the Juilliard and Eastman schools of music.

   The new big name is pianist Jon Nakamatsu, gold medalist at the 1997 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, who recently recorded the Brahms Clarinet Sonatas with longtime festival favorite Jon Manasse.

   Local pianophiles are well acquainted with the man who finished second to Nakamatsu: Yakov Kasman has given several Packard Hall recitals. But Sckolnik said what puts these concerts in the top rank of chamber music experiences is the faculty camaraderie that festival organizer and pianist Susan Grace has cultivated over the years, and the cozy venue at Packard Hall.

   "I've been to the chamber music festivals in Aspen, Vail and Santa Fe," Sckolnik said. "The artists there are on a par with ours, but the experience for the audience is so different. There, it's so cold and detached. Here, we're right in the musicians' laps."

   The Summer Music Festival is just the first of four major summer festivals at Colorado College. It will be followed by Extraordinary Dance (June 30-July 18), the New Music Symposium (July 10-13), and the Colorado Vocal Arts Symposium (July 20-Aug. 8), as well as numerous other arts events.

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FESTIVAL ARTIST CONCERTS

3 p.m. Sunday, music by Bax, Ginastera, Bartók, Schumann and Raff; 7:30 p.m. Thursday, music by Biber, Messiaen, Chopin, Piazzolla, Ligeti, and Hindemith; 7:30 p.m. June 25, music by Jennifer Higdon, Henry Cowell, Jacob Druckman, Jeffrey Rathbun, William Bolcom, Kenji Bunch, and Paul Schoenfield; 3 p.m. June 29, music by Françaix, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Saint-Saëns and Taneyev

FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA CONCERTS, SCOTT YOO CONDUCTING

7:30 p.m. Sunday (dress rehearsal, $5) and Monday, Barber's "Knoxville: Summer of 1915," with soprano Measha Brueggergosman, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, with soprano Margaret Fuller Simpson, mezzo soprano Shannon Magee, tenor Brian Stinar, bass Ashraf Sewailam, and the Colorado Vocal Arts Ensemble; 3 p.m. June 22, music by Stravinsky, Brahms and Tchaikovsky, with violinist Steven Copes; 10:30 a.m. June 19, Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf"; 7:30 p.m. July 1, music by Ravel, Walton and Shostakovich, with violist Toby Appel

STUDENT CHAMBER EVENTS

Music at Midday, 12:15 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and June 20, 23, 25, 27 and 30; Honors Concert, 7:30 p.m. June 30; Concerto Readings, 3 p.m. Saturday and June 28

COLORADO COLLEGE SUMMER MUSIC FESTIVAL

When: Now through July 1

Where: Orchestra concerts at the Cornerstone Arts Center, 825 N. Cascade Ave.; other concerts at Packard Hall, 5 W. Cache La Poudre St.

Tickets: Festival Orchestra Concerts $20; Festival Artist Concerts $25; 1-866-464-2626 or ticketswest.com. Free admission to Music at Midday, Honors Concert and Concerto Readings.