- [Narrator] Funding for this program has been provided by the FS Foundation, bringing together adults of all abilities and backgrounds as they pursue passion, prosperity and purpose.

Linda and Alvaro Pascotto.

(somber music) The Carol Franc Buck Foundation.

(somber music) Additional support provided by these funders.

(gentle music) - Music is not peripheral to our lives.

Music is absolutely essential.

It's in the center.

- Classical Tahoe started in 2012 we're a three week classical music festival takes place on the campus of Sierra Nevada University.

Some of the finest musicians in the world have made Lake Tahoe their summer home.

- World-class musicians from world-class orchestras.

They come from all over the world and the artistic excellence is just so high.

And because it is a music festival, it's a wonderful opportunity for people to come together and play together when they might not normally get to.

And that creates a magic that I find just delightful and irreplaceable.

- And I feel like it truly is a great family of musicians and there's that special rapport.

We look forward to seeing each other and meeting up every year.

- It's a very positive culture and I have a lot of fun every summer.

- That changed this year.

- Everything was different for classical Tahoe, 2020.

The pandemic changed everything.

First and foremost was the tragic passing of our music director.

(slow tense music) - What we move forward with now is to honor his memory with the classical Tahoe orchestra, which was one of the most important things to him.

- It seemed more important than ever in honor of Joel both before he died, but then more important after he passed was to gather this group together to make music because that's what he would have wanted more than anything.

And that's what all of us wanted.

- In mid-March, everything shut down and we all stayed home.

- Everything was canceled.

Almost everything was canceled.

No, actually everything was canceled.

- People haven't had the opportunity to play for months.

- I can't remember a time in my adult life wherever it went that long without performing.

- This is what we do.

This is part of our identities, part of our what we breathe.

And we didn't know when we were going to be able to make music again.

- I've been out of work for five months.

Haven't played with anybody else.

- And we said, "Well, what are our choices?"

- We weren't gonna be able to gather.

It didn't make sense to build a pop-up pavilion that held 400 people.

- Not getting limited by what we couldn't do, we started thinking about what we could do.

What we could do was a series of chamber music concerts.

So we started imagining places in the forest and on the Lake and where you could gather and create a concert setting.

- The goal for us was to employ as many of the musicians as possible.

♪ We love him ♪ because he's ♪ Wonderful - Here we are again with musicians working together.

(crowd applauding) - We're grateful for any opportunity to interact with live musicians.

- And to do it in a way where we feel safe.

It's incredibly creative and thoughtful the way it's been done.

- So I was very excited and also really wanted to support an organization that was taking this risk and doing it right.

- It truly is a miracle that this is happening.

This is just one of the most incredible things I've ever seen come together.

- It's like amazing that I get to play with people and that we have an audience that people wanna come hear us and that we can do it.

It's like, I'm gonna start to cry.

- I like live performance.

I like being involved in live performance.

I like going to live performance.

So the fact that we're able to do that here, I think is wonderful.

- We wanted to have live music.

We wanted to do it in a way that was safe and honored the Classical Tahoe organization and community, and to honor Joel as well.

- And our biggest hope with the season was that people would feel the essence of the music and they would have some healing happen.

- Max Bruch wrote a trio for Clarinet-viola-piano for his son who was a professional clarinetist.

He wrote them...

He wrote these pieces when he was 72 and there's eight of them.

We're gonna play three of them.

- I think for clarinetist and violist, this is like a classic work.

They all know for pianists.

It's a little bit off the beaten track.

- So the first one is extremely melancholy and like this.

- It's a beautiful piece.

It's very romantic.

The sonority of clarinet and Viola is very dark.

It's sort of like dark in the sense of like a Cedar paneled room and like cigarette smoke.

It's very satisfying.

("Eight pieces for Clarinet Viola and Piano, Op.83") - And the second one is a conversation between two people who have incredibly opposite opinions.

The Viola is sort of angry and adamant and the clarinet is just soft and eventually the clarinet wins.

("Eight pieces for Clarinet Viola and Piano, Op.83") - And then the last one is sort of like a joke.

It's jumpy and it's fun.

And it's... Everyone will laugh at the end.

Will be smiling.

("Eight pieces for Clarinet Viola and Piano, Op.83") (crowd applauding) - The thing about this pandemic, is it makes us realize what we've taken for granted and gathering and connecting.

And the privilege of experiencing music live together is something I think we all took for granted for a very long time, and to have the privilege of being together to make music in a place like this with great artists who are yearning to connect through music.

But to think that maybe you're gonna touch one person's life, one person's heart through something that you have worked on as a musician, as an artist, that's what it's all about is the connection.

(crowd applauding) - The next little song is by Mahler and it's called "Liebst du um Schönheit."

And it just...

There's no way to not think of Cindy and Joel with this song.

If you love, love.

If you love beauty, don't love me.

Love the sun with its golden rays.

If you love youth, for heaven sakes don't love me.

Love the spring.

Comes every year.

It's totally youthful.

If you love magnificence, don't love me.

Love the mermaid with her beautiful pearls.

But if you love, love.

Love me and I will love you forever.

("Liebst du um Schönheit") (crowd applauding) - My first opera was, "Dead Man Walking".

And I was lucky enough to work with the amazing Sister Helen Prejean, who wrote the book.

And operas are about action, initiating their physical journeys.

And that's where all the emotion is initiated.

Why all the confrontations, what people want.

They have to be active, but songs can be very introspective.

So after the premiere, I asked her if she would write some meditations about her spiritual journey to becoming...

Going from being this very sort for prayerful dutiful nun in her early days, to becoming an outspoken activist.

What was that journey like?

And she wrote these meditations.

It became a song cycle called, "The Deepest Desire", which was really about finding your call.

And the last song which we're going to do is called, "Primary Colors".

And it really is about finding grace after you have acknowledged that call and you followed it and you've done your work.

♪ I live my life ♪ In primary colors.

♪ I let praise or blame ♪ Fall where they may.

♪ I hold my soul ♪ In equanimity ♪ And leave the fruits of my labors to God.

♪ ♪ At night when I pray ♪ I catch on fire ♪ And when I put my head on the pillow ♪ ♪ I fall instantly to sleep (crowd applauds) - This is the sort of piece composed by your German harpies called Albert Zabel and that did most of his career in Russia during the second half of the 19th century.

And he was a huge soloist.

He was so inspiring that actually Tchaikovsky wrote to the famous, "Cadenza's from the Swan Lake", and "Nutcracker" for him in his honor.

And because he was such a great soloist.

So Zabel was... Of course he was being in an opera house like I've been for most of my life, most of my professional life.

And he was in love with a French opera, which is called "Faust" by Charles Gounod.

And so he wrote a fantasy on the main...

It's like a potpourri under the French world on the main the melodies of this opera.

And so it's a beautiful piece.

Very, very exposed.

Very soloist.

It's like a virtuosic.

("Fantasy on Themes from Gounod's Faust, Op.

12") (crowd applauding) - One piece that was particularly interesting to put together was the Saint-Saens septet.

- And something that's very interesting about this septet is it actually has a trumpet player in it.

- I guess those songs, it was a bit of a joke because he was commissioned to write it by this group called "Associate La Trompette".

Was a chair of music society with trumpet in the name.

So he thought, "Well, I'll put a trumpet in the piece."

- There's not a whole lot of chamber music for strings plus trumpet cause the trumpet is so much louder.

- It's one trumpet versus orchestra.

- It's very virtuosic, especially for the piano and trumpet.

And it's a lot of fun for all of us.

- And it's got this crazy piano part, especially the last movement running up and down the piano.

- And where I sit can really not only dramatically change our blend, but it can change the blend in the audience because I'm very directional.

("Septet in E-flat Major, Op 65") (crowd applauding) (gentle music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program has been provided by the FS Foundation, bringing together adults of all abilities and backgrounds as they pursue passion, prosperity and purpose.

Linda and Alvaro Pascotto.

The Carol Franc Buck Foundation.

(somber music) Additional support provided by these funders.