Missouri Classical Music News

Olson is a University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory conducting professor who also conducts the Kansas City Ballet Orchestra. He has led the Colorado MahlerFest to international prominence through performances and recordings. . . .

Each winter it tackles one of Mahler’s 10 symphonies and some of the orchestral songs. Players and choral singers of the all-volunteer ensemble, including members of professional orchestras from around the United States, travel to Colorado each year at their own expense. . . .

The Colorado MahlerFest has released recordings of all of the symphonies but No. 1 and all the song cycles but the “Wayfarer Songs” and “Das klagende Lied.” . . .

“Mahler requires such huge forces that a small festival can’t normally afford to do them,” Olson said. But with the help of Boulder native Stan Ruttenberg, the MahlerFest’s 80-year-old board president, the organization has built itself into a Colorado tradition.