The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival is a six-week-long summer Festival of
chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...
held annually in July and August and located in
Santa Fe,
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
. It was founded in 1972 and presented its first series of concerts in 1973. Well-known musicians and young performers appear each season in concerts presented in the
St. Francis Auditorium and the restored
Lensic Theater
The Lensic Theater, located at 211 West San Francisco Street in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is an 821-seat theater designed by Boller Brothers of Kansas City, well-known movie-theater and vaudeville-house architects who designed almost one hundred theat ...
.
In its inaugural year
Pablo Casals
Pau Casals i Defilló (Catalan: ; 29 December 187622 October 1973), usually known in English by his Castilian Spanish name Pablo Casals, acted as honorary president. The Festival has contributed to the contemporary chamber music repertoire by commissioning 38 pieces from well-known composers, including
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...
,
Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem (October 23, 1923 – November 18, 2022) was an American composer of contemporary classical music and writer. Best known for his art songs, which number over 500, Rorem was the leading American of his time writing in the genre. Althou ...
,
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich ( ; born April 30, 1939) is an American composer, the first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Her early works are marked by atonal exploration, but by the late 1980s, she had shifted to a postmodernist, ne ...
, and
John Harbison
John Harris Harbison (born December 20, 1938) is an American composer, known for his symphonies, operas, and large choral works.
Life
John Harris Harbison was born on December 20, 1938, in Orange, New Jersey, to the historian Elmore Harris Harb ...
. The festival's executive director is Steven Ovitsky. Marc Neikrug has been artistic director since the late 1990s.
Participating musicians in the festival's history included
Yuja Wang
Yuja Wang (; born February 10, 1987) is a Chinese classical pianist. She was born in Beijing, began studying piano there at age six, and went on to study at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and the Curtis Institute of Music in Phila ...
,
Walter Trampler Walter Trampler (August 25, 1915 – September 27, 1997) was a German musician and teacher of the viola and viola d'amore.
Born in Munich, he was given his first lessons at age six by his violinist father. While still in his youth, he played well e ...
and
Andre-Michel Schub
Andre-Michel Schub (born 26 December 1952, in Paris) is a classical pianist.
Biography
Schub came to New York City with his family, when he was eight months old. He began his piano studies with his mother when he was four, and later continued his ...
.
Majo
venuesinclude
Lensic Performing Arts Center and St. Francis Auditorium in
New Mexico Museum of Art
The New Mexico Museum of Art is an art museum in Santa Fe governed by the state of New Mexico. It is one of four state-run museums in Santa Fe that are part of the Museum of New Mexico. It is located at 107 West Palace Avenue, one block off the ...
.
A radio series from the festival is broadcast by the
WFMT
WFMT is an FM broadcasting, FM radio station in Chicago, Illinois, featuring a format of fine arts, classical music programming, and shows exploring such genres as folk music, folk. The station is managed by Window to the World Communications, In ...
Radio Network.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival - WFMT
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External links
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
References
Music festivals established in 1973
Chamber music festivals
Classical music festivals in the United States
Culture of Santa Fe, New Mexico
Tourist attractions in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Music festivals in New Mexico
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