The Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) is a

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" al ...

festival held annually in

Aspen, Colorado Aspen is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,004 at the 2020 United States Census. Aspen is in a remote area of the Rocky Moun ...

. It is noted both for its concert programming and the musical training it offers to mostly young-adult music students. Founded in 1949, the typical eight-week summer season includes more than 400 classical music events—including concerts by five orchestras, solo and chamber music performances, fully staged opera productions, master classes, lectures, and children's programming—and brings in 70,000 audience members. In the winter, the AMFS presents a small series of recitals and Metropolitan Opera Live in HD screenings. As a training ground for young-adult classical musicians, the AMFS draws more than 650 students from 40 states and 34 countries, with an average age of 22. While in Aspen, students participate in lessons, coaching, and public performances in orchestras, operas, and chamber music, often playing side-by-side with AMFS artist-faculty. The organization is currently led by President and CEO Alan Fletcher and Music Director

Robert Spano Robert Spano ( ; born 7 May 1961, Conneaut, Ohio) is an American conductorDavidson, Justin. "CLASSICAL MUSIC: Looking for Magic: Mixing visuals and language into a performance is just part of conductor Robert Spano's pursuit of orchestral risk" ...

History

The Aspen Music Festival and School was founded in 1949 by Chicago businessman

Walter Paepcke Walter Paepcke (June 29, 1896 – April 13, 1960) was a U.S. industrialist and philanthropist prominent in the mid-20th century. A longtime executive of the Chicago-based Container Corporation of America, Paepcke is best noted for his founding of ...

and Elizabeth Paepcke as a two-week bicentennial celebration of the 18th-century German writer

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as t ...

. The event, which included both intellectual forums and musical performances, was such a success that it led to the formation of both the

Aspen Institute The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1949 as the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. The institute's stated aim is the realization of "a free, just, and equitable society" through seminars, policy programs ...

and the Aspen Music Festival and School. In the summers that followed, the participating musicians returned, bringing their music students, and the foundation was set for the AMFS as it is known today. In 1950,

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...

became the first conductor to present his own works with the Festival. The following year in 1951, the School enrolled its first official class, with 183 music students. Early founding musicians included baritone

Mack Harrell Mack Kendree Harrell, Jr. (October 8, 1909 — January 29, 1960) was an American operatic and concert baritone vocalist who was regarded as one of the greatest American-born lieder singers of his generation. Growing up Harrell was born in C ...

(father of cellist Lynn Harrell) and violinist

Roman Totenberg Roman Totenberg (1 January 1911 – 8 May 2012) was a Polish-American violinist and educator. A child prodigy, he lived in Poland, Moscow, Berlin, and Paris, before formally immigrating to the U.S. in 1938, at age 27. He performed and taught nat ...

(father of NPR legal correspondent Nina Totenberg). Early performance highlights include then-student

James Levine James Lawrence Levine (; June 23, 1943 – March 9, 2021) was an American conductor and pianist. He was music director of the Metropolitan Opera from 1976 to 2016. He was terminated from all his positions and affiliations with the Met on March 1 ...

conducting the

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...

opera ''

Albert Herring ''Albert Herring'', Op. 39, is a chamber opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten. Composed in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947, this comic opera was a successor to his serious opera ''The Rape of Lucretia''. The libretto, by Eric Croz ...

'' in 1964, coinciding with Britten's visit to Aspen that summer to accept an award from the Aspen Institute. In 1965,

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was bas ...

and his orchestra came to the AMFS to perform a benefit concert. In 1971,

Dorothy DeLay Dorothy DeLay (March 31, 1917 – March 24, 2002) was an American violin instructor, primarily at the Juilliard School, Sarah Lawrence College, and the University of Cincinnati. Life Dorothy DeLay was born on March 31, 1917, in Medicine L ...

joined the AMFS strings artist-faculty and attracted more than 200 students each summer to her program. In 1975,

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 ...

came to Aspen as a composer-in-residence on the occasion of his 75th birthday. In 1980,

John Denver Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, activist, and humanitarian whose greatest commercial success was as a solo singe ...

performed with the Aspen Festival Orchestra for his TV special ''Music and the Mountains'', which aired the following year on ABC. Multiple artist-faculty members have also recorded albums while in Aspen, including the

Emerson String Quartet The Emerson String Quartet, also known as the Emerson Quartet, is an American string quartet that was initially formed as a student group at the Juilliard School in 1976. It was named for American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson and beg ...

, which recorded the ''Shostakovich: The String Quartets'' 5-disc set from AMFS venue Harris Concert Hall and won the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Classical Album.

Music Directors

*1954:

William Steinberg William Steinberg (Cologne, August 1, 1899New York City, May 16, 1978) was a German-American conductor. Biography Steinberg was born Hans Wilhelm Steinberg in Cologne, Germany. He displayed early talent as a violinist, pianist, and composer, ...

*1955: Hans Schweiger *1956–1961:

Izler Solomon Izler Solomon (January 11, 1910 – December 6, 1987) was an American orchestra conductor, active mostly in the Midwest. Career Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Izler Solomon's first position as music director was from 1936 to 1941 with the Illin ...

*1962:

Walter Susskind Jan Walter Susskind (1 May 1913 – 25 March 1980) was a Czech-born British conductor, teacher and pianist. He began his career in his native Prague, and fled to Britain when Germany invaded the city in 1939. He worked for substantial periods in ...

*1963:

Szymon Goldberg Szymon Goldberg (1 June 190919 July 1993) was a Polish-born Jewish classical violinist and conductor, latterly an American. Born in Włocławek, Congress Poland, Goldberg played the violin as a child growing up in Warsaw. His first teacher was He ...

*1964–1968: Walter Susskind *1970–1990:

Jorge Mester Jorge Mester (born April 10, 1935, Mexico City) is a Mexican conductor of Hungarian ancestry. He has served as the artistic director for the Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, Veracruz, since it was founded in 2014. Biography He studied cond ...

*1991–1997:

Lawrence Foster Lawrence Foster (born October 23, 1941) is an American conductor of Romanian ancestry. He is currently the artistic director and chief conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and the music director of the Marseille Opera and th ...

*1998–2009: David Zinman *2012–Present:

Educational programs

The Aspen Music Festival and School offers young musicians a choice of the following programs of study: * Orchestra/Instrumental ** Strings, Winds, Brass, Percussion, Harp ** Center for Orchestral Leadership * Chamber Music ** Center for Advanced Quartet Studies ** American Brass Quintet Seminar @Aspen ** Aspen Chamber Music * Aspen Opera Center ** Voice ** Opera Coaching * '
Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS
'' (Beginning 2020) ** Voice ** Opera Coaching * Seraphic Fire Professional Choral Institute * Solo Piano * Collaborative Piano * Aspen Conducting Academy * Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies * Aspen Contemporary Ensemble * Classical Guitar

Facilities

The Benedict Music Tent, which opened in 2000, is the Festival's primary concert venue and seats 2050. The tent replaced an earlier tent designed by

Herbert Bayer Herbert Bayer (April 5, 1900 – September 30, 1985) was an Austrian and American graphic designer, painter, photographer, sculptor, art director, environmental and interior designer, and architect. He was instrumental in the development of the ...

, which in 1965 replaced the original smaller tent designed by

Eero Saarinen Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors ...

. Concerts are held in the Benedict Music Tent on a nearly daily basis during the summer, and seating on the lawn just outside the Tent, where many choose to picnic during events, is always free. The design has open sides; the curving roof is made of Teflon-coated fiberglass, a hard material also used by the Denver International Airport. The 500-seat Joan and Irving Harris Concert Hall is located next door to the Benedict Music Tent, and was opened in 1993 at a cost of $7 million. The Wheeler Opera House—a Victorian-era venue owned by the City of Aspen—is the home to Aspen Opera Center productions in the summer and the AMFS's Metropolitan Opera Live in HD screenings in the winter. In 2016, the AMFS completed its $75 million, 105,000-square-foot Matthew and Carolyn Bucksbaum Campus, which serves as the center of its teaching activities. The Campus, located two miles from downtown Aspen, sits on a 38-acre site that is shared between the AMFS in the summer and Aspen Country Day School during the academic year. Designed by architect Harry Teague, who also designed the AMFS's Harris Concert Hall and the Benedict Music Tent, the Bucksbaum Campus includes three expansive rehearsal halls, numerous teaching studios and practice rooms, a percussion building, administrative offices, and a glass-enclosed cafeteria. The Campus was designed with Aspen's natural setting in mind: the buildings’ roof lines mirror the shapes of the surrounding mountains and hug the contours of the ponds and creek.

References

External links