Festival News

When you’re an adventurous, risk-taking chamber-music group whose mission is to “champion new string quartet music and the transformative experiences that it creates,” being hailed by The New York Times as “fearless” and “one of contemporary music’s indispensable ensembles” signifies a particular level of “mission accomplished.” But as the three-time Grammy-nominated JACK Quartet—which makes its Festival debut next summer—approaches its 20th anniversary, the group is busier and more inspired (and inspiring) than ever, and we’re thrilled to offer two chances to hear them perform in our 2025 season.

One of the most exciting things about presenting our concerts every summer is that, in addition to welcoming back dozens of longtime friends, we welcome artists who are performing at the Festival for the very first time, too. In 2025, several thrilling artists are making their Festival debuts—including Colin Currie, who’s been called nothing less than “the world’s finest and most daring percussionist” by The Spectator, “an athlete and a star” by The Guardian, and a musician who’s “at the summit of percussion performance today” by Gramophone. On Thursday, August 7, at 12 p.m., you can catch Currie as he not only makes his Festival debut but also gives the Festival’s first-ever solo percussion recital!

Exciting news: On October 1, we’ll be welcoming our new Executive Director, Jim Griffith! Jim succeeds our wonderful Interim Executive Director, Amy Lam, who will be with us through September 30.

On Monday, we brought our extraordinary 51st season to an end, but the excitement continues as we move full speed ahead into getting ready for our 52nd season, which runs July 13–August 18, 2025.

On August 17, for our last Saturday concert of the season, our good friend (and good neighbor to the north)—Santa Fe Opera Music Director Harry Bicket—makes his first-ever Festival appearance conducting Handel’s wonderful Water Music, which was first performed not in the high desert but on the River Thames for King George I. Bicket leads an ensemble of Santa Fe Opera musicians—many of whom you’ll recognize as our longtime friends and collaborators—and plays the harpsichord, too!

Kirill Gerstein, one of the most lauded and in-demand pianists in the world, arrives in Santa Fe this week and stays through the end of the Festival’s 51st season to give three thrilling performances. On August 12, he appears as part of an all-star ensemble in Brahms’s “beautiful beyond words” Piano Quintet (to quote one of Brahms’s contemporaries), and the following day, on August 13, he gives a rich Romantic recital featuring works by Chopin, Liszt, and Schumann. On August 19, he helps bring the Festival’s season to a spectacular close with Janáček’s lyrical Violin Sonata—played alongside the stunning violinist John Storgårds—and then, as part of an exciting assortment of Festival favorites, he and the Dover Quartet share the stage for the first time in a powerhouse performance of Dvořák’s rousing Piano Quintet, Op. 81.

On August 11, the Escher String Quartet presents a first in the Festival’s 51-year history: a single-evening performance of all six of Bartók’s groundbreaking string quartets. Click below to read the Escher’s cellist, Brook Speltz, talk about what the experience is like—physically and mentally—for him as a musician (the Escher recently performed the quartets at Lincoln Center) and why the August 11 performance is a major musical moment you’ll want to experience and witness for yourself.

The excitement is building as the Festival gets ready to welcome—this Sunday and Monday—a longtime friend who has yet to perform in Santa Fe: Donald Runnicles, the general music director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, music director of the Grand Teton Music Festival, and chief conductor–designate of the Dresden Philharmonic. Runnicles makes his highly anticipated Festival debut leading one of the most beloved large-scale works in the chamber music repertoire: Mahler’s early-20th-century “song-symphony” Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth).

On Monday, July 29, kids and adults came together to hear the music of Beethoven, performed by Ran Dank, piano, Daniel Phillips, violin, and Eric Kim, cello with arts educator and host Oliver Prezant. Young concert-goers listened to melody, repetition, emotion, and musical conversations between artists. By the end, students were familiar with Beethoven’s Piano Trio, Op. 70, No. 2!

See the video!

This week, you can hear the Verona Quartet—hailed as an “outstanding ensemble of young musicians” by The New York Times—in their first-ever Festival performances!

On July 30 at noon, they present a fascinating, one-hour program that features an early quartet by Mozart (written when he was 17), Britten’s last instrumental work (composed the year before he died), and Verdi’s only string quartet (written while the composer was stranded in Naples after a production of his new opera, Aida, was delayed due to its star falling ill).

Elizabeth Ogonek: Lightenings Strikes Twice!

Both the opening work for the Wednesday, July 24, evening program and the composer who wrote it have a special connection to the Festival.

Lightenings, by Elizabeth Ogonek, was commissioned by the Festival in 2016, and on July 28 of that year, it was given its world premiere in St. Francis Auditorium in the New Mexico Museum of Art—the same wonderfully intimate spot where Wednesday’s concertgoers can experience a special encore performance of the work!