Beethoven’s 9th, Guys & Dolls, Yuja Wang Anchor 77th Season
BY JESSICA MOORE
Senior Director of Marketing and Global Communications
Across nearly 300 public performances and events over 54 days, the 2026 season of the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) celebrates the many voices that have shaped American music while also marking the end of a chapter for one of the institution’s most influential leaders.
Titled “For All,” the season takes inspiration from the final words of the Pledge of Allegiance and coincides with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
AMFS Munroe President and CEO Alan Fletcher says the season theme “reflects the inspirational sentiment behind the Declaration of Independence and indeed the American experiment as a whole. The American spirit uniquely combines a passionate celebration of individual voice along with the richness of pluralism, which lends itself perfectly to an Aspen summer season.”
Opening Sunday, July 5 sets the tone with a program led by Wall Family Music Director Robert Spano featuring music by Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, and John Adams— three composers spanning more than a century of American music. The season closes with Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: works chosen for their themes of unity and shared humanity (Aug. 23). The Festival’s orchestral highlights
include Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony (July 3) conducted by Aspen Conducting Academy (ACA) alumnus James Gaffigan, Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F with
“The American spirit uniquely combines a passionate celebration of individual voice along with the richness of pluralism, which lends itself perfectly to an Aspen summer season.”
Jean-Yves Thibaudet (Aug. 2), and Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony led by Leonard Slatkin, another ACA alum (Aug. 7). Fletcher calls the conducting program “one of the great signature Aspen experiences,” noting its role in preparing generations of professional conductors.
The commissioning of new music remains a cornerstone of the AMFS’s identity. This summer includes performances of two major new works by AMFS alumni: Sarah Kirkland Snider’s opera Hildegard (July 31) and David Lang’s oratorio the wealth of nations (Aug. 1). One of the season’s most anticipated events is the world premiere of Matthew Aucoin’s Two Thresholds (Symphony) (July 19), which launches a new multi-year initiative that commissions first symphonies from American composers.
summer includes performances of two
Dame Jane Glover—a mentee of composer Benjamin Britten himself—will conduct the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS (AOTVA) program’s two staged performances of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream starring countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo (July 20, 22). The opera season concludes with a semistaged production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute (Aug. 21) under the baton of AOTVA Co-Artistic Director Patrick Summers.
One of a number of internationally recognized artists with longstanding Aspen connections, violinist Augustin Hadelich returns in a recital featuring top students—a truly formative experience for those
TUESDAY, JULY 7
KLEIN MUSIC TENT
Culinary and musical delights unite in a dreamy sunset where Athenian themes and ’60s style converge. The evening features internationally admired countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and the rising young stars of the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS program. Toast to the vibrant future of opera with an exquisite evening of music in paradise!
Call 970 205 5065 for benefit information.
Hosted by Renée Fleming and Patrick Summers, the Mrs. Mercedes T. Bass Co-Artistic Directors of AOTVA.
Starry Alumni “Get Chills” Upon Return to Aspen
BY CINDY HIRSCHFELD Festival Focus Writer
Audiences are in for a treat when two starry alumni of the Aspen Music Festival and School return to the Tent stage on July 3 for the first orchestral concert of the 2026 season. Conductor James Gaffigan leads Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and countertenor Key’mon Murrah performs a new AMFS co-commissioned piece with the Chamber Symphony.
“I still get chills every time I land in Aspen, then walk downtown and see the Tent,” says Gaffigan, who attended the Aspen Conducting Academy’s inaugural year in 2000 and for two summers after.
When he first came to Aspen at age 19 to study with David Zinman and Murray Sidlin, Gaffigan says, “it was truly the beginning of my musical life.” He valued the opportunity to balance work and a social life. “It’s rare to get that
right,” he reminisces. “It was the last time I was just thinking about music and meeting people, with no other worries in the world.”
As a young teenager (and bassoon player), he was fascinated by scores. “I didn’t want to be just a piece of the puzzle—I wanted to learn what everyone was doing,” he says. Offered a spontaneous chance during his junior year at New York’s storied LaGuardia High School to conduct during an orchestra rehearsal, Gaffigan recalls, “I was just in awe of the sound that the orchestra made when I stood in front of it. From that moment on it was an addiction.”
Currently a resident of Berlin, Gaffigan returns to the States to become music director for the Houston Grand Opera in 2027, succeeding Patrick Summers. He discovered his affinity for opera in Aspen, too, where he vividly recalls watching another student conduct the second act
See Alumni, Festival Focus page 3
Aspen Conducting Academy alumnus James Gaffigan returns to Aspen July 3 to conduct Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony with the Aspen Chamber Symphony.
The AMFS’s iconic Klein Music Tent transports audiences through the power of music.
ALEX IRVIN
Alan Fletcher AMFS Munroe President and CEO
MIGUEL LORENZO
2026 OPERA BENEFIT
Hampson Celebrates American Song in Aspen Debut
BY DAVID HOYT
Festival Focus Writer
Every summer, the Aspen Music Festival and School welcomes some of the most esteemed vocalists and instrumentalists from around the world, as well as a number of debuts for up-and-coming musicians. It is a rare treat, however, to witness the Aspen debut of an artist already well established in his career. In two programs on July 2 and 5, audiences will have that remarkable opportunity as renowned baritone Thomas Hampson takes the AMFS stage for the first time.
“Tom is really the reigning American baritone of the last generation and a half. He’s a genuine star—he’s performed on all the great stages of the world, and been a regular at The Met in roles as varied as Wozzeck to Germont in Traviata,” says Patrick Chamberlain, vice president for artistic administration at the AMFS. “What sets him apart is versatility. He’s a musician’s musician, with extraordinary attention to text, to meaning, to storytelling. You just can’t help but be drawn in.”
In addition to this remarkable operatic career, Hampson, who was born in Indiana and grew up in Washington State, has been a powerful advocate for the preservation and appreciation of classic song, and his “Song of America” recital project specifically highlights the work of American composers.
“I try to bring to our own songs the same consciousness
we bring to German lieder or French mélodie,” Hampson says. “Asking, who are our poets and our composers, and what story are they telling about being American? How do we tell the story of our very volatile, sometimes very rapid changes in American culture?”
Hampson will partner with collaborative pianist Myra Huang, head of music for the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS (AOTVA) program, for a July 2 recital program that Chamberlain calls “a journey through American history.” Highlights include works by American composers from Leonard Bernstein to Margaret Bonds, as well as
contemporary masters like Jennifer Higdon and Michael Daugherty—whose Letters from Lincoln includes the poignant “Letter to Mrs. Bixby,” a thoughtful condolence from the president to a mother grieving the loss of multiple sons during the Civil War. The program opens with “My days have been so wondrous free,” composed by Declaration of Independence signer Francis Hopkinson and considered to be one of the first art songs written in the United States.
On July 5 in the Klein Music Tent, Hampson will partner with superstar soprano Renée Fleming in the Aspen Festival Orchestra’s opening concert under the baton of Wall Family Music Director Robert Spano. The duo will reprise their roles as Richard and Pat Nixon in excerpts from John Adams’s 1987 opera Nixon in China, which Hampson and Fleming recently performed at the Opéra de Paris.
“It’s exciting to be singing this music at Aspen opposite Thomas Hampson, especially on the July 4th weekend,” Fleming says. “John Adams’s score is spectacular, and Tom is brilliant as Nixon.”
“I’m very much looking forward to Aspen. It feels right to be coming now, and it’s the right place to celebrate the 250th,” Hampson said. “My clarion call as an American artist is e pluribus unum. Out of the many comes not a homogenization, but a collective—a spirit of community, tolerance, and cooperation.”
WELCOME 470 AMFS STUDENTS AND 120 ARTIST-FACULTY!
Continued from Festival Focus page 1
Renowned baritone Thomas Hampson makes his long-awaited Aspen debut this season appearing in recital on July 2 and with the Aspen Festival Orchestra on July 5.
MARSHALL LIGHT STUDIO
Raising the Bar on Audience Experience
STAFF REPORT
The Aspen Music Festival and School is raising the bar for the audience experience—literally. As one of several new initiatives this summer, it is introducing a new bar to its concessions offerings, expanding drink options and dramatically raising capacity for snacking and toasting before and during intermission of concerts at the Klein Music Tent. This is in addition to other new food and beverage offerings and an experiment with close-ups of the artists on large video screens in the Tent.
“The Tent is among the loveliest places in the world to be on a summer evening,” says AMFS VP for Marketing and Communications Laura Smith. “Having more refreshments and dynamic, close-up imagery of the performers in the Tent will just bring the experience up to another level.”
The new bar is called the Side Bar and is located on the Tent Plaza in the former AMFS merchandise kiosk. (Select merchandise is still available for purchase on site and online.) The Side Bar will feature weekly cocktail specials as well as beer and wine, water, and a selection of non-alcoholic beverages.
Festival, August 10 to 23. Close-up images of the artists’ interactions will be projected live during the performance, bringing concert-goers even closer to the music and the musicians.
“The screens combine the fantastic views of ‘keyboard side’ with those of the front row and a bunch of other views as well,” says Smith. “It should be pretty dramatic and draw people even closer to the human element of what is happening onstage—not just the soloists and conductors, but the students up there having the time of their lives playing next to their professional idols.”
Concerts with screens are:
• Aug. 12: Aspen Conducting Academy
• Aug. 14: Chamber Symphony | Robertson with Gil Shaham and Orli Shaham
• Aug. 16: Festival Orchestra | Malofeev Plays Rachmaninoff
• Aug. 19: Aspen Conducting Academy
• Aug. 21: Mozart’s The Magic Flute
In other enhancements for the audience this season, screens will be installed on either side of the stage in the Tent for six concerts during the final two weeks of the
The Lemonade Stand, a beloved tradition since the 1950s, will still sell fresh sandwiches, charcuterie boxes, cookies, chips, popcorn, and—new this year—full picnic baskets that can be pre-ordered and picked up.
Alumni: ‘All students, all the time’
Continued from Festival Focus page 1
of The Marriage of Figaro. “It was so funny and so fun— I felt, ‘I need to be a part of this.’”
When he first returned to the AMFS as a guest artist in 2008, Gaffigan says he still felt like more of a student. The feeling has never entirely left him. “We’re all students, all the time,” says Gaffigan, a champion for music education. “Faculty members continue to learn by teaching, and my most gratifying experiences are working with young musicians.”
Countertenor Key’mon Murrah made his AMFS guest artist debut last summer, memorably appearing in the world premiere of Siddartha, She. This summer he will perform Earth 2.0, written for him by American composer Jake Heggie.
The initial inspiration for Heggie’s one-man opera was first birthed at the AMFS. Murrah explains, “I was doing a concert at the Aspen Music Festival and maestro [Robert] Spano heard me, and while he was at the
Ft. Worth Symphony, he and Jake came up with this idea of a work for me.”
In seven songs, Murrah embodies the voice of our planet. “The music fit like a glove,” says Murrah. “Jake got everything my voice does naturally and put it into music.”
Though he majored in arts administration at the University of Kentucky, Murrah always loved to sing. He refocused on vocal performance after seeing Handel’s Xerxes while a development intern at the Glimmerglass Festival. “That lit my flame of singing again,” he says.
With the help of a favorite college professor, Murrah successfully auditioned to sing the role of Julius Caesar at a young artists’ program in Texas and he realized he was on his life’s path. “It felt like home,” says the Lexington, Kentucky native. “I was finally able to express myself in the way I’ve always wanted to.”
Murrah first attended the AMFS in 2021 for the inaugural summer of the AOTVA program overseen by Renée Fleming and Patrick Summers. He recalls, “Renée and Patrick were so generous to us. They made sure that I was prepared for the real world as a singer. It really showed me what is required to be great in this business.”
Watching fellow students rehearse The Magic Flute gave him a rare chance to observe the process from the wings (he himself appeared in Rodelinda that summer). “I was taking notes the whole time,” he says. He also learned to adjust to the altitude, particularly crucial for vocalists, by becoming physically active—a practice he continues to this day. “I’ve been on a health journey since then,” he says. “Every time I sing, I have to do some type of cardio beforehand.”
Spoken like a true Aspenite.
• Aug. 23: Festival Orchestra | Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
More information at aspenmusicfestival.com/concessions and aspenmusicfestival.com/screens.
2026 Season
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young artists (July 16). Beloved AMFS alumnus Gil Shaham tackles the complete cycle of Beethoven’s Violin Sonatas over three evenings in Harris Concert Hall (Aug. 6, 8, 11).
Superstar pianist Yuja Wang returns to Aspen for the first time since her student days at the AMFS in 2006—coincidentally Fletcher’s first summer as president and CEO— to perform both with the jazz collective People of Earth (July 29) and with the Aspen Chamber Symphony (Aug. 1). Her appearances are part of a piano-rich week that also includes Emanuel Ax (July 25), Daniil Trifonov (July 22, 26) and Jean-Yves Thibaudet (July 27, Aug. 2)—“four of the greatest pianists in front of the world today,” Fletcher says.
This summer’s highly anticipated collaboration with Theatre Aspen, Guys and Dolls In Concert (July 13, 14), brings together “the very best of Aspen’s performing arts community while giving our students the extraordinary experience of sharing the stage with acclaimed Broadway artists,” says Fletcher.
The 2026 season arrives at a significant moment in the institution’s history as Fletcher steps down at the end of September to assume the role of president and partner with Advisory Board for the Arts.
“I look forward to staying close to AMFS and its community of students, faculty, staff, and Board for years to come,” Fletcher says. “Every accomplishment of this great organization is the result of dedication, creativity, inspiration, and immense hard work coming from every side.”
AMFS alumnus Key’mon W. Murrah—pictured in last summer’s Siddhartha, She—returns to perform composer Jake Heggie’s Earth 2.0 on July 3 with the Aspen Chamber Symphony.
DIEGO REDEL
The AMFS’s Lemonade Stand will bring back favorite treats for concert audiences this summer along with new offerings.
ELLE LOGAN
BLAKE NELSON
AMFS Munroe President and CEO Alan Fletcher celebrates his 21st and final year with the Festival before becoming president of a prestigious arts consultancy.