“Brilliant Sounds of Summer,” the 2023 season theme, blended returning favorites with exciting new voices. Eliot Fisk opened the season with the Festival’s first matinee, while artists like Béla Fleck, Joshua Redman, ECCO, Kearstin Piper Brown, and Kelli O’Hara lit up the stage.
Steven Banks served as the first Emerging Artist in Residence, giving five free outreach concerts through the Widen the Circle Initiative and performing his work Cries, Sighs and Dreams with the Parker Quartet. The season also featured the world premiere of Fortitude, a Festival commission inspired by Harriet Tubman and performed by Kearstin Piper Brown before an audience that included Tubman’s descendants.
