2024 US Summer Festival Guide
A compiled list of 2024 summer festival highlights around the United States.
Explore summer festival offerings across the United States, with highlights including world premieres by Detlev Glanert (Grand Teton Music Festival, Jun 28-29) and Ana Sokolovic (Yellow Barn, Jul 6), and performances of music by Sofia Gubaidulina, Anna Clyne, Gabriela Ortiz, and other contemporary composers. Steven Mackey and Tania León are co-curators of Tanglewood’s TMC Festival of Contemporary Music (Jul 25-29), offering a fascinating slate of new music programming.
Read on for highlights of the B&H catalog being performed at festivals around the country.
Aspen Music Festival
Aspen, Colorado
Aspen Music Festival’s adventurous programming includes Donghoon Shin’s Upon His Ghostly Solitude, which the composer calls “a love letter to Yeats and Berg,” and Steven Mackey’s Groundswell for solo viola and ensemble. Harrison Birtwistle’s mythology-inspired Theseus Game is steered by two conductors who coordinate the divided forces of the ensemble.
Jul 13 Harrison Birtwistle, Theseus Game (Aspen Contemporary Ensemble / Timothy Weiss and
Donald Crockett, conductors)
Jul 14 Béla Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra
Jul 21 Aaron Copland, El Salón México
Aug 4 Donghoon Shin, Upon His Ghostly Solitude; Béla Bartók, Violin Concerto No. 2 (Midori, violin);
Modest Mussorgsky (orch. Ravel), Pictures at an Exhibition
Aug 9 Igor Stravinsky, Symphonies of Wind Instruments; Béla Bartók, Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta
(Aspen Chamber Symphony)
Aug 10 Steven Mackey, Groundswell (Hsin-Yun Huang, viola / Aspen Contemporary Ensemble)
Aug 14 Leonard Bernstein, “Agathon” from Serenade, after Plato’s Symposium (Robert McDuffie, violin /
Derek Wang, piano)
Bravo! Vail
Vail, Colorado
Bravo! Vail Music Festival presents Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería as its 2024 international chamber orchestra. On the orchestra’s final concert, Carlos Miguel Prieto conducts Gabriela Ortiz’s Clara (inspired by Clara Schumann), Paquito D’Rivera’s trumpet concerto Concerto Venezolano featuring Pacho Flores, and Alberto Ginastera’s Variaciones Concertantes. Other highlights of the the festival include Anna Clyne’s ATLAS, a Gerhard Richter–inspired piano concerto performed by soloist Jeremy Denk with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
Jun 23 Gabriela Ortiz, Clara; Paquito D'Rivera, Concerto Venezolano (Pacho Flores, trumpet);
Alberto Ginastera, Variaciones Concertantes (Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería)
Jun 29 Anna Clyne, ATLAS (Jeremy Denk, piano / Dallas Symphony)
Jul 5 Leonard Bernstein, Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (Philadelphia Orchestra)
Jul 6 Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring (Philadelphia Orchestra)
Jul 14 Alberto Ginastera, String Quartet No. 1 (Dalí Quartet)
Jul 17 Aaron Copland, Symphony No. 3 (New York Philharmonic)
Colorado Music Festival
Boulder, Colorado
Colorado Music Festival opens its season with Anna Clyne’s sweeping Masquerade, which draws inspiration from the original mid–18th century promenade concerts held in London’s pleasure gardens.
Jul 5 & 7 Anna Clyne, Masquerade
Jul 11-12 John Adams, Short Ride in a Fast Machine; Serge Prokofieff, Violin Concerto No. 2 (Vadim Gluzman, violin); Igor Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring
Grand Teton Music Festival
Teton Village, Wyoming
Detlev Glanert’s Vexierbild. Kontafaktur mit Brahms (Hidden Image. Contrafactum with Brahms) receives its world premiere, conducted by Festival Music Director Sir Donald Runnicles. Glanert, whose music has long been inspired by Brahms, composed this new work as a companion piece to Brahms’s Symphony No. 3, also featured on the program.
June 28-29 Detlev Glanert, Vexierbild. Kontrafaktur mit Brahms (World Premiere)
Jul 5-6 John Adams, Slonimsky's Earbox
Jul 17 Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring (Benoliel Chamber Series)
Aug 1 Gateway Series: Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn
Aug 2-3 Alberto Ginastera, “Malambo” from Estancia
Grant Park Music Festival
Chicago, Illinois
Grant Park Music Festival presents several 20th-century favorites, including Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra and Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite. The festival orchestra also performs Elena Kats-Chernin's Mythic, a dark, passacaglia-like hymn with variations.
Jun 12 Anna Clyne, Masquerade; Benjamin Britten, The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra
Jun 28-29 Igor Stravinsky, Petrushka (1947 version)
Jul 17 Sergei Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (Clayton Stephenson, piano)
Aug 7 Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring Suite
Aug 9-10 Elena Kats-Chernin, Mythic
Hollywood Bowl
Los Angeles, California
The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s summer programming at the Hollywood Bowl is stocked with new music, including Unsuk Chin’s explosive subito con forza and a special presentation of Gabriela Ortiz’s Antrópolis, performed with the Ballet Folklórico de México. Gustavo Dudamel conducts a program that pairs Bernstein’s monumental Chichester Psalms with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Jul 9 Unsuk Chin, subito con forza
Jul 18 Gabriela Ortiz, Antrópolis (Ballet Folklórico de México de Amalia Hernández)
Aug 13 Sergei Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini(Alexander Malofeev, piano)
Aug 15 Edgar Meyer, The Elements: Water (Joshua Bell, violin)
Sep 10 Leonard Bernstein, Chichester Psalms (Key’mon Murrah, countertenor / Los Angeles Master Chorale)
La Jolla Music Society
La Jolla, California
La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest presents a wide range of chamber music programs. On its California-themed concert on August 17, the Abeo Quartet performs selections from John Adams’s spirited string quartet cycle John’s Book of Alleged Dances.
Aug 17 John Adams, Selections from John’s Book of Alleged Dances (Abeo Quartet)
Aug 21 Béla Bartók, Contrasts
Aug 24 Leonard Bernstein, Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
Oregon Bach Festival
Eugene, Oregon
Eric Whitacre conducts the Oregon Bach Festival chorus in a performance of his choral cycle The Sacred Veil, an hourlong setting of texts by Charles Anthony Silvestri commemorating the death of the poet's young wife ]ulie from ovarian cancer. People’s World writes, “The Sacred Veil may be the single most important musical contribution in our time, perhaps in any time, to a non-religious … understanding of death and loss.”
Jul 7 Igor Stravinsky, Symphony of Psalms (OBF Chorus / University of Oregon Chamber Choir)
Jul 12 Eric Whitacre, The Sacred Veil (OBF Chorus)
Ravinia Festival
Highland Park, Illinois
Marin Alsop conducts Symphonic Dances from West Side Story by her mentor Leonard Bernstein, and Gustavo Dudamel tackles John Adams and Ginastera in an ambitious program with the National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela.
Jul 12 Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring Suite (Chicago Symphony Orchestra)
Jul 25 Leonard Bernstein, Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (Chicago Symphony Orchestra)
Aug 6 John Adams, Short Ride in a Fast Machine; Alberto Ginastera, Dances from Estancia (National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela)
Aug 25 Gideon Klein, String Trio (Stella Chen, violin / Matthew Lipman, viola / Brannon Cho, cello)
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Clarinetist Todd Palmer and the Verona Quartet perform Osvaldo Golijov’s Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind. Epic in scope, the work’s three movements journey from traditional Jewish prayers to ecstatic klezmer dance tunes. The Escher String Quartet performs the complete cycle of Bartók’s beloved string quartets.
Jul 24 James MacMillan, The Children (Benjamin Appl, baritone / Simon Lepper, piano)
Jul 31 Galina Ustvolskaya, Trio for clarinet, violin, and piano (Todd Palmer, clarinet / other performers TBA)
Aug 1 Osvaldo Golijov, The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind (Todd Palmer, clarinet / Verona Quartet)
Aug 11 Béla Bartók, Six String Quartets (Escher String Quartet)
Sun Valley Music Festival
Ketchum, Idaho
Ortiz turned to Mexico City’s legendary dance halls and bars in composing Antrópolis for orchestra, capturing the nostalgia of rumberas and live dance orchestras in iconic spaces like El Bombay, Salón Colonia, and Los Infiernos. Ortiz states: “I wanted to pay a very personal tribute to some of those antros or emblematic dance halls of Mexico City that left a special sonorous imprint in my memory.”
Aug 8 Gabriela Ortiz, Antrópolis
Aug 19 Benjamin Britten, Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes
Aug 22 Sergei Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini(Garrick Ohlsson, piano)
Tanglewood
Lenox, Massachusetts
Tanglewood’s programming explodes with new music offerings this summer. The festival spotlights Steven Mackey (co-curator with Tania León of the TMC Festival of Contemporary Music), with performances of chamber works like One Red Rose for string quartet and Afterlife for percussion quartet with voice to orchestral pieces like Urban Ocean and the piano concerto Stumble to Grace, featuring soloist Orli Shaham.
Additional highlights include selections from Ever Yours, a recent string quartet by Osvaldo Golijov, Anna Clyne’s Macbeth-inspired Sound and Fury, and Gabriela Ortiz’s La Calaca and Kauyumari, performed by The Knights and TMC Orchestra, respectively.
Jun 30 Detlev Glanert, Concertgeblaas; Steve Reich, Six Marimbas (TMC Chamber Music)
Jul 19 Leonard Bernstein, Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety (Conrad Tao, piano)
Jul 21 Osvaldo Golijov, Selections from Ever Yours; Sofia Gubaidulina, Pilgrims (TMC Chamber Music)
Jul 25 Steven Mackey, Afterlife (TMC Festival of Contemporary Music)
Jul 26 Steven Mackey, Sneaky March (TMC Festival of Contemporary Music)
Jul 26 Steven Mackey, Urban Ocean
Jul 27 Steven Mackey, One Red Rose (TMC Festival of Contemporary Music)
Jul 27 Steven Mackey, Measuring (TMC Festival of Contemporary Music)
Jul 27-28 Aaron Copland, Piano Concerto (Paul Lewis, piano); Igor Stravinsky, Symphony of Psalms (Tanglewood Festival Chorus)
Jul 28 Steven Mackey, Physical Property (TMC Festival of Contemporary Music)
Jul 29 Steven Mackey, Stumble to Grace (Orli Shaham, piano)
Aug 8 John Adams, Short Ride in a Fast Machine; Alberto Ginastera, Dances from Estancia (National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela)
Aug 10-11 Anna Clyne, Sound and Fury
Aug 15 Gabriela Ortiz, La Calaca (The Knights)
Aug 19 Gabriela Ortiz, Kauyumari
Yellow Barn Summer Festival
Putney, Vermont
Yellow Barn’s chamber festival features ambitious programming each year. This summer, the festival presents two works by Serbian-Canadian composer Ana Sokolovic: the world premiere of For Lucy, a new work composed for soprano Lucy Shelton, violist Wilhelm Magner, and cellist Wei-An Hung; and Dring, dring, a short music theatre piece for voices that explores our interactions with the telephone.
Jul 6 Osvaldo Golijov, Mariel (Joan Herget, cello / Matthew Boyle, marimba); Ana Sokolovic, For Lucy (World Premiere; Lucy Shelton, soprano / Wilhelm Magner, viola / Wei-An Hung, cello)
Jul 18 Thomas Kessler, Unisono (Anoush Pogossian, Daniel Meszaros, Alan Kay, clarinets)
Jul 23 Béla Bartók, String Quartet No. 3 (Sophie Williams, Coco Mi, violins / Joshua Cai, viola / Annie SeEun Hyung, cello)
Jul 25 Ana Sokolovic, Dring, dring (Sara LeMesh, Melissa Wimbish, Lucy Shelton, William Sharp, voices)
Jul 26 Béla Bartók, Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (Julian Chan, Sunmi Han, pianos / Eduardo Leandro, Matthew Boyle, percussion)
Jul 29 Béla Bartók, Piano Quintet (Emily Turkanik, Katherine Yoon, violins / Rosemary Nelis, viola / Ariadna Chmelik, cello / Dénes Várjon, piano)
Photo: Cory Downard
