Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
All Bach
Oboist Robert Ingliss and violinist Daniel Phillips play J. S. Bach’s lively and warm-hued Concerto for Oboe and Violin, flutist Bart Feller performs C. P. E Bach’s popular D Minor Flute Concerto, and pianist Gilles Vonsattel closes the program with J. S. Bach’s E Major Keyboard Concerto, a work that’s both lighthearted and full of challenging complexity.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Schubert & Beethoven
This piano-trio program unfolds entirely in the key of E-flat Major—a key that often expresses grandeur and majesty. The program opens with the floating theme of Schubert’s Notturno; moves to Beethoven’s uncommonly lighthearted Op. 70, No. 2; and closes with a masterpiece from Schubert’s final year: his D. 929. An internationally renowned lineup of artists comes together for this tender yet thrilling program.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Verona Quartet
The Verona Quartet—called a “powerhouse” ensemble by Classical Voice America—makes their Festival debut with a rich and wide-ranging recital program that includes the last of Mozart’s charming Milanese quartets, Britten’s delicate and ethereal Third Quartet, and Verdi’s only string quartet, which transports listeners into the world of Italian opera on a small yet potent scale.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Annika Schlicht & Donald Runnicles Recital
The stunning German mezzo-soprano Annika Schlicht is joined by Donald Runnicles (the renowned conductor) on the piano for this beautifully crafted recital, which features 19th- and 20th-century works by Debussy, Brahms, Lili Boulanger, and Roger Quilter that transport listeners along an international journey of song.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Russian Odyssey: Rachmaninoff & Prokofiev
This program celebrates the rich variety and enduring beauty of the Russian repertoire—from the intricate textures in Prokofiev’s Sonata for Two Violins and the aching beauty in Rachmaninoff’s Trio élégiaque to the stark, powerful expressions in Ustvolskaya’s Clarinet Trio. Violin virtuosos Paul Huang and Danbi Um—described, respectively, by The Strad as possessing an “unfailingly attractive, golden, and resonant tone” and being an “utterly dazzling” artist—share the Festival stage for the first time.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Golijov: The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind
Grammy-nominated clarinetist Todd Palmer joins the Verona Quartet in Osvaldo Golijov’s celebrated quintet The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, an epic journey that invokes both the divinity of prayer and the freewheeling world of klezmer. The Verona then joins guitarist Łukasz Kuropaczewski for Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Guitar Quintet, which the composer described as a “melodious and serene work written almost in a Schubertian vein.”
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
New Music with FLUX Quartet
The FLUX Quartet, praised as “an intrepid ensemble” by The New York Times, plays 20th-century-master Witold Lutosławski’s suspenseful—and one-and-only— String Quartet and gives the world premieres of works by Jesse Reuben Jennings and David Clay Mettens, the participants in the Festival’s 11th annual Young Composers String Quartet Project.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Italian Splendor: Vivaldi, Giuliani & Paganini
International guitar sensation Łukasz Kuropaczewski is joined by violinist Danbi Um, the Verona Quartet, and double bassist Mark Tatum for a program of Italian charm and splendor. Two dazzling duo sonatas by Giuliani and Paganini are framed by two of Vivaldi’s warm and energetic guitar concertos in this tribute to the guitar’s beauty, versatility, and enduring appeal.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde
An all-star ensemble is joined by two extraordinary soloists who are also making their Festival debuts: German mezzo-soprano Annika Schlicht, whose voice OperaWire has praised as “extraordinary for its beauty of tone,” and American heldentenor Clay Hilley, who was lauded by The New York Times for his “vocal heft [and] clarion sound.”
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Souvenirs de Voyage
The world premiere of a Festival-commissioned work by composer Xinyang Wang, who draws equal inspiration from classical music and traditional Chinese arts, opens this program, which also features clarinetist Todd Levy in Academy Award–winning composer Bernard Herrmann’s quintet Souvenirs de Voyage, a cinematic journey through England, Ireland, and Italy.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Jamie Barton & Julius Drake Recital
Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton—hailed as “a once-in-a-generation voice” by Opera magazine—makes her highly anticipated Festival debut in a recital with renowned pianist Julius Drake. Barton’s passion for telling stories through song provides the vibrant underpinning for an enthralling and eclectic program of works by Dvořák, Ives, Duparc, and Sibelius.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Mozart Clarinet Quintet
Mozart’s perfectly crafted Duo in G Major, performed by violinist William Hagen and violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, and Kodály’s thrilling and demanding Duo for Violin and Cello, played by Leila Josefowicz and Paul Watkins. Mozart is featured again in the second half, as his exquisite Clarinet Quintet showcases the soaring artistry of clarinetist David Shifrin and the Escher String Quartet.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Schumann & Beethoven
Pianist Julius Drake joins horn player Nathaniel Silberschlag and violinist William Hagen in treasured works by Schumann and Beethoven, which provide a lyrical and emotive frame for Schoenberg’s fiendishly difficult String Trio, performed here by violinist Leila Josefowicz, violist Milena-Pajaro-van de Stadt, and cellist Paul Watkins.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Bach, Teleman & Zelenka
Telemann’s lyrical expressiveness, Zelenka’s harmonic inventiveness, and Vivaldi’s pyrotechnics are all on display in this program of Baroque riches, which culminates with Bach’s immortal Brandenburg Concerto No. 2.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Escher Plays Bartok
Widely considered the most influential quartet cycle after Beethoven’s, Bartók’s collection of six string quartets is a landmark artistic achievement. The rare opportunity offered here—to experience the full quartet cycle performed over the course of one evening—gives listeners a unique insight into Bartók’s creative development as he revolutionized the string quartet genre and moved from composing in the late-Romantic style to pioneering modernism.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Mozart & Brahms Masterworks
On this powerful program, eight acclaimed wind players—including Minnesota Orchestra Principal Oboe Nathan Hughes and Cleveland Orchestra Principal Horn Nathaniel Silberschlag—come together to play Mozart’s earliest masterpiece for wind ensemble, the Serenade, K. 375, and violinist William Hagen leads an all-star ensemble in Brahms’s Piano Quintet, which one of the composer’s contemporaries, conductor Hermann Levi, described as “beautiful beyond words.”
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Kirill Gerstein Piano Recital
Longtime Festival collaborator Kirill Gerstein, praised by The Guardian as “a peerless performer,” offers a rich Romantic recital program that includes Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantasy—a visionary work that, while writing the piece, the composer described as something he didn’t “yet know what to call”; Liszt’s flamboyant, Chopin-influenced Polonaise No. 2; and Schumann’s Carnival Scenes from Vienna, which moves masterfully and innovatively between the festive and the somber.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Fleur Barron & Julius Drake Recital
Mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, hailed as a “knockout performer” by The Times, and pianist Julius Drake, who made their Festival debuts together in 2022, present a children-themed recital that evokes both humor and tragedy. The duo performs selected songs by Schumann and gives the first-ever Festival performances of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder and Mussorgsky’s Detskaya.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Beethoven & Weinberg
Violinist Ida Kavafian, violist Steven Tenenbom, and cellist Eric Kim play an early work by Beethoven—the seminal String Trio in C Minor—and violinist John Storgårds and pianist Katia Skanavi join all three musicians for the Festival’s first presentation of Weinberg’s haunting Piano Quintet, a rarely performed masterpiece that stands as one of the great piano quintets of the 20th century.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Dover Quartet
The Dover Quartet makes their first Festival appearance of the season playing Janáček’s poignant testament to love, Intimate Letters, and a landmark work by Tchaikovsky: the Quartet in D Major, Op. 11, whose famous second movement had once (the composer proudly noted) moved the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy to tears.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Handel: Water Music
In his first-ever Festival appearance, Santa Fe Opera Music Director Harry Bicket leads an ensemble of Opera musicians in music from Handel’s regal Water Music, which was originally performed on the River Thames for King George I and went on to enthrall audiences over the centuries with its enchanting melodies, spirited rhythms, and vibrant orchestral colors.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Rossini & Brahms
Members of the Dover Quartet join other Festival artists in the youthfully exuberant, Classical-era Sonata a quattro No. 1, written by Rossini when he was 12 years old, and Brahms’s sweeping String Sextet in G Major.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Dvořák & Janáček: Czech Icons
In this season-finale concert, violinist John Storgårds and pianist Kirill Gerstein play Janáček’s Violin Sonata, which is noted for both its urgency and lyricism, and, for the first time ever, Gerstein joins forces with the Dover Quartet for a performance of one of the standouts of the chamber music repertoire: Dvořák’s rousing Piano Quintet, Op. 81.