Discounted passes for locals go on sale today for the 2024 Aspen Music Festival and School’s 75th anniversary season, which runs from June 26 to Aug. 18.
Now, all of the ticket packages can be purchased, as donors tickets and season passes were made available last week. Passes only may be purchased over the phone (970-925-9042) or at the Harris Concert Hall box office at 960 Third St. (once the box office opens on June 17).
The discount pass for locals costs $85 with one pass allowed per person. Each pass offers the holder 10 discounted tickets to performances. If the passholder runs out of tickets, they may purchase a season pass for additional discounted tickets.
Eligible concerts for discounts include the Sunday Aspen Festival Orchestra concerts, the Friday Aspen Chamber Symphony concerts, a recital with Daniil Trifonov and Sergei Babayan, a recital with Sharon Isbin, Bach’s “Mass in B minor,” Saturday chamber music concerts, “Opera Encounters” in the Wheeler Opera House and more. To determine local discount availability, visit aspenmusicfestival.com.
Michael Klein Music Tent (formerly the Benedict Music Tent) concerts are tiered at different price levels for Friday and Sunday orchestral concerts, but locals-pass holders may choose seats anywhere in the hall for the same pass price by contacting the box office.
The festival spans 53 nights and features over 200 public events. Music Director Robert Spano will lead a season themed “Becoming Who You Are” that explores the impact of AMFS on the personal development of thousands of important musicians over the last 75 years. Over 20 AMFS alumni will perform over the course of the festival.
Throughout the six-week festival, multiple events take place daily — orchestras, recitals, solo and chamber performances, opera productions, lectures and master classes — at AMFS performance venues at the Aspen Meadows campus in the West End neighborhood and other locales throughout the valley.
Theatre Aspen recently announced its fifth annual collaboration with AMFS for a one-night only performance of the nine-time Tony winning play “Fiddler on the Roof,” which will take place at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 23, in the Klein music tent. The performance marks the 60th anniversary of “Fiddler on The Roof’s” debut on Broadway and features John Williams’ 1971 Oscar-winning score adaptation. Andy Einhorn joins the collaboration to conduct the more than 60-piece AMFS student orchestra.
“Each season we look forward to collaborating with our esteemed colleagues at Theatre Aspen to present the great musical theater works of our time,” said Alan Fletcher, president and CEO of AMFS, in a news release. “‘Fiddler on the Roof’ has long been on our list. Its universal themes and iconic melodies touch something in all of us, and John Williams’ brilliant score is an ideal vehicle to showcase the talents of our young orchestral players as they share the stage with world-class Broadway talent.”
Over its 75-year history, AMFS has built a reputation as one of the top classical music festivals in the world, attracting music students from around the globe each year to train and perform alongside renowned musicians, composers and conductors.
When asked what other teaching academies would be considered in the same “ether” as AMFS, Patrick Chamberlain, vice president of artistic administration, said the U.S. has “a number of great summer music festivals and great teaching music festivals.”
“We consider our peer organizations in teaching festivals to be the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara and Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts. Those are the other top level teaching festivals. They’re both much smaller in terms of student body than we are, but certainly have a reputation for excellence in teaching and performing.”
He said AMFS is the largest, in terms of student body. Four-hundred-fifty students are expected this summer.
“There are other summer music festivals that don’t have a teaching element, but that present a concentrated group of high-level excellence,” Chamberlain said. “For instance, the Ravinia Ravinia Festival outside of Chicago or the Hollywood Bowl season presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic are sort of comparable institutions in this country, in one way or the other to [AMFS]. And then internationally, there’s certainly great summer festivals: The Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland, the Salzburg Festival in Austria, the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France, the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland are all comparable to the profile of [AMFS]. We’re certainly viewed in this country as one of the preeminent summer music destinations. We just have to strive to be worthy of that replication every year.”
