Summer Festivals

The 2006-2007 arts season has ended, but summer offers other opportunities in the Valley and throughout the Southwest. Many local musicians participate in summer festivals – you might encounter a familiar face onstage in Wyoming or Colorado. Give yourself plenty of time to plan your festival vacation; many performances are sold out months in advance, and accommodations can be equally scarce.

(In addition to the resources listed below, more information is available on our interactive website calendar, under the category "Classical Music Festivals.")

Before you travel to your favorite festival, stay in town for Ballet Arizona, which ends its season with the world premiere of a full-length ballet by artistic director Ib Andersen, complete with original choreography, costumes, and sets, plus live music performed by The Phoenix Symphony. Performances take place at Symphony Hall in downtown Phoenix (6/8-6/10); at the time of this article, the work-in-progress included excerpts from Mozart’s Variations on “Ah, vous dirai-je, maman” (also known as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”) and Benjamin Britten’s Prelude and Fugue for 18-part String Orchestra. The School of Ballet Arizona offers summer programs for beginning through advanced students ages 4-18, including a two-week Repertory Intensive (5/22-5/31) and a four-week Summer Intensive (6/4-6/29), with training in ballet technique as well as dance disciplines like jazz, modern, character, and flamenco. For information on performances, call 602-381-1096; for information on classes, call 602-381-0188; or, visit www.balletaz.org.

Cool off at the Phoenix Art Museum, where it’s always 72º with 50% humidity to protect the artwork. Mexico and Modern Printmaking: A Revolution in the Graphic Arts, 1920-1950 spotlights prints and posters by modern Mexican artists like José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo (7/1-9/16); Uninked: Paintings, Sculpture and Graphic Work of Five Cartoonists (4/21-8/19) explores less familiar creations from five of today’s finest cartoonists: Kim Deitch, Jerry Moriarty, Gary Panter, Ron Regé, Jr. and Seth. For information, call 602-257-1222, or visit www.phxart.org.

(Self-portrait of Diego Rivera at http://phxart.org/exhibitions/current.asp)

FESTIVALS

ARIZONA

Head north for the Grand Canyon Music Festival’s concerts at the Shrine of the Ages (9/1-9/16; grandcanyonmusicfest.org or 800-997-8285), with festival founders Robert Bonfiglio on harmonica and Clare Hoffman on flute joining Trio Solisti, the Calder Quartet, and string band Ethel with music from the Native American Composers Apprentice Project, as well as works by Terry Riley, Philip Glass, and Franz Schubert.

Local wind ensemble Quintessence collaborates with composer Bill Douglas for an Arizona premiere during the Red Rocks Music Festival (8/25-9/2; redrocksmusicfestival.com or 877-REDRCKS), at venues in Phoenix and Sedona; programs include a “Young Artists Showcase” and “Flamenco at Sunset.”

CALIFORNIA

Composer Joan Tower’s new piano trio premieres at La Jolla SummerFest 2007 (8/3-8/26; lajollamusicsociety.org or 858-459-3728) in a program that includes her pieces Wild Purple and Big Sky, as well as Chen Yi’s Chinese Ancient Dances, Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Lachen verlernt, and Marc Neikrug’s Three Wine Pieces. Festival music director Cho-Liang Lin welcomes fellow violinists Sarah Chang and Chee-Yun, cellist Lynn Harrell, pianists Joseph Kalichstein, Cecile Licad, André-Michel Schub, and Orion Weiss, sopranos Sylvia McNair and Heidi Grant Murphy, the Shanghai String Quartet, and dance troupe BodyVox.

Opera, master classes, concerts, and workshops fill the Music Academy of the West Summer Festival’s 60^th anniversary season in Santa Barbara (6/18-8/11; musicacademy.org or 805-969-8787); visiting artists include conductors Jeffrey Tate and John Williams, violinist Gil Shaham, clarinetist David Shifrin, baritone Thomas Hampson, pianist Orli Shaham, the Canadian Brass, and the Takács Quartet.

COLORADO

As always, the venerable Aspen Music Festival (6/21-8/19; aspenmusicfestival.com or 970-925-9042) includes all the brightest lights of the performing arts, but this 58^th season has a twist: it looks into the influences of jazz on classical music. Wynton Marsalis conducts the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, mini-festivals explore works by Beethoven and Stravinsky, opera performances visit Bizet, Mozart, Puccini, and Cavalli, and world premieres include Steven Mackey’s Ground Swell, Robert Beaser’s Folk Songs, Daniel Kellogg’s Piano Quintet, and the Sextet for Brass Quintet and Piano by Billy Childs. The Emerson Quartet, Tafelmusik, Leon Fleisher, Joshua Bell, Peter Serkin, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Kathleen Battle, Nicholas McGegan, Sarah Chang, and Edgar Meyer (among others) perform music by composers ranging from Piazzolla to Kaija Saariaho to Corigliano to Brahms.

The roster for Music in the Mountains (7/15-8/5; musicinthemountains.com or 970-385-6820) features guest conductor Guillermo Figueroa and violinists Anne Akiko Meyers and Vadim Gluzman; the festival includes 38 concerts in venues in and around Durango and Pagosa Springs.

NEW MEXICO

Music from Angel Fire (8/17-9/3; musicfromangelfire.org or 888-377-3300) celebrates its 24^th season in northern New Mexico’s mountain towns of Taos, Angel Fire, Raton, and Las Vegas with the Miami String Quartet, pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, an array of string players including Peter Wiley, brothers Rafael and Guillermo Figueroa, sisters Ani and Ida Kavafian, Toby Appel, and Benny Kim, and a world premiere from composer-in-residence Marc Neikrug.

The Miró Quartet visits the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival (7/15-8/20; sfcmf.org or 888-221-9836), which also welcomes cellists Lynn Harrell, Peter Wiley, and Zuill Bailey, violinists Pinchas Zukerman and Daniel Hope, oboist Allan Vogel, violist Michael Tree, bassoonist Milan Turkovic, pianists John O’Conor and Jon Nakamatsu, chansonnier HK Gruber, the Orion String Quartet, and soprano Patricia Racette.

The Santa Fe Opera’s season (6/29-8/25; santafeopera.org or 800-280-4654) continues to partner familiar favorites with rare and unusual works; Puccini’s La Bohème and Mozart’s Così fan tutte join Richard Strauss’s Daphne, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Platée, and the American premiere of Tea: A Mirror of Soul by Tan Dun.

UTAH

The Moab Music Festival (8/30-9/15; moabmusicfest.org or 435-259-7003) showcases hornist Eric Ruske, the Turtle Island Quartet, violinist Juliette Kang, cellist Natalie Haas, and narrator Jamie Bernstein, but the red rock canyon country of southeast Utah steals the show in ten outdoor performances, including the concerts held in an acoustically rich wilderness grotto reached only by boat.

Visit Cedar City for the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespearean Festival (bard.org or 800-PLAYTIX); the summer season (6/21-9/1) includes three plays by the Bard (King Lear, Twelfth Night, and Coriolanus) plus George Bernard Shaw’s Candida, Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, and the world premiere of Lend Me a Tenor: The Musical. The festival’s fall season presents Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Yasmina Reza’s Art, and Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.

WYOMING

Experience the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole’s newly-renovated Walk Festival Hall (7/11-8/26; gtmf.org or 307-733-1128), with conductors Donald Runnicles and Carlos Kalmar, pianists Horacio Gutierrez and Leon Fleisher, violinist William Preucil, and soprano Christine Brewer. Programs include Orff’s Carmina Burana, a violin concerto by Stephen Paulus, and works by Dvořák, Tan Dun, Wagner, Rachmaninoff, and John Adams.

The information listed above was correct as of press time; however, programs, venues, dates, and artists are all subject to change. Updated information and details for many other events can be found through the “Events” link at www.kbaq.org; also, keep an eye on this link for upcoming 2007-2008 season information for local performing arts organizations.