Summer Music Students

Every summer, classical music’s crème de la crème descend upon Aspen to take part in the The Aspen Music Festival and School. The Snowmass Chapel engages these students to play for special music every Sunday. We are very fortunate to have access to such phenomenal talent under the tutelage of the finest music professors in the country. The patrons of the Snowmass Chapel may sponsor one of these students by making a donation. Many generous donors contribute to this effort and the resulting music leaves us all breathless with wonder. Please contact Director of Music, Paul Dankers if you have any questions about this program.

Set in the awe-inspiring majesty of the Colorado Rockies, the Aspen Music Festival and School has carried on the vision of creativity and education that started with the 1949 Goethe Bicentennial Convocation.

Elizabeth and Walter Paepcke of Chicago launched the two-week celebration in Aspen that brought figures such as Albert Schweitzer, Arthur Rubinstein, and many other noted individuals for lectures, symposia, and concerts. Uniting the intersecting worlds of ideas, art, and natural beauty, this event started something special: fostering the growth of the human spirit through the melding of art and nature.

Today, nearly sixty years later, the AMFS continues pursuing that ideal. Music Director David Zinman presides over the nine-week summer festival of more than 350 events - including orchestral concerts, chamber music, opera, contemporary music, master classes, lectures, and kids' programs. Each day brings concerts to the 2,050-seat Benedict Music Tent (an acoustically superior and award-winning permanent structure that opened in 2000), the beautifully restored Victorian Wheeler Opera House, the exceptional Harris Concert Hall, as well as in churches and other halls around Aspen. Many events are free, and other tickets range up to $80. Lawn seating is always free.

The Festival and School continues to develop both in its scope and reputation. The 2007 season saw the inauguration of a free big-screen opera simulcast in Wagner Park. And in the near future major construction will begin on the redevelopment of the Castle Creek Campus, as designed by renowned architect Harry Teague.

Aspen continues to bring the brightest young musicians together with the classical music world's foremost instructors. More than 750 students and 200 artist-faculty come each year, as the Festival and School gathers musical influences from far and wide to create a unique hub of innovation and exploration through rich instrumental and vocal programs and so much more. Join us.