A summer of classical music ‘for all’ | Arts & Entertainment

Aspen Music Festival and School will be celebrating its 77th year as more than 450 young artists from around the world will come together with artist-faculty and guests from the foremost orchestras and music schools nationwide for almost 200 public events in venues throughout the area.

The theme of this year’s season is “For All,” which is a nod to the closing words of the Pledge of Allegiance and the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

For AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher, the theme goes beyond just commemorating an anniversary, but is more of an exploration of how American musical identity has been shaped and what it means today.

“Practically everyone in the performing arts is doing something honoring the ideals of the founding of the country this summer,” Fletcher told the Aspen Daily News. “We took the last two words of the pledge of allegiance and said, ‘Let’s emphasize the fact that this great culture is for all.’ We’ll especially be looking at the creation of musical identity in the United States which was something that people were thinking about even before the Revolutionary War happened.” 

AMFS has participants from 35 different countries, which is particularly meaningful; as Fletcher said, from the earliest days of the nation, its musical identity has been heavily influenced by music from other countries.

“Two-hundred-fifty years later, American music has been shaped by wave upon wave of immigration of different kinds of people coming into the country with their own ideas about music,” Fletcher said. 

As examples, he pointed to the influence of Germans and Scandinavians, who led the great westward expansion, Scots-Irish folk songs, West African drumming and European Jews who emigrated in the early 20th century and created Tin Pan Alley. Many different peoples and styles of music came together in America to shape its unique musical culture.

“It’s just layer upon layer of different ideas about music that came from all over the world and interacted with each other and that’s what we’re going to explore this summer,” Fletcher said.

World premieres and commissions 

Tickets for the 2026 summer season go on sale at noon Tuesday. This season there will be several world premieres and commissioned works, including the launch of the First Symphonies Project championed by AMFS Music Director Robert Spano. 

This is a multiyear initiative that will commission symphonies from emerging and established American composers. The first symphony will be performed July 19 with the world premiere of Matthew Aucoin’s “Symphony No. 1,” an AMFS co-commission.

Other major premieres include a new oratorio by composer and former AMFS student David Lang called “The Wealth of Nations,” which comes to Aspen on the heels of its premiere in New York in March.

“We think it’s a major, major work in the genre of ‘Handel’s Messiah,’ which is a pretty bold comparison, but there it is,” Fletcher said.

AMFS has developed a reputation for commissioning new works that have gone on to be important works in classical music. Other commissioned works this season include Sarah Kirkland Snider’s “Hildegard” (July 31); Jessie Montgomery’s “Cello Concerto,” performed by the South African cellist Abel Selaocoe (Aug. 9); Reena Esmail’s “Concerto for Violin and Piano,” performed by Gil Shaham and Orli Shaham (Aug. 14); and Jake Heggie’s “Earth 2.0,” featuring counter-tenor and AMFS alumnus Key’mon W. Murrah, which will be performed at the Aspen Chamber Symphony’s opening program (July 3).

Alongside contemporary premieres and commissions, the season will feature iconic repertoire by American composers such as Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, as well as European masters like Beethoven, whose “Symphony No. 9” will be performed alongside Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms”(Aug. 23). According to Fletcher, the two works paired together speak to the idea of “a brotherhood for all.”

“Beethoven paired with Bernstein is a very strong statement about the pinnacle of the Western tradition and the pinnacle of the American tradition,” Fletcher said.

Opera, musicals and more

One of the standout performances from last summer was the AMFS-commissioned world premiere of the opera “Siddartha, She,” which has continued to draw positive reviews since premiering in Aspen last summer, cementing AMFS’ reputation as a beacon of world class opera.

Fletcher pointed to a fully staged production of Benjamin Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as one of the highlights of this summer’s opera slate.

“It’s only Shakespeare’s words. There is no adaptation,” Fletcher said.

The production, which takes place at The Wheeler Opera House July 20 and 22, will be led by conductor Dame Jane Glover, whom Fletcher noted has a personal connection to Britten’s work.

“Glover first met the composer when she was 16 years old and Britten became a mentor and guiding influence for her as she grew into her illustrious career,” Fletcher said. 

The festival also will present, in partnership with Theatre Aspen, the musical “Guys and Dolls,” expanded this year to two performances.

“We just think that it’s going to be a huge draw,” Fletcher said. “It’s one of the most iconic American musicals.”

High-profile guest artists will return to Aspen as well, including pianists Yuja Wang and Emanuel Ax, both student alumni of the festival.

“Yuja Wang hasn’t been back in 20 years,” Fletcher said. “I think her performances (July 29 and Aug. 1) along with Emanuel Ax (July 25), who will perform an all Mozart program, will both be two of the highlights of the summer.”

Soprano Renée Fleming will open the season performing selections from John Adams’ “Nixon in China” (July 5), reprising a role she has recently performed internationally and keying into the 250 years of American history theme.

The end of an era

The 2026 festival marks Fletcher’s final summer as president and CEO after more than two decades leading the organization.

“This will be my last summer in the role of president,” he said. “And then I became president emeritus. I will be moving on but not retiring.”

Fletcher said his hope has always been that concertgoers have a memorable experience when attending an AMFS event. 

“What I most wish for is that people just say, ‘That was such a profound and fun experience,’” he said. “A musical evening can be inspiring, it can be moving, it can be consoling, it can be exciting. But overall, you should feel as though it was just a great time.”

For more information or tickets, visit aspenmusicfestival.com.