2025 US Summer Festival Guide

(May 2025)

Explore highlights across summer music festivals from around the United States. This summer sees the world premiere of a new violin-cello duo work by Sean Shepherd for Leila Josefowicz and Paul Watkins, as well as recent orchestral works by Anna Clyne and Eric Whitacre. Bard Music Festival presents a major programming focus on the music of Bohuslav Martinu, and Gabriela Ortiz is this year’s curator of Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary Music, offering a fascinating slate of new music programming.

Read on for highlights of the B&H catalog being performed at festivals around the country.

Aspen Music Festival
Aspen, Colorado

Piano soloist Jeremy Denk performs Anna Clyne’s 2023 piano concerto, ATLAS, inspired by German artist Gerhard Richter, which The Guardian described as “a brilliantly coloured musical scrapbook, artfully assembled.” The Aspen Music Festival features an evening of Edgar Meyer’s string trios, as an all-American recital program by violinist Austin Hadelich and pianist Orion Weiss featuring John Adams’s Road Movies and works by Copland.

Jul 7 Edgar Meyer, string trios (Tessa Lark, violin / Joshua Roman, cello / Edgar Meyer, bass)
Jul 12 Meredith Monk, Railroad (Travel Song) (Steven Osborne, piano)
Jul 12 Bohuslav Martinu, Three Madrigals (Aspen Contemporary Ensemble / Donald Crockett)
Jul 13 Leonard Bernstein, Symphony No.2: The Age of Anxiety (ft. Inon Barnatan, piano)
Aug 8 Anna Clyne, ATLAS (Jeremy Denk, piano / Aspen Chamber Symphony / Jane Glover)
Aug 12 John Adams, Road Movies; Aaron Copland, Nocturne, Ukelele Serenade, “Hoe Down” (Augustin Hadelich, violin / Orion Weiss, piano)

Bard Music Festival
Annandale-On-Hudson, New York

Bard Music Festival presents Martinu and His World, an exploration of the life and work of the Czech composer across two weekends of concerts and panel discussions. Programming highlights include his Double Concerto for two string orchestras, piano, and timpani, and a semi-staged performance of his surrealist opera Julietta.

Aug 8 Bohuslav Martinu, from?Etudes and Polkas, Book II, H308; Double Concerto, Symphony No. 2
Aug 9 Bohuslav Martinu, Symphony No. 6
Aug 10 Bohuslav Martinu, Tre ricercari
Aug 16 Bohuslav Martinu, Three Madrigals
Aug 17 Bohuslav Martinu, Julietta

Colorado Music Festival
Boulder, Colorado

This May, GRAMMY Award–winning violinist Anne Akiko Meyers premieres?Eric Whitacre’s The Pacific Has No Memory for violin and string orchestra, and tours the work to the Colorado Music Festival in July. The piece was inspired by the devastating wildfires that swept through Los Angeles and surrounding areas in January 2025.

Jul 10-11 Aaron Copland, An Outdoor Overture
Jul 17-18 Eric Whitacre, The Pacific Has No Memory (ft. Anne Akiko Meyers, violin); Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring Suite

Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center
New York, New York

British saxophonist Jess Gillam joins the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center to perform Anna Clyne’s 2023 saxophone concerto Glasslands, which conjures the sounds of a wailing banshee. Soprano Gabriella Reyes performs Britten’s vivid, emotionally charged orchestral song cycle Les illuminations and Golijov’s lushly scored Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra.

Jul 22-23 Anna Clyne, Glasslands (ft. Jess Gillam, saxophone)
Aug 1-2 Benjamin Britten, Les illuminations (ft. Gabriella Reyes, soprano); Osvaldo Golijov, Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra (ft. Gabriella Reyes, soprano)

Glimmerglass Festival
Cooperstown, New York

As part of its 50th anniversary season, the Glimmerglass Festival presents The Rake’s Progress, Stravinsky’s only full-length opera and a landmark piece of the 20th century. Inspired by the engravings of William Hogarth and set to a razor-sharp libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, this Neoclassical masterpiece follows the downfall of Tom Rakewell, a young man who trades love and responsibility for a life of pleasure, temptation, and illusion.

Jul 19-Aug 15 Igor Stravinsky, The Rake's Progress (Joseph Colaneri, conductor / Eric Sean Fogel, director/choreographer)

Grand Teton Music Festival
Jackson, Wyoming

Sir Donald Runnicles conducts Detlev Glanert’s Weites Land, an “edgy, whirling orchestral fantasy” (The Guardian) inspired by the opening motif of Brahms’s Symphony No. 4, which also features on the program. The performance will be recorded for future release on Reference Recordings.

Aug 15-16 Detlev Glanert, Weites Land

Grant Park Music Festival
Chicago, Illinois

Cellist Inbal Segev is featured soloist in Anna Clyne’s DANCE, praised by Gramophone as “so beautiful, so heartfelt that it instantly drew tears on first hearing.” Segev’s recording of the concerto has been streamed over 12 million times on Spotify.

In August, the festival presents Lera Auerbach’s Icarus for orchestra, inspired by the composer’s deep connection to the myth. Auerbach explores the story’s central paradox: that the wings symbolizing freedom also lead to Icarus’s fall.

Jun 18 Leonard Bernstein, Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront
Jul 16 Anna Clyne, DANCE (ft. Inbal Segev, cello)
Aug 8-9 Lera Auerbach, Icarus

Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival
Beverly Hills, Michigan

Sean Shepherd’s Latticework, a new 20-minute duo for violin and cello, premieres at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, performed by Leila Josefowicz and Paul Watkins. The work, written for and dedicated to the duo, draws on the expressive potential of the two instruments’ overlapping ranges and is inspired by interwoven forms in nature, textiles, and architecture.

Latticework will also be performed at Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival (July 15), Chamber Music Northwest (July 24–26), and at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in early 2026.

Jun 8 Sean Shepherd, Latticework (World Premiere) (Leila Josefowicz, violin / Paul Watkins, cello)

Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Santa Fe, New Mexico

Sean Shepherd’s Latticework, written for violinist Leila Josefowicz and cellist Paul Watkins, continues its world premiere tour of summer festivals. Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival’s adventurous programming also includes Steve Reich’s dynamic and intricately woven Mallet Quartet, performed by leading percussionists Colin Currie, Daniel Druckman, Doug Perkins, and Gregory Zuber.

Jul 15 Sean Shepherd, Latticework (Leila Josefowicz, violin / Paul Watkins, cello)
Jul 23 Benjamin Britten, On This Island (Emily Pogorelc, soprano / Julius Drake, piano)
Aug 10 Béla Bartók, Contrasts (Ida Kavafian, violin / Carol McGonnell, clarinet / Soyeon Kate Lee, piano)
Aug 11 Steve Reich, Mallet Quartet (Colin Currie, Daniel Druckman, Doug Perkins, Gregory Zuber, percussion)

Spoleto Festival
Charleston, South Carolina

At the 2025 Spoleto Festival USA, cellist Alisa Weilerstein gives the first complete presentation of her FRAGMENTS project—a six-concert cycle that weaves movements from Bach’s cello suites with 27 new commissions by composers—including works by Ana Sokolovic and Courtney Bryan. The festival also presents Britten’s haunting ghost story opera The Turn of the Screw, directed by Rodula Gaitanou and conducted by François López-Ferrer.

May 26 Ana Sokolovic, Fragments 2 (Alisa Weilerstein, cello)
May 29 Courtney Bryan, Congruence (Alisa Weilerstein, cello)
May 30-Jun 6 Benjamin Britten, The Turn of the Screw (François López-Ferrer, conductor / Rodula Gaitanou, director)
Jun 1-2 Gabriela Ortiz, Exilios I (ft. Tara Helen O'Connor, flute)
Jun 5 Anna Clyne, DANCE (ft. Inbal Segev, cello)

Tanglewood
Lenox, Massachusetts

This summer, composer Gabriela Ortiz curates Tanglewood’s world-renowned Festival of Contemporary Music, bringing her vibrant, genre-defying voice to the forefront of the festival. Across multiple chamber and orchestral concerts, her works explore themes of identity, memory, migration, and ritual. Highlights include La Calaca with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Liquid Borders performed by Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, and the US premiere of Ortiz’s flute concerto Altar de Viento, featuring soloist Alejandro Escuer with the TMC Orchestra.

Jul 5 Sergei Rachmaninoff, Symphonic Dances (Boston Symphony Orchestra / Andris Nelsons)
Jul 12 Osvaldo Golijov, Ayre (TMC Fellows)
Jul 14 Igor Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring (TMC Orchestra / Esa-Pekka Salonen)
Jul 24 Gabriela Ortiz, Tin-Tan – Fanfarria y Mambo, Puzzle-Tocas, Tres Haikus, Río Bravo (TMC Festival of Contemporary Music)
Jul 25 Gabriela Ortiz, Río de mariposas, Pico-Bite-Beat (TMC Festival of Contemporary Music)
Jul 26 Gabriela Ortiz, Exilios, Liquid Borders (Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, TMC Festival of Contemporary Music)
Jul 26 Gabriela Ortiz, Altar de Muertos (TMC Fellows)
Jul 26-27 Gabriela Ortiz, La Calaca (Boston Symphony Orchestra / Andris Nelsons)
Jul 27 Gabriela Ortiz, Cedrus, Pigmentum, Trifolium, Vitrales de ambar (TMC Festival of Contemporary Music)
Jul 28 Gabriela Ortiz, Altar de Viento, Hominum (Alejandro Escuer, flute / TMC Orchestra / Thomas Wilkins)
Aug 11 Modest Mussorgsky (arr. Ravel), Pictures at an Exhibition (TMC Orchestra / Andrés Orozco-Estrada)
Aug 18 Béla Bartók, Dance Suite (TMC Orchestra / Dima Slobodeniouk)

Photo: Aram Boghosian

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