Our 2025 season dates will be announced soon.

Latest Past Events

Gabriela Lena Frank’s World Premiere

Chautauqua Auditorium 900 Baseline Road, Boulder

Be the first to experience a brand new concerto by Gabriela Lena Frank, heralded as one of the most significant women composers in history by the Washington Post. This exciting new work was commissioned by the Festival and will be performed by Boulder’s Grammy-winning Takács Quartet as ensemble-soloist alongside the Orchestra. After intermission, Joan Tower’s brilliant Concerto for Orchestra allows for great moments of individual virtuosity, but ultimately it is the entire Orchestra that shines. “I had imagined a long and large landscape that had a feeling of space and distance,” Tower says of her Concerto for Orchestra, in which the music “travels a long road.” This program celebrates three generations of women composers and opens with Florence Price’s Adoration, originally conceived for solo organ and performed here in its stunning arrangement for strings.

$18 – $80

SOLD OUT: Joshua Bell + Mahler 1

Chautauqua Auditorium 900 Baseline Road, Boulder

Music Director Peter Oundjian and the Festival are pulling out all the stops for an unforgettable season finale. In the second evening of a two-part preview performance, 2023 Artist-in-Residence Joshua Bell performs selections from Elements, an unparalleled work for violin and orchestra in five movements, each written by a different acclaimed composer. In this concert, Bell performs “Air” (composed by Jennifer Higdon) and “Earth” (Kevin Puts). Oundjian continues his tradition of ending the Festival with a grand work by Mahler; in his First Symphony Mahler celebrates the pure taste of victory after a struggle, guiding listeners through daydreams and darkness before rewarding them with a heroic ending and as much blinding joy as the horns can muster.

(A co-commissioned project with five major orchestras, Elements will receive formal premieres around the world beginning in September 2023. Hear it at the Festival first!)

$18 – $80

JFK: The Last Speech – World Premiere

Chautauqua Auditorium 900 Baseline Road, Boulder

“Our national strength matters,” said President John F. Kennedy, “but the spirit which informs and controls our strength matters just as much.” This line and others appear in the libretto of the world premiere symphony JFK: The Last Speech, inspired by the celebration of poet Robert Frost which would become President Kennedy’s final speech. Composer Adolphus Hailstork says of JFK: The Last Speech, “My writing will reflect the autumn season, the solemnity of the moment, and the unique oratorical gifts of Kennedy the president, and the profound literary gifts of Frost the poet.” This landmark program begins with two additional world premiere performances; be the first to experience new music by rising star Jordan Holloway and Pulitzer Prize-nominated CU Boulder Professor of Composition Carter Pann, each commissioned by the Festival.

JFK: The Last Speech is a project of members of the Amherst Class of 1964 through their non-profit Reunion ’64, Inc. They had the privilege of witnessing President Kennedy deliver his last major speech, October 26, 1963. The symphony joins two earlier projects, a book, and documentary of the same title.

$18 – $75