About the AMFS

Founded in 1949, the Aspen Music Festival and School is regarded as one of the top classical music festivals in the United States, noted both for its concert programming and its musical training of mostly young-adult music students. The eight-week summer season includes hundreds of classical music events: concerts by four orchestras, recitals, chamber music, operas, classes, lectures, and family programs. In the winter, the AMFS presents recitals and robust music education programs for local youth and families.

Come celebrate

75 Years Of Music

Mission Statement

Adopted March 2015 by the Board of Trustees in the Long Range Plan

The Aspen Music Festival and School’s mission is to be the preeminent summer institution of classical music education, performances, and presentations; to be transformational and inspirational for all involved; to be innovative and a catalyst for change in the world of music, while drawing on and respecting its great traditions.

A school unique in its teaching practice and philosophy, inspiring every student through study and performance;
A magnet for the highest-quality students, artist-faculty, and guest artists;
A center for great musical performances, where listeners enrich their enjoyment of music;
A force for positive change in the world of music.

All in the context of respecting and nurturing the Aspen Idea and the Aspen community, celebrating the union of mind, body, and spirit through the art of music.

Festival History

The Aspen Music Festival and School was originally founded in 1949 by Chicago businessman Walter Paepcke and Elizabeth Paepcke as a two-week bicentennial celebration of the 18th-century German writer Johann Wolgang von Goethe. The event, which included both intellectual forums and musical performances, was such a success that it led to the formation of both the Aspen Institute and the Aspen Music Festival and School.

In the summers that followed, the participating musicians returned, bringing their music students, and the foundation was set for the AMFS as it is known today. In 1951, the School enrolled its first official class, with 183 music students. That same year, Igor Stravinsky became the first conductor to present his own works with the Festival.

Early founding musicians included baritone Mac Harrell (father of cellist Lynn Harrell) and violinist Roman Totenberg (father of NPR legal correspondent Nina Totenberg). Early performance highlights include then-student James Levine conducting the Benjamin Britten opera Albert Herring in 1964, coinciding with Britten’s visit to Aspen that summer to accept an award from the Aspen Institute. In 1965, Duke Ellington and his orchestra came to the AMFS to perform a benefit concert. In 1971, Dorothy DeLay joined the AMFS strings artist-faculty and attracted more than 200 students a summer to her program. In 1975, Aaron Copland came to Aspen as a composer-in-residence on the occasion of his 75th birthday. In 1980, John Denver performed with the Aspen Festival Orchestra for his TV special Music and the Mountains, which aired the following year on ABC. Multiple artist-faculty members have also recorded albums while in Aspen, including the Emerson String Quartet, which recorded the Shostakovich: The String Quartets 5-disc set from AMFS venue Harris Concert Hall and won the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Classical Album.

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Programs of Study

The Aspen Music Festival and School offers musicians a choice of programs of study:

Orchestra / Instrumental

Solo Piano

Collaborative Piano

Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS

Aspen Conducting Academy

Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies

Aspen Contemporary Ensemble

American Brass Quintet Seminar @Aspen

Classical Guitar

Supplemental Program Offerings

Teaching and Performance Venues

Klein Music Tent

The Michael Klein Music Tent, which opened in 2000, is the Festival’s primary concert venue and seats 2050. The tent replaced an earlier tent designed by Herbert Bayer, which in 1965 replaced the original smaller tent designed by Eero Saarinen. Concerts are held in the Klein Music Tent on a nearly daily basis during the summer with additional seating on the lawn just outside the Tent, where many choose to picnic during events. The design has open sides; the curving roof is made of Teflon-coated fiberglass, a hard material also used by the Denver International Airport.

Harris Concert Hall

The 500-seat Joan and Irving Harris Concert Hall is located next door to the Klein Music Tent, and was opened in 1993 at a cost of $7 million.

Bucksbaum Campus

In 2016, the AMFS completed its $75 million, 105,000-square-foot Matthew and Carolyn Bucksbaum Campus, which serves as the center of its teaching activities. The Campus, located two miles from downtown Aspen, sits on a 38-acre site that is shared between the AMFS in the summer and Aspen Country Day School during the academic year. Designed by architect Harry Teague, who also designed the AMFS’s Harris Concert Hall and the Klein Music Tent, the Bucksbaum Campus includes three expansive rehearsal halls, numerous teaching studios and practice rooms, a percussion building, administrative offices, and a glass-enclosed cafeteria. The Campus was designed with Aspen’s natural setting in mind: the buildings’ roof lines mirror the shapes of the surrounding mountains and hug the contours of the ponds and creek.

The Wheeler Opera House

The Wheeler Opera House—a Victorian-era venue owned by the City of Aspen—is the home to Aspen Opera Center productions in the summer and the AMFS’s The Met: Live in HD screenings in the winter.