During Aspen Music Festival afternoon concerts, audiences can usually glimpse tree shadows through the performance tent’s translucent roof panels—the interlocking branches and leaves are nature’s graphic artwork. Outside on the lawn, concertgoers can hear the rustle of the aspen trees, like hundreds of little hands lightly clapping. 

How many notes have those tree trunks heard? With each summer season, like a groove in a vinyl LP, another growth ring recorded the sounds of Bach and Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev, Mahler and Mozart, Copland and Gershwin, and countless others. The music pre-dates the trees; when the festival began 75 years ago, only a former cow pasture surrounded the tent.

But as those aspens took root and spread their branches, so did the festival, growing into one of North America’s most vibrant and respected summerlong concert series as well as a renowned music school. The diamond anniversary of the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) this summer (June 26–August 18 ) warrants a retrospective look at that trajectory, from its start in that cow pasture and the stars who have graced the stage to the fest’s tradition of presenting contemporary classical music and one Beethoven-loving raccoon.

In the Beginning 

“The unique thing about Aspen is that we have these institutions of worldwide importance, and we are in this little town.” 
—Alan Fletcher, president and CEO, Aspen Music Festival and School 

In 1949, 7-year-old Tom Buesch from Chicago was “dragged” (his words) by his music-loving mother to a Sunday afternoon concert in Aspen. He doesn’t remember much about the program, just that people were dressed up and sat on wooden benches in a giant tent, like one at the circus. “I knew it was classical music, but I probably didn’t care for it or understand it,” says Buesch, who had changed his tune by the time he moved to Aspen full-time in 1990 and who later taught music appreciation classes at Colorado Mountain College until last year. 
Little did he know 75 years ago that he was present during what would be a watershed moment for modern-day Aspen’s cultural identity. The concert and other events that Buesch’s mother dragged him to were part of the Goethe Bicentennial Convocation and Music Festival, a 20-day gathering to honor celebrated German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and help restore the reputation of Germany’s culture in the wake of World War II. Speakers included intellectuals such as humanitarian Albert Schweitzer (his only US visit), writer Thornton Wilder, and philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, as well as musicians like Arthur Rubinstein and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. Some 2,000 people attended.
Why Aspen?
Chicago industrialist Walter Paepcke and his wife, Elizabeth Nitze Paepcke, had recently launched an ambitious scheme to revive the once-booming mining town gone bust, which Elizabeth visited in 1938 on a ski trip and introduced her husband to in 1945. Among other plans, they envisioned opportunities to nurture mind, body, and spirit, enhanced by the stunning natural setting. When a group from the University of Chicago conceived of the Goethe Bicentennial, Walter Paepcke convinced them Aspen would be the ideal venue, says Nicholas Paepcke DuBrul, the couple’s grandson and an AMFS board member. “It was remote, people wouldn’t be distracted by the competing aspects of a large city, and [Paepcke] had an interest in promoting Aspen,” DuBrul says.

The event, held on 40 acres of former ranchland abutting the Roaring Fork River on the town’s west end, ultimately was such a success that the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies and the Aspen Institute of Music were created to reprise the thought-provoking discussions and crowd-pleasing classical music concerts the next summer (though without the Goethe focus). Since then, the Aspen Institute (as it’s now known) has grown into a globally respected think tank, while what became the Aspen Music Festival and School is a leading producer of classical music concerts and one of the country’s premier educators of young musicians.

Asked to which era of the festival he would travel back in time, if possible, current AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher says, “To 1949. I’d want to see those people who had no idea what a fabulous thing they were setting in motion.”

Star Students 

“If you’re a young musician and you have the Aspen Music School on your resume, that’s a real gold standard.” 
—Tom Buesch, music educator and longtime festival attendee

Though most people refer to the institution simply as “the music festival,” the educational component is just as, if not more, important. After the 1950 iteration—another triumph that included Russian composer Igor Stravinsky conducting his work The Firebird—Walter Paepcke inaugurated a school that would accept students for the following summer. Today, nearly 500 students from around the world come to study with AMFS faculty for eight weeks each summer—and, often, busk throughout town when they’re not in rehearsal. (At its largest, in the 1990s, the school attracted 1,000 young musicians.) The school offers students the opportunity to play on stage with faculty members, the only teaching summer festival with that model, says Patrick Chamberlain, AMFS’s vice president for artistic administration. “It’s also why our orchestra sounds so good,” he adds. “You have the freshness of discovery alongside a lifetime of experience. It leads to some really magical performances.” 

The school also has a decades-long reputation as a talent incubator. Many renowned performers were students or made early-career appearances here. Soprano Renée Fleming made her operatic debut at the Wheeler Opera House as Countess Almaviva in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, in what would become one of her signature roles (students from Aspen’s Opera Theater and VocalARTS program—which Fleming co-directs—will perform Figaro this summer, August 12, 15, and 17 at the Wheeler). Star violinist Joshua Bell is an Aspen alumnus (he’ll perform here July 13 and 14 for the first time in years), and the late composer and musician Peter Schickele conceived his madcap alter ego, P.D.Q. Bach, while studying in Aspen during summers off from Juilliard (a tribute concert takes place July 6 ). The legendary Leonard Slatkin, who first appeared here in 1964, credits Aspen for forging his path as a conductor; he’ll lead the festival orchestra on July 21 in a program including Copland and Gershwin.

Some high-profile alumni haven’t even pursued musical careers. Take Condoleezza Rice, who came to Aspen as a young pianist in the early 1970s, long before becoming US Secretary of State.

In addition to the opera program (launched in 2021 ) and individual instrument study, Aspen offers tracks in composition studies, brass quintet, contemporary ensemble, and chamber music. Then there’s the Aspen Conducting Academy, founded in 2000 by former AMFS music director David Zinman and led now by current music director Robert Spano. For the 10 young conductors who come each summer, the program has its own orchestra that serves as a sort of musical guinea pig, helping students develop their conducting chops. Says Chamberlain, the academy has attracted “a real who’s who of emerging conductors who have gone on to international success,” including James Gaffigan, Joshua Weilerstein, Roderick Cox, and Marie Jacquot. (Academy concerts take place Wednesdays throughout the summer at 5 p.m.) 

AMFS’s reach extends to local students, too, with programs in every public school from Aspen to Glenwood Springs. “We place a lot of importance on making music part of the lives of families in this valley,” says Fletcher.
Today’s biggest challenge for students (and faculty), however, is more complicated than any dense musical score; rather, it’s the continual search for summer housing amid a dearth of affordable options. Thanks to AMFS’s host family program (which offers free tickets to concerts and events for those who open their Aspen homes to festival students), pedestrians out for a stroll still may hear the strains of a violin or arpeggios from a clarinet through open windows as the visiting young musicians practice. But most now live in one of three residence halls near AMFS’s campus on Castle Creek Road, so the need for additional space endures.

They Come to Play and Teach

“One reason the artists come to Aspen is to pass on the torch to young musicians.” 
—Nicholas Paepcke DuBrul, grandson of the founding Paepckes and AMFS board member

A good amount of artistic liberty, musical intimacy with the audiences, and friendships built up over the years—not to mention the outdoor splendor—keeps musicians and conductors returning to Aspen year after year. As much as the resort town draws tip-of-the-tongue celebrities and influencers to ski, party, and pose for selfies, AMFS has attracted classical music A-listers for longer: Aaron Copland, Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, Itzhak Perlman, Marin Alsop, Yefim Bronfman, and Philip Glass are just a small sample. It’d be more difficult to think of a prominent performer who has not come to the music festival in the past 75 years than to catalog those who have. 

“They love coming to AMFS,” says Sarah Pelch, classical booking director at management agency Opus 3 Artists. “Even the most in-demand artists who have open invitations to perform at festivals anywhere in the world make it a priority to include Aspen in their summer tour schedules.”

Today’s packed summer calendar (there’s also a series of winter concerts) features almost 200 events: free student recitals, guest performances, intimate artist dinners at private homes, operas, a free community mariachi celebration, and more. And, of course, the beloved weekly Sunday concerts by the Aspen Festival Orchestra.

The festival’s flagship venue, the Klein Music Tent, is itself a draw. The proximity of the stage to the audience allows the musicians to “see every person and relate to them in a way that’s very different [from other festivals],” says Fletcher.

The faculty, who both instruct and perform, includes members of prominent orchestras, as well as those who teach at top music schools and conservatories the rest of the year, happy to trade urban living for a summer in the mountains. 

One of the longest-tenured faculty members was the late violinist Dorothy DeLay, esteemed as one of the world’s preeminent teachers. In addition to instructing at Juilliard and Sarah Lawrence College, DeLay taught in Aspen from 1971 to 2001. Her students here included Midori, Sarah Chang, Gil Shaham, and Robert McDuffie, all of whom went on to brilliant careers, as did many other DeLay pupils. This summer, she’ll be honored during a week (July 29–August 4 ) that includes concerts by Shaham and Midori and a series of commemorations. 

Stretching Musical Boundaries

From its earliest years, AMFS has built a reputation for presenting a variety of classical music that sometimes challenges listeners. “[O]ne is less likely to find hackneyed repertory at Aspen than elsewhere, and there is a tradition of sympathy for new music,” wrote critic Donal Henahan in The New York Times in July 1972. 

“One of the things that still sets us apart is how important contemporary music is to what we do,” Fletcher says. Unlike festivals that showcase edgier “experimental” scores, that doesn’t translate into cacophonies of discord, however. Fletcher explains the behind-the-scenes mandate: “We want people to just say, ‘Let’s go to the tent. What could be more fun?’ We don’t want people scratching their heads afterward and saying, ‘Why did that happen?’”

Fletcher, Spano, and Chamberlain team up on programs, working about two years in advance. Every year is structured around a theme; this summer’s is “Becoming Who You Are,” inspired by an idea Albert Schweitzer shared in his keynote talk at the Goethe Bicentennial, that to be human is to be in a state of becoming. The festival also regularly co-commissions new music, including 10 pieces that will be performed this summer. 

Beyond pleasing or inspiring audiences, however, the music must benefit students too. “We take seriously our teaching mission,” says Chamberlain, “and ensure that students encounter a lot of repertoires in a short amount of time.” That means that audiences are unlikely to hear, say, all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies in one summer. 

What festivalgoers are hearing more of are pieces by female and minority composers who have not traditionally been represented in the classical music canon, such as the works from women of Chicago’s Black Renaissance that were featured in a recital last summer. “There’s been a long-overdue reckoning with the fact that our art form hasn’t been welcoming and inclusive to all people,” Chamberlain says of the festival’s mission to discover overlooked music of the past, as well as continue to recruit a diverse student body and feature artists and composers of color in performances. “We want young musicians to come here and feel themselves reflected in the work that we do,” he adds.

Aspen audiences, meanwhile, have earned a reputation of open-minded curiosity, notes Pelch. Indeed, Aspenite Fonda Paterson, a festivalgoer since 1968, says that her musical appreciation has grown over the years by attending concerts no matter what the program. “Maybe there’s a composer you weren’t familiar with, and all of a sudden you love them,” she says, recalling the joy of hearing a particular Australian work for the first time. “When you self-select, you don’t have that exposure.”

More Than Just a Listening Space 

“I always think of the tent as the heart of the town.” 
—Fonda Paterson, former Aspen hotelier and frequent concertgoer

Aspen’s music tent has become a community hub, in the same manner as the weekly farmer’s market, the post office, or, in the old days, the Hotel Jerome. It’s a place to catch up with friends before concerts, watch the graduating class of Aspen High School seniors stride into the future, and come together to mourn the passing of prominent residents. 

It hasn’t always been the same tent, of course. The canvas structure erected for the 1949 Goethe Bicentennial was commissioned by Paepcke from Finnish-American starchitect Eero Saarinen. Designed only for that occasion, the tent nonetheless limped along as the concert venue for the next 16 years. Four structural poles near the middle helped support it, and when the wind blew hard enough, the poles would lift off the ground, says Paterson, whose late husband, Charlie, was an usher at the bicentennial (and a devoted lifelong fan of the festival). Recalls Tom Buesch, who as a teen was hired to help put up and take down the tent every summer, “It smelled terrible and leaked whenever it rained.”
The next tent, raised in 1965, was designed by Herbert Bayer, the Austrian artist and architect associated with the Bauhaus School, who had moved to Aspen in 1946. Seating capacity mushroomed, from 900 in Saarinen’s tent to 1,750 in the new one. The structure still had to be taken down each fall.

Though beloved by Bauhaus fans, Bayer’s canvas tent eventually needed extensive repairs and, frankly, most festivalgoers opined, the sound was terrible. In 2000 it was replaced by a new, year-round tent designed by noted Aspen architect Harry Teague. He honored Bayer’s design by using the same footprint—though the ground was further excavated to create additional seating and to improve acoustics—and the same radial geometry, which enhances sightlines and fosters a sense of unity among the audience and musicians.

“The great part about the tent is that you’re connected to nature and the outdoors,” says Teague. “The not-so-great part is that the sound and everything comes in.” (Paterson recalls an evening years ago when a raccoon entered the tent and quietly sat behind the double basses. “It stayed for the entire Beethoven symphony,” she says.) Teague’s team worked with an acoustic specialist to achieve the optimal balance of frequencies through materials and their placement within the tent. Sturdy Teflon-coated fiberglass replaced the canvas, and vertical louvres around the perimeter can be quickly closed if a sudden thunderstorm blows—or errant wildlife wanders—in.

The tent’s inaugural concert featured Mahler’s second symphony (aptly also known as “The Resurrection”) on the expanded stage. “It brought me to tears,” recalls Buesch. Almost 25 years later, the venue has held up commendably. Teague recalls a violin concerto last summer as the sound of the solo instrument filled the entire tent. “It made me proud to have a big audience in there, and someone playing this tiny instrument and having it sound great,” he says.

Though many thrifty locals prefer to listen for free while picnicking outside the tent on the lawn, sitting inside can be transcendent. “I listen to everything, and I listen hard, so much so that sometimes afterward I’m in a daze and it’s a little difficult to talk to people,” says Buesch, who teaches the Art of Listening every Friday of the festival at Crossroads Church. “When you walk out of the tent and back into the real world, it can be hard to reconnect to everyday reality.”