Whatever your musical pleasure, you are bound to find it among the hundreds of festivals that have sprung up like mushrooms across the American summer landscape. Ultimately your choice may have as much to do with the scenic surroundings as the menu of local performances and the artists who are performing. In any case, happy browsing!
Those music lovers with access to the Web should note there is now a Web site that provides up-to-date information on more than 1,300 music festivals in the U.S. and Canada. Along with performers and dates, FestivalFinder offers Web links for tickets, accommodations and other tourist information. Address is www.festivalfinder.com
Midwest
The 11th Woodstock Mozart Festival at the restored Woodstock Opera House offers three weekends of orchestral and chamber works by Wolfgang Amade Mozart. Chicago Symphony principal oboe Alex Klein, pianist Richard Ormrod and conductors Alan Balter, Kirk Muspratt and Mark Peskanov make up the roster. Aug. 1-16. 815-338-5300.
Among the classical concerts at this year’s St. Charles Art and Music Festival will be a Schubert 200th birthday bash featuring orchestra and chorus under Donald Fraser, a piano recital by John Browning and the Mostly Madrigal Singers under John Rutter. July 11-26, St. Charles. 630-584-FEST.
Performances of all four Brahms symphonies are the cornerstone of the Peninsula Music Festival, celebrating its 45th anniversary amid the sylvan serenity of Fish Creek in Door County, Wis. Northwestern University’s Victor Yampolsky and Stephen Alltop are music director and assistant conductor, respectively. Aug. 3-23. 414-854-4060.
The Lake Geneva Opera Festival’s 20th anniversary “floating opera” cruise on Lake Geneva, Wis., July 12, will feature singers Lyndy Simons, Kitt Reuter-Foss, Roy Cornelius Smith and Charles Robert Austin, with Gwen Halstead at the piano. A buffet dinner is included. 414-249-4900.
More opera comes courtesy of the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, spanning 400 years of music drama with its spring festival running this weekend to June 28 at the Loretto-Hilton Center on the campus of Webster University in suburban Webster Groves. Repertory, sung in English, comprises Monteverdi’s “The Tale of Orpheus,” with tenor Anthony Rolfe Johnson in his conducting debut; Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”; Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte”; and Conrad Susa’s “Transformations.” Members of the St. Louis Symphony assist in the pit. 314-961-0644.
Puccini and Mozart also figure prominently in the 25th Des Moines Metro Opera summer festival, June 20-July 13 at Blank Performing Arts Center, Indianola, Iowa. Puccini’s “La Rondine,” Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and Britten’s “Albert Herring” will be sung in English under the baton of artistic director and stage director Robert L. Larsen. 515-961-6221.
Mendelssohn, Brahms, Schubert and Korngold will be the focus of the Minnesota Orchestra’s 18th Viennese Sommerfest, at Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis. In his first season as principal conductor, Jeffrey Tate will lead Mendelssohn’s rarely heard “The First Walpurgis Night” and the Schubert-Liszt “Wanderer” Fantasy. The orchestra’s music director, Eiji Oue, presides over a concert performance of Saint-Saens’ “Samson et Dalila,” with Denyce Graves and Ben Heppner. July 9-Aug. 2. 800-292-4141.
In Michigan, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival proclaims itself one of the Midwest’s pre-eminent summer chamber music series with three weeks of performances under pianist and festival founder James Tocco. Performers include Miriam Fried, Philip Setzer and Paul Biss, violin; Paul Katz and David Finckel, cello; Ruth Laredo, Wu Han and Eugene Istomin, piano; and the St. Lawrence Quartet. John Corigliano is composer-in-residence. June 7-21, Troy, Mich. 810-362-6171.
The World Youth Symphony, Ying Quartet, violinist Sarah Chang, Kandinsky Trio and the winner of the 1997 Van Cliburn Piano Competition are among the artists performing at this year’s Interlochen Arts Festival. July 2-Aug. 9, Interlochen, Mich. 616-276-6230.
East
More than 100 performances of music, dance and theater, including 11 premieres, will highlight the second Lincoln Center Festival, this year spilling over into 10 venues in and around New York City, July 8-27. Appearing together for the first time outside London will be the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, and Royal Ballet. The former company will present Hans Pfitzner’s “Palestrina,” an early 20th Century masterpiece seldom performed outside its native Germany. There will be two concerts of the real Palestrina’s music, courtesy of the ensemble Pomerium. Kurt Masur will lead the New York Philharmonic in four programs. Morton Subotnick’s electronic/multimedia “Intimate Immensity” will have three performances. A reconstruction of the ancient Greek drama “Les Danaides,” staged by Romanian director Silviu Purcarete with a cast of 120, will be given outdoors. 212-275-5000.
The Tanglewood Music Festival, June 20-Aug. 31, will mark the centennial of Brahms’ death with a cycle of the symphonies, the Violin Concerto, “Schicksalslied” and various solo piano and chamber works. Among the conductors leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra will be Seiji Ozawa, Charles Dutoit, Andre Previn, Kent Nagano, Robert Shaw and James Conlon. Keith Lockhart and John Williams will conduct the Boston Pops. Musicians performing with the BSO include James Galway, Yo-Yo Ma, Wynton Marsalis, Emanuel Ax, Leon Fleisher, Peter Serkin, Joshua Bell, Cho-Liang Lin, Maxim Vengerov, Barbara Bonney and Renee Fleming. The Juilliard Quartet will celebrate its 50th anniversary Aug. 6. Dutch pianist and conductor Reinbert de Leeuw will be in charge of the contemporary music week Aug. 9-16. Lenox, Mass. 617-266-1492.
A staged performance of Salamone Rossi’s Baroque opera, “Orfeo,” is among the attractions of the Boston Early Music Festival and Exhibition June 10-15. Among the ensembles taking part are the Orlando Consort, England’s Parley of Instruments and Boston’s The King’s Noyse, Capriccio Stravagante and the Trio Sonnerie. Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs are the artistic directors. 617-894-1333.
Composer Gian Carlo Menotti may have removed himself as head of the household, but his Spoleto Festival USA continues and, indeed, seems to have taken on a new life. Two 20th Century operas, Berg’s “Wozzeck” and Britten’s “Curlew River,” will be the centerpieces of this year’s edition (opening this weekend and running to June 9), while the popular chamber music concerts continue under Charles Wadsworth’s direction at the Dock Street Theater. Other events include a new Meredith Monk work keyed to the millennium, and Verdi’s Requiem, with Joseph Flummerfelt leading the Westminster Choir. Charleston, S.C. 803-722-2764.
What company offers the summer’s most extensive series of operettas? Easy. It’s the Ohio Light Opera, presenting Victor Herbert’s “Eileen,” Johann Strauss’ “Die Fledermaus,” Sigmund Romberg’s “The New Moon,” Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Yeomen of the Guard” and “Patience,” Franz Lehar’s “The Count of Luxembourg” and Andre Messager’s “Veronique,” June 10-Aug. 9, College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio. 330-263-2345.
The 68th season of the Mann Music Center will hold 18 concerts by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Charles Dutoit, Claus Peter Flor, Raymond Leppard, Zdenek Macal and Yuri Temirkanov. Bobby McFerrin will take the podium to conduct Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” June 16-July 24, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. 215-878-7707.
The Philadelphians also will take up residency at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., for concerts directed by Wolfgang Sawallisch and Dutoit. Among the guests are pianists Martha Argerich and Jean-Yves Thibaudet. The season opens with performances by the New York City Opera of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” and Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado.” June 17-Aug. 17. 518-587-3330.
“Madama Butterfly” seems to be the summer’s most ubiquitous opera. The Puccini tearjerker turns up again at the Glimmerglass Opera, conducted by Stewart Robertson and directed by Mark Lamos. Other repertory includes Gluck’s “Iphigenie en Tauride,” conducted by Jane Glover and directed by Francesca Zambello; Rossini’s “L’Italiana in Algeri,” conducted by George Manahan and directed by Christopher Alden; and Floyd’s “Of Mice and Men,” conducted by Robertson and directed by Rhoda Levine. July 5-Aug. 26, Cooperstown, N.Y. 607-547-2255.
West
The world premiere of Peter Lieberson’s “Ashoka’s Dream” and new productions of Verdi’s “La Traviata,” Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte,” Handel’s “Semele” and Richard Strauss’ “Arabella” make up the fare of Santa Fe Opera’s 41st season, June 27-Aug. 23. Conductors in the open-air amphitheater are John Crosby, Kenneth Montgomery, John Nelson and Richard Bradshaw. Santa Fe, N.M. 505-986-5900.
Music-loving visitors to Santa Fe also should make a beeline to the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, especially this summer when the organization is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Receiving its world premiere July 27 will be a chamber opera, “The Silver River,” with music by resident composer Bright Sheng and libretto by David Henry Hwang, of “M. Butterfly” fame. The silver jubilee also will bring a focus on Brahms, American music and jazz, for a total of 32 concerts and special events. The Golub-Kaplan-Carr Trio will launch a two-season survey of the Beethoven piano trios. July 7-Aug. 18. 505-983-2075.
The nine-week season of the Aspen Music Festival will examine the themes of love and death as represented in such works as Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” and various composers’ treatments of the “Romeo and Juliet” tragedy, including Berlioz, Prokofiev and David Diamond. David Zinman, the festival’s music director-designate, will lead Mahler’s Symphony No. 9. Legendary violin teacher Dorothy DeLay will be the subject of an 80th birthday violin extravaganza. Among the more than 150 orchestral, chamber, choral, opera and family concerts will be the U.S. stage premiere of the young British composer Thomas Ades’ “Powder Her Face.” June 19-Aug. 17, Aspen, Colo. 970-925-3254 or 970-925-9042.
“Bach and the Romantics” is the theme of this year’s Oregon Bach Festival, which honors the anniversaries of Brahms, Mendelssohn and Schubert along with choral masterpieces by festival namesake J.S. Bach (St. Matthew Passion and Magnificat) and others (Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis,” Brahms’ “A German Requiem,” Handel’s “Messiah”). Helmuth Rilling is the artistic director and conductor. June 27-July 12, University of Oregon, Eugene. 541-682-5000 or 800-457-1486.
With founder and artist-director James Dick at the helm, the International Festival-Institute at Round Top will celebrate its 27th year, June 2-July 13, with orchestral and chamber concerts featuring conductors Robert Spano, Pascal Verrot and Stefan Sanderling, and the Dorian Wind Quintet. Pianist Dick will be soloist, with Spano conducting Copland’s Third Symphony, at the opening orchestral event June 7. Round Top, Texas. 409-249-3129.
Music director Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony present a 10-concert celebration of the sacred and profane, June 12-28 in Davies Symphony Hall. One concert will salute maverick composers David Del Tredici, Lou Harrison, Terry Riley and Steven Mackey. Mozart’s Requiem is paired with a work by Italian avant-gardist Giacinto Scelsi. A salute to Schubert includes tributes by Luciano Berio and Hans Werner Henze. 415-864-6000.
The 80th birthday of Cabrillo Music Festival founder Lou Harrison will be celebrated there with two programs. Other guest composers this year will be Joseph Schwantner, Gregory Smith, Libby Larsen and Jorge Calandrelli. Copland’s early ballet, “Hear Ye! Hear Ye!,” originally created for Chicago choreographer Ruth Page, will be given with newly commissioned choreography. Music director Marin Alsop will continue the jazz theme with a performance of Gershwin’s opera, “Blue Monday.” July 31-Aug. 10, Santa Cruz, Calif., and environs. 408-426-6966.
Eiji Oue’s first season as music director of the Grand Teton Music Festival will include 42 orchestral and chamber concerts, with guest artists Ling Tung, Mark Wigglesworth, Janina Fialkowska, Andreas Haefliger and Samuel Sanders, among others. The picturesque, if remote, Teton Village, Wyo., promises to be the summer place to catch moonlighting Chicago musicians Russell Hershow, William Buchman, Gail Williams, Barbara Butler, Charles Geyer, Michael Mulcahy and Gene Pokorny. July 1-Aug. 23. 307-733-1128.
