ORCAS ISLAND CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL Founder to Step Down After 30th Season

Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival (OICMF) has announced that violinist and violist Aloysia Friedmann, who founded the Festival in 1998 and has led it as Artistic Director for nearly three decades, has decided to conclude her tenure as Artistic Director following the Festival's 30th anniversary season in 2027. 

The OICMF Board has appointed cellist Joshua Gindele, a founding member of the Miró Quartet and part of the OICMF community since 2008, who joins the Festival's leadership as Associate Artistic Director in the 2026 season, will serve as Artistic Director Designate in the 30th anniversary season in 2027, and assumes the role of Artistic Director in the 2028 season. 

“Founding this Festival in 1998 allowed me to build on the musical legacy of my parents while creating something uniquely my own, and guiding it for nearly three decades has been one of the great joys of my life,” said Friedmann. “In music, a transition is the passage that links two sections of a work, a musical bridge, and that is how I think of this moment. I am not stepping away from Orcas Island or from the stage; I am entrusting the artistic vision of the Festival to Joshua Gindele, whom our audiences have known and loved since the Miró Quartet first appeared here in 2008. I look forward to celebrating our 30th anniversary in 2027 and to remaining part of this community for many years to come.”

Friedmann grew up largely in Seattle and spent summers and holidays on Orcas, in Washington State's San Juan Islands, with her parents, violinist Martin Friedmann and oboist Laila Storch. Informal concerts with family and friends, among them pianist Jon Kimura Parker and cellist Desmond Hoebig, grew into a tradition, and the idea of a festival took root after her parents bought a cabin on the island in the early 1990s. In 1997, she proposed a two-day event at the 213-seat Orcas Center, offering to singlehandedly manage every detail, including fundraising, and built the fledgling festival while continuing to perform as a freelance violinist in New York, tending to donor correspondence between performances. The inaugural 1998 season sold out so quickly that a third concert was added to meet demand. Friedmann aimed to bring world-class musicians to an intimate island setting where deep friendships and meaningful artistic collaboration could flourish, a place where stunning natural beauty and a close-knit community come together to celebrate great music.

Friedmann will remain connected to the Festival as an ambassador and will continue to pursue an active performing, chamber music, and recording career. She serves as Associate Concertmaster of Houston's ROCO, is a founding member of San Diego's Mainly Mozart Festival, and performs frequently with the Houston and San Diego symphonies. She will also continue to perform with her husband, pianist Jon Kimura Parker, and will return to album production, revisiting the many recordings she has captured but not yet released.

Beyond the Festival, Friedmann has built a wide-ranging career as a violinist and violist. She made her recital debut at Carnegie Hall and recorded with the Orchestra of St. Luke's alongside composer Astor Piazzolla and soprano Renée Fleming, performing under conductors including John Adams, Roger Norrington, André Previn, and Robert Shaw. She gave the world premiere of GRAMMY Award-winning composer Jake Heggie's Meditation with mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, and performed Morton Feldman's Rothko Chapel on solo viola in the chapel itself. Her work ranges from baroque to Broadway, including an onstage role opposite Dustin Hoffman in The Merchant of Venice, as well as appearances with Metallica, The Who, and The Eagles, and television broadcasts on Live from Lincoln Center and Saturday Night Live.

Since its founding, OICMF has grown from its three-day inaugural season into a two-and-a-half-week summer festival of ten mainstage concerts, complemented by masterclasses, lectures, pre-concert talks, a free Children's Concert, a free outdoor concert on the Village Green, free Hamlet Concerts across Orcas Island, and performances on neighboring Lopez Island. More than 200 renowned musicians have performed at the Festival, and OICMF has commissioned new works from composers-in-residence including Jake Heggie, Peter Schickele (PDQ Bach), John Wineglass, and Kevin Puts. The Festival received the ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming in 2003, and Chamber Music America's CMAcclaim Award in 2008. Friedmann was named a Musical America Top 30 Professional of the Year in 2018.

Joshua Gindele has performed at OICMF since the Miró Quartet's Festival debut in 2008, and the quartet has been a fixture of the Festival ever since, with highlights including a complete cycle of the Beethoven String Quartets. He was named the Festival's Associate Artistic Director in 2026.

“To have spent so many years on the Festival stage, surrounded by the warmth of this island community and the colleagues who have become lifelong friends, makes this moment feel less like a transition and more like a deepening,” said Gindele. “Aloysia has shaped this festival with thirty years of vision, generosity, and artistry, and I am honored beyond words to be her steward. I can think of no greater privilege than growing old in the service of this place and the people who love it, and I step into this role of Artistic Director not as someone arriving, but as someone who already feels entirely at home.”

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