Sarasota Music Festival Announces 2022 Highlights

Sarasota Music Festival announced its concert programs for the 2022 Festival season. The Festival will present a total of 14 programs featuring music from the Baroque period to the 21st century.

Curated under the artistic leadership of Music Director Jeffrey Kahane, many performances offer a combination of chamber music and orchestral repertoire, in which faculty and student fellows frequently perform side-by-side.

"This year promises to be uniquely poignant and celebratory, as we return to a full Festival for the first time since 2019," Kahane said. The three-week Festival runs from June 6 - 25 and features a lively schedule full of concerts, master classes, coaching sessions, and open rehearsals.

The internationally-renowned program brings 60 fellows and 40 esteemed faculty artists from top conservatories and music schools to Sarasota to study and perform.

Sarasota Music Festival Highlights Include:

• Faculty and fellows reunite for the first Festival Friday performance, aptly titled "Reunion," in a concert of dynamic musical collaboration, including Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and Florence Price's Adoration for clarinet and string quartet. "Works by living composers as well as composers of color from the past and present form an essential part of the Festival's diverse programming this season," said Music Director Jeffrey Kahane. "Audiences will find an irresistible mix of familiar favorites paired with compelling new repertoire." Kahane and the Calidore String Quartet close out the program with Dvořák's grand Piano Quintet in A Major.
• Acclaimed pianist Ya-Fei Chuang, a Festival alumna, serves as soloist in Chopin's Piano Concerto in F Minor in the first Festival Saturday performance. Under the direction of guest conductor Yaniv Dinur, Resident Conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Festival Orchestra performs Starburst, a work by the fast-rising American composer Jessie Montgomery to open the program, and finishes with Beethoven's Fourth Symphony.
• Jeffrey Kahane and Robert Levin come together for a joint lecture to discuss a wide range of topics related to the Festival, from this season's programs to the issues fellows and faculty are exploring and debating at the lunch table. This special event offers a chance to hear from the current and former music director of the Sarasota Music Festival in a one-hour tête-à-tête.
• Guest artists Caroline Shaw and Gabriel Kahane, two of today's most sought-after composers, will present a special event featuring an innovative and collaborative performance of chamber music and song followed by a Q&A. "These influential young artists are dismantling the illusion of a strictly-defined genre, so-called 'classical music,'" said Music Director Jeffrey Kahane. "Fellows and audience members alike will have an exciting opportunity to learn from two artists who are changing the landscape of American contemporary music."
• The 2022 Sarasota Music Festival culminates with a concert program full of orchestral flair, entitled "From America to Italy." Under the baton of Jeffrey Kahane, Festival alumna and faculty violinist Francesca Anderegg performs Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 2. The festival concludes on a jubilant note with Felix Mendelssohn's beloved Symphony No. 4, a high-spirited tribute to Italy's sunshine and warm breezes.
• 11 new faculty members join the illustrious roster, representing several of the nation's major performing organizations, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Imani Winds and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, as well as leading conservatories and music schools including the Curtis Institute of Music, Oberlin Conservatory and Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, among others.

For three weeks each June, internationally recognized guest artists and musicians come together in Florida to study and perform chamber music. Nearly 500 students worldwide audition to participate in the Sarasota Music Festival each year, but only 60 are accepted for the prestigious Festival, a program of Sarasota Orchestra.

Founded by Paul Wolfe, the Sarasota Music Festival began in 1965 as a one-week event with seven guest mentors. Wolfe was its director for 42 years as the Festival garnered international acclaim. Pianist and scholar Robert Levin served as director of the Festival from 2007 to 2016.

In its sixth year under Music Director Jeffrey Kahane, the 2022 Festival welcomes more than 40 guest artists on its faculty, including many of the Festival's own alumni.

Kahane is a renowned conductor and pianist who has performed with many of the world's great orchestras. In May 2017 he completed his 20th season as Music Director of The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, where he is now Conductor Laureate. He is the Professor of Keyboard Studies at USC Thornton School of Music.

Additional Information about the Sarasota Music Festival is available at http://www.sarasotaorchestra.org/festival. Patrons may reach the Box Office at (941) 953-3434.