Manchester Music Festival Unveils 50th Anniversary Season Led By Its New World-Renowned Artistic Director, Philip Setzer

The Manchester Music Festival announces its upcoming 50th anniversary season, set to take place in Summer 2024, under the direction of its new Artistic Director, Philip Setzer, founding member of the Emerson String Quartet. The five-week festival runs from July 11, 2024 - August 8, 2024, and plays a significant role in the cultural enrichment of the southwestern Vermont community.  

“The theme of our 2024 Festival is called “The Romantic Journey,” said Artistic Director, Setzer. “I have always thought of a series of thematically-linked concerts and events, as a journey—one that both increases our knowledge and deepens our enjoyment of these great works of Art.”

The 2024 Festival season will include over 30 events; concerts, masterclasses, lectures, and outreach programs all focused on “The Romantic Journey” theme.Collectively, they will explore the definition and roots of Romanticism, taking audiences on a musical odyssey from Beethoven to Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms and onward to Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, and more. 

This journey will take audiences all the way to a newly commissioned work by Sarah Kirkland Snider, exploring Romanticism from the viewpoint of today. Snider has been hailed as “one of today's most compelling composers for the human voice” by NPR, who possesses “an unerring knack for breathtaking beauty,” according to The New Yorker. 

Featured artists in the 2024 season include: Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Artistic Directors Wu Han and David Finckel; pianists Gilles Vonsattel, Jeewon Park, Jenny Lin, and Vassily Primakov; celebrated clarinetist David Shifrin; Emerson String Quartet members violist Lawrence Dutton and Philip Setzer; cellists Ed Aaron and Colin Carr; violist Matthew Lipman; Calidore String Quartet cellist Estelle Choi; New York Philharmonic principal harpist Nancy Allen; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra violinist Sarah Crocker Vonsattel; Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist alum Sara Couden; and Metropolitan Opera star soprano Christine Goerke.

In addition to these performances and events, the Manchester Music Festival offers a full-scholarship Young Artists Program for string players and pianists ages 18- 26 during the festival season.

This year marks the inaugural two-year Young Artists program. Previously a one-year program, the new extension will allow young musicians the opportunity to further engage with a faculty of world-renowned artists, intensively studying and performing chamber music at a high level to enhance their craft. The festival will also present concerts featuring these Young Artists in a special program called “Given a Chance”—Romantic works of underrepresented composers who have struggled to have their voices heard.

The full festival schedule will be announced at a later date. For more information about the Manchester Music Festival and updates on the 2024 season, visit www.mmfvt.org.

Violinist Philip Setzer, a founding member of the Emerson String Quartet, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and began studying violin at the age of five with his parents, both former violinists in the Cleveland Orchestra. He continued his studies with Josef Gingold and Rafael Druian, and later at the Juilliard School with Oscar Shumsky.

Currently serving as the Distinguished Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at SUNY Stony Brook and Visiting Faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music, Mr. Setzer has given master classes at schools around the world, including The Curtis Institute, London's Royal Academy of Music, The San Francisco Conservatory, UCLA and The Mannes School. Mr. Setzer is also the Director of the Shouse Institute, the teaching division of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in Detroit. 

A versatile musician with innovative vision and dedication to keep the art form of the string quartet alive and relevant, Mr. Setzer is the mastermind behind the Emerson's two highly praised collaborative theater productions: The Noise of Time, premiered at Lincoln Center in 2001 and directed by Simon McBurney, is a multi-media production about the life of Shostakovich and has given about 60 performances throughout the world; in 2016, Mr. Setzer teamed up with writer-director James Glossman and co-created the Emerson's latest music/theater project, Shostakovich and the Black Monk: A Russian Fantasy.  

Philip Setzer exclusively uses Thomastik Dominant and Vision strings.  Violin: Samuel Zygmuntowicz (Brooklyn, NY 2011)  

Manchester Music Festival engages, inspires, and grows a supportive audience for classical music, performed at the highest level of artistic excellence, and teaches exceptional young performers in the art of chamber music. Founded in 1974 by long-time summer residents, violinist Carroll Glenn and pianist Eugene List who long imagined the sounds of classical music echoing through the rolling hills. Drawing from their extensive network of colleagues, these illustrious musicians organized a six-week, summer chamber music festival.

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