Grand Teton Music Festival Celebrates Nature In 58th Season
Donald Runnicles, GTMF Music Director
The majestic foothills of the Teton Mountain Range promise a sublime, serene backdrop for the Grand Teton Music Festival’s 58th season, July 3 to August 17. Offering inspiration, rejuvenation, and wonderment for all, the Festival honors the natural environment it calls home and those composers and works that draw inspiration from nature. The Festival’s 2019 lineup includes more than 60 events over seven weeks.
The heart of the Grand Teton Music Festival is the Festival Orchestra, which is led by Music Director Donald Runnicles. Performing Friday and Saturday nights, the Festival Orchestra welcomes world-famous soloists including pianists Yefim Bronfman (July 12-13) and Denis Kozhukhin (August 2-3), violinists Hilary Hahn (July 26-27) and Augustin Hadelich (August 16-17), cellist Alisa Weilerstein (July 19-20), and saxophonist Branford Marsalis (August 9-10). Nature-inspired works run throughout the seven weeks, including Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (August 9-10), Anna Clyne’s This Midnight Hour (August 2-3), Sibelius’ En Saga (July 12-13), and Lyadov’s Enchanted Lake (August 16-17).
Also appearing with the Festival Orchestra will be esteemed guest conductors Rafael Payare, the incoming Music Director of the San Diego Symphony (July 19-20), and Cincinnati Symphony Music Director Louis Langrée (August 16-17).
Pianist, vocalist, and nine-time Grammy Award winner Norah Jones will perform a special one-night-only concert July 21, co-presented with Live Nation. The event sold out online in five minutes. Jones’s appearance is part of the GTMF Presents lineup of showcase events that expand the Festival’s programming.
Other GTMF Presents artists include the Takács Quartet (July 31), the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (July 17), pianist Stephen Hough (July 10), and piano duo Anderson and Roe (August 17). Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth (August 15) and singer-pianist Michael Feinstein (July 3) will bring the world of theater and cabaret to the mountains.
On July 5, the annual Fundraising Gala will feature Maestro Runnicles and the Festival Orchestra in two performances of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Utah Symphony Chorus, the Madeleine Choir School Chorus, and soloists Meechot Marrero, Thomas Lehman, and Sunnyboy Dladla.
About the Grand Teton Music Festival
Over seven weeks each summer, the Grand Teton Music Festival unites 228 celebrated orchestral musicians led by Music Director Donald Runnicles. These musicians represent 64 orchestras and 47 institutions of higher learning throughout Europe and North America.
As the single largest performing arts presenter in Jackson Hole with nearly 100 annual events, GTMF presents yearlong programming that includes monthly community concerts, a Winter Festival in February, the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series, and education programs for Teton County Students. The Festival has a 13-part national radio broadcast Live from the Grand Teton Music Festival, co-hosted by Donald Runnicles and Andrew Palmer Todd, now in its second season.