The Aspen Music Festival and School was founded in 1949 by Chicago businessman
Walter Paepcke and Elizabeth Paepcke as a two-week bicentennial celebration of the 18th-century German writer
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The event, which included both intellectual forums and musical performances, was such a success that it led to the formation of both the
Aspen Institute and the Aspen Music Festival and School. In the summers that followed, the participating musicians returned, bringing their music students, and the foundation was set for the AMFS as it is known today. In 1950,
Igor Stravinsky became the first conductor to present his own works with the Festival. The following year in 1951, the School enrolled its first official class, with 183 music students. Early founding musicians included baritone
Mack Harrell (father of cellist
Lynn Harrell) and violinist
Roman Totenberg (father of NPR legal correspondent
Nina Totenberg). Early performance highlights include then-student
James Levine conducting the
Benjamin Britten opera
Albert Herring in 1964, coinciding with Britten's visit to Aspen that summer to accept an award from the Aspen Institute. In 1965,
Duke Ellington and his orchestra came to the AMFS to perform a benefit concert. In 1971,
Dorothy DeLay joined the AMFS strings artist-faculty and attracted more than 200 students each summer to her program. In 1975,
Aaron Copland came to Aspen as a composer-in-residence on the occasion of his 75th birthday. In 1980,
John Denver performed with the Aspen Festival Orchestra for his TV special
Music and the Mountains, which aired the following year on ABC. Multiple artist-faculty members have also recorded albums while in Aspen, including the
Emerson String Quartet, which recorded the
Shostakovich: The String Quartets 5-disc set from AMFS venue Harris Concert Hall and won the 2000
Grammy Award for Best Classical Album.
Music Directors •
1954:
William Steinberg •
1955: Hans Schweiger •
1956–1961:
Izler Solomon •
1962:
Walter Susskind •
1963:
Szymon Goldberg •
1964–1968: Walter Susskind •
1970–1990:
Jorge Mester •
1991–1997:
Lawrence Foster •
1998–2009:
David Zinman •
2012–Present:
Robert Spano ==Educational programs==