Composer

The year is 1147, and the brilliant, pioneering composer Hildegard von Bingen is receiving visions from God. There’s always the chance that the church will turn on her as a heretic, but she decides to document her visions, enlisting her fellow nun Richardis von Stade to illustrate the manuscript. As their passion project bleeds into passion, the two women are forced to confront the powers that would see them struck from history rather than making it.

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Hildegard

The Walls Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

Fresh, contempo opener | Gripping symphony

TITAN

R.J. Reynolds High School

The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra Spring Concert

Severance Music Center

Penelope, a music-theater piece, begins with a woman’s husband appearing at her door after an absence of 20 years, suffering from brain damage. A veteran of a modern war, he doesn’t know who he is and she doesn’t know who he’s become. While they wait together for his return to himself, she reads him The Odyssey, and in the journey of that book, she finds a way into her former husband’s memory and the terror and trauma of war.

Penelope

The Pear Theatre

WolfGANG Sessions at Club SAW is a night of music that is sure to entertain.

WolfGANG Sessions #24

Arts Court

Recognized by Gramophone as “the Heifetz of the flute,” Marina Piccinini first fell in love with her instrument after a performance of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, an experience which led to a life-long love of opera and the singing voice. She announced to her parents “I’m playing the flute.” Still too small for one, she was given a recorder. She hated it, but endured it for two years before taking up flute.

Chamber Symphony: Beethoven's "Eroica"

Michael Klein Music Tent

Faculty Event: Marina Piccinini

Join us for an enchanting evening of music at the Manchester Music Festival's Thursday Nights series, featuring a captivating program that spans the rich musical landscapes of France and England, along with the premiere of some thrilling new works. This special event, titled "France, England, and Some Things New: Debussy, Elgar, Setzer, Snider," is part of our 50th Anniversary Season and promises to be a night to remember.

**Date and Time:**  
Thursday, August 1, 2024  
7:30 PM - 9:30 PM

**Location:**  
SVAC Arkell Pavilion  
860 Southern Vermont Arts Center Drive  
Manchester, VT, 05254

**Program Highlights:**  
- Claude Debussy: "Danse sacrée et danse profane," including both "Danse sacrée" and "Danse profane," arranged by Philip Setzer and Nancy Allen.  
- Philip Setzer: "Elegy" for violin and harp.  
- Sarah Kirkland Snider: "Drink the Wild Ayre," a world premiere of a new version for harp and ensemble.  
- Edward Elgar: Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 84, featuring movements "Moderato Allegro," "Adagio," and "Andante Allegro."

**Featuring Artists:**  
- Nancy Allen, harp  
- Philip Setzer, violin  
- Chris Baechtel, bass  
- Brian Anderson, viola  
- Andrew Cannestra, piano  
- Alongside a selection of talented MMF Young Artists and more.

This event is a unique opportunity to experience the beauty and depth of classical music, performed by an exceptional ensemble of artists. Whether you're a lifelong classical music fan or new to the genre, this evening promises to be a deeply moving and memorable experience.

**Tickets:**  
Available for purchase online. Don't miss your chance to be part of this remarkable musical journey.

Join us at the SVAC Arkell Pavilion for a night where music transcends time and borders, celebrating the legacy and future of classical music.

MMF Thursday Nights: France, England, and SoMMF Thursday Nights: France, England, and Some Things New – Debussy, Elgar, Setzer, Sniderme Things New

Southern Vermont Arts Center

Join us for a profound evening of music and reflection at the Three Choirs Festival: Mass for the Endangered, taking place in the majestic Worcester Cathedral on Monday, 29 July 2024, at 7:30 pm. This unique concert event promises to be a celebration of the natural world, featuring the Philharmonia and the Three Choirs Festival Chorus under the baton of conductor Samuel Hudson.

The evening will commence with the UK premiere of Cameron Biles-Liddell’s "Yr Afon Yn Yr Awyr" (The River in the Sky), a playful and evocative piece inspired by the River Dee's journey through the Welsh landscape. Following this, the audience will be treated to Judith Weir’s "O Sweet Spontaneous Earth," a setting of three poems that contemplate our relationship with our planet. The first half will conclude with Edward Elgar’s beloved "Serenade for Strings," a piece cherished by the composer himself.

The highlight of the concert will be Sarah Kirkland Snider’s "Mass for the Endangered," a powerful and immersive work that combines music of intense beauty with words of deep concern for our planet. Drawing inspiration from a wide range of choral music traditions, Snider creates a prayerful and contemplative mass that serves as both a celebration of and a lament for the natural world.

Tickets are priced between £15 and £63, and the concert will run for approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes, including an interval. For more information or to purchase tickets once they go on sale, please contact the Three Choirs Festival Box Office at 01452 768928 or email info3choirs.org.

Don't miss this stunning evening of music that promises to leave you profoundly moved and more connected to the world around us.

Three Choirs Festival: Mass for the Endangered

Worcester Cathedral

AMFS artist-faculty, all top musicians from renowned orchestras, opera companies, and conservatories, come together to play their favorite chamber music works. Always a joyful and creative 75 minutes of music-making.

Chamber Music 2024 Concert 3

Aspen Meadows Resort

Experience the full sounds of Pacific Chorale and Pacific Symphony in the world-class Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall! With emotional prayers, mesmerizing harmonies, and words of hope, three composers set religious texts to convey their message and inspire the listener to action. Sarah Kirkland Snider’s glorious and riveting Mass for the Endangered opens the program, inspired by the traditional Catholic Mass but focusing on our delicate relationships to the wildlife of our planet. The second half opens with Holst’s crystalline Psalm 148 and leads into Bernstein’s spirited and dynamic Chichester Psalms.

Chichester Psalms

Segerstrom Center for the Arts

Few works can match it for orchestral color, sonic impact, or sheer excitement. And, no piece displays the virtuosity of your RPO like Pictures at an Exhibition. Experience it—live—along with Dukas’ magical The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (remember Mickey Mouse and the brooms?). Andreas Delfs also conducts a new multimedia work, in collaboration with visual designer Deborah Johnson, that muses on the life of George Eastman and Kodak.

Pictures at an Exhibition

Eastman Theatre

RPO: Pictures at an Exhibition

✦ All ticketing continue to be touch-free and all interactions and seating will be socially distanced. Available seating has been reduced by 50%.

✦ Performances will proceed without an intermission. However, there will be a short pause between works.

Modern Currents

Owen Arts Center

Concertmaster Susanna Perry Gilmore steps into the spotlight with Lukas Foss’s ode to American folk music, bookended by Sarah Kirkland Snider’s evocative If you bring forth what is within you and Beethoven’s introspective Symphony No. 4.

Beethoven 4

University of Nebraska Omaha

Join us for a must-see performance as the Emerson String Quartet returns to the Terrace Theater for the final time—the penultimate performance before the esteemed quartet disbands.

Emerson String Quartet

Kennedy Center

The 2023-24 Season opens with Princeton-based composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s inspirational work Forward Into Light and Henri Tomasi’s expressive saxophone concerto performed by Steven Banks. William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony adds the final touch to this engaging concert.

Opening Weekend Forward Into Light

Princeton University

Sibelius’s First Symphony opens with mystery — the breathy sound of a single clarinet gradually joined by the distant rumbling of timpani — giving way to gorgeous, romantic, searching melodies. Century Rolls, commissioned and recorded by The Cleveland Orchestra, was inspired by the old piano roll music of the 1920’s: “The concerto takes a kind of polymorphous-perverse pleasure in the whole past century of piano music, both popular and classical.”

Sibelius's First Symphony

Blossom Music Center

Maestro Măcelaru kicks off the 61st season with an evening of West Coast premieres by composers Sarah Kirkland Snider, Jennifer Higdon, Sebastian Currier, and Bora Yoon.

Forward

Civic Auditorium Santa Cruz

Chamber Music

These lunchtime discussions feature prominent performers, composers, and musicologists in lively discussions with AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher.

High Notes

Hotel Jerome

The renowned Emerson String Quartet (Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violins; Lawrence Dutton, viola; Paul Watkins, cello) are embarking on their worldwide farewell tour, and we are delighted that they will join us for our Season Opener Mainstage Chamber Concert. The Emerson String Quartet, called “America’s greatest quartet” by Time Magazine, will be disbanding at the completion of their tour after more than four decades of performing together, and Philip Setzer will be launching a new phase of his career as Manchester Music Festival’s Artistic Director.

Season Opener Mainstage Chamber Concert

The New York Times praises her performances as “elegant and incisive.” On the heels of her performance with Scott Speck and WMS, Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Martinez will put The Block’s Steinway through its paces with an inspiring solo recital.

Gabriela Martinez Classical Piano

The Block

Genre-spanning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth curates an evening of Nightcap, our cabaret-style series of music and conversation in the new Kenneth C. Griffin Sidewalk Studio.

Nightcap: Roomful of Teeth

Lincoln Center

Carnegie Hall is the setting as Jaap van Zweden conducts a World Premiere by Sarah Kirkland Snider, a “rising star on the American compositional scene” <em>(The Wall Street Journal)</em> commissioned through <a><em>Project 19</em></a>. Hilary Hahn performs Barber’s Violin Concerto, a work of enchanting lyricism with a virtuosic finale. Mahler is in this Orchestra’s DNA; his Symphony No. 1 evokes the sounds of nature, with added dashes of klezmer and tender folk song before its thunderous climax

New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall

Inspired by the poetry of Nathaniel Bellows, Snider’s “The Currents” puts Shaham’s complete skills as a formidable pianist on display; it’s expressive, poetic and lyrical, telling a story of both innocence and coping with an unpredictable world. Next, experience a world premiere from Israeli composer Avner Dorman who draws on cultural and historical influences in his music. And finally, Schubert’s atypical chamber instrumentation for his “Trout” quintet; a work featuring beloved melodies from his song.  Enjoy coffee, tea and pastries in the intimate coffee-house atmosphere of the Samueli Theater.

Schubert's "Trout" Quintet

David Robertson, SLSO Music Director from 2005 to 2018, returns to conduct a compelling program exploring evolution and change through works by four American musical luminaries. Robertson’s own piano concerto, written for and performed by Orli Shaham, explores themes of language and love. Steven Mackey’s Turn the Key expresses the joys of transformation, Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Something for the Dark is a meditation on renewal, and Leonard Bernstein’s Second Symphony features a solo piano voice representing the composer’s own introspective journey.

Bernstein and Robertson

Powell Hall

Jayce Ogren's insightful examination of American music continues in this wide-ranging program exploring the musical character of the nation on the approach of its 250th birthday. The concert opens with a profound arrangement of our National Anthem by Italian-American composer Luigi Zaninelli. Sarah Kirkland Snider, a composer with "an unerring knack for breathtaking beauty" (The New Yorker), presents an anticipated new work called Marmoris co-commissioned by Monterey Symphony. Next up is Leonard Bernstein's effervescent Symphonic Dances from West Side Story followed by icon Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, narrated by surprise honorable guests from Monterey. The season concludes with William Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony, a 1934 work that reflects Black experience in America and has an enigmatic conclusion, representing an unresolved struggle.

Composer

Sarah Kirkland Snider

Events

Upcoming events

6 - 7 Mar, 2026

Bernstein and Robertson · St. Louis Symphony Orchestra

16 - 17 May, 2026

USA 250 West Side Story + Lincoln Portrait · Monterey Symphony

Past events

5 - 9 Nov, 2025

Hildegard · LA Opera

10 - 11 May, 2025

TITAN · Winston-Salem Symphony

About

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