Sun Valley Pavilion

Welcome the Festival back to live concerts with a beloved tradition, the Star Spangled Banner, and a special appearance from superstar Israeli Violinist Vadim Gluzman. He’ll bring Mozart’s utterly charming and operatic Violin Concerto No. 3 to life with his extraordinary 1690 Stradivarius. The concert concludes with Franz Joseph Haydn’s final symphony, the “London.” It’s a delightful and deservedly popular work, a crowning achievement by the “Father of the Symphony.”

Life, death, and rebirth. Mahler’s modest ambition to express the totality of the human condition journeys through love, hope, nostalgia, humor, despair, a face-melting shriek of death, and finally a glorious resurrection. Does it succeed? Alasdair Neale recalls his first hearing at age 13: “It rocked my world – I had never imagined music could have that level of visceral, emotional impact.”

Mason Bates brings back Devil’s Radio, an orchestral piece commissioned by the Sun Valley Music Festival for its 30th Anniversary in 2014. This year also celebrates the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing with Passage, a piece Bates wrote for mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke that incorporates excerpts from John F. Kennedy’s “moonshot” speech. Finally, fly beyond the moon to Venus, Mars, and Jupiter in Holst’s character study of the solar system, The Planets.

Former Sun Valley Music Festival Assistant Conductor Teddy Abrams returns to lead an all-Gershwin program. Singer, songwriter, actress, Broadway, and YouTube star Morgan James sings your favorite Gershwin songs, while Abrams himself takes to the keyboard for Rhapsody in Blue.