Celebrating its 52nd season in 2013, Grand Teton Music Festival is the home of classical music in Jackson Hole. Conceived at the kitchen table of Baroness Consuelo von Gontard’s cabin on the Melody Ranch, Grand Teton Music Festival now takes place in its own acoustically inspiring hall and is known for orchestral and chamber music performances befitting the grandeur of its Teton Mountain setting.
Since 2006, Donald Runnicles has been the Music Director. He also is Music Director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony.
Initially called the Jackson Hole Fine Arts Festival, the organization gave orchestral concerts on a gym floor and performed chamber music on the lawn of St. John’s Episcopal Church.
The turning point in the Festival’s artistic development came when Ling Tung became Music Director in 1968. With the Tetons as an irresistible calling card, he envisioned the Festival as a summer retreat for an elite group of professional musicians. They would come for an honorarium and housing. Collectively through their modest compensation, they would make the largest financial contribution to the Festival’s operation.
Musicians from America’s great orchestras and conservatory faculties answered the call to perform challenging orchestral repertoire and chamber music of their choice with like-minded colleagues.
In 1970, Grand Teton Music Festival moved to Teton Village in a concert tent and in 1974 into its own concert hall. Fortunately the hall turned out to be both a home and an acoustical marvel. Its sonorous, clear sound has become an additional calling card for musicians and audience alike.
By remaining true to its core identity as “an orchestral Musicians’ Shangri-La”, Grand Teton Music Festival is known as “one of the best places in the country to hear classical music” (Wall Street Journal)
Festival Events in 2013:
Summer:
33 Orchestral & Chamber music concerts;
Friday & Saturday pre-concert talks; Friday open rehearsal;
Music in the Hole – July 4th concert, broadcast by Wyoming PBS state-wide;
Music in Nature – The prize-winning quintet Windsync gives over 50 chamber performances in Grand Teton National Park, the Center for the Arts and The National Museum of Wildlife Art.
Winter:
12 Broadcasts ofThe MET live in HD;
3 Chamber Music Residencies (Each residency encompasses presentations at all Jackson Hole Schools Tuesday –Thursday for 500 -700 students K-12 and a Friday concert for all ages with free tickets for students.);
Tune-Up, a collaboration with the Teton County Public Schools (Tune-UP! provides instrumental instruction for every student in the public schools studying an instrument every week of the school year);
Stringfest (A 3-day clinic for 8th-grade string players in the Jackson and Star Valley public schools that culminates in a public performance at Walk Festival Hall).
The Grand Teton Music Festival
offers great classical and other fine music
performed by outstanding artists
for the enjoyment, education, and personal enrichment
of all whose lives we touch.
We are unique in that
our exceptional musicians return year after year,
inspired by the magnificent Tetons and Jackson Hole,Wyoming,
for extraordinary performing experiences
in the intimate and acoustically acclaimed Walk Festival Hall.
