World Premieres

Three world premieres by Carter Pann, Leigha Amick, James Stephenson
Colorado Premiere by Valerie Coleman

International Soloists and Conductors

Guest Conductors Leonard Slatkin, Jeffrey Kahane, Gemma New

Mezzo-Soprano Fleur Barron*
Violinists Himari* and Njioma Grievous*
Pianists Yuja Wang*, Nobuyuki Tsujii*, Tony Siqi Yun and Michelle Cann
Clarinetist Ricardo Morales*
*Indicates Debut Performance on CMF Stage

American Composers to Honor America’s 250th

On July 23, an all-American program conducted by Leonard Slatkin features works by John Corigliano, Ron Nelson, and Cindy McTee, with violinist Njioma Grievous in Corigliano’s Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra from The Red Violin

L to R: Leonard Slatkin (Photo: Nico Rodamel) | Gemma New (Photo: Roy Cox) | Jeffrey Kahane (Photo: E.F. Morton Productions)

BOULDER, CO: February 17, 2026 - The Colorado Music Festival (CMF) in Boulder, Colorado, celebrates its 50th anniversary season with world premieres, exciting international artists and all-American programming to honor the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The festival runs from July 9 to August 9, with 19 concerts presented at the historic Chautauqua Auditorium in Boulder, at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Under Music Director Peter Oundjian, the Festival’s programming is characterized by a thoughtful mix of world premieres, a diverse roster of guest artists, and sustained engagement with unusual and beloved works across 300 years of orchestral repertoire. 

The 2026 season includes nine guest artists, two internationally acclaimed chamber ensembles, and four guest conductors alongside the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, with musicians from dozens of orchestras across more than 20 U.S. states and Canadian provinces and beyond. The work of Colorado-based artists and composers is presented throughout the season as part of the statewide celebration of the 150th Anniversary of Colorado becoming a state. 

“I’m enormously excited to welcome Himari and Yuja Wang to the Festival this summer,” says Music Director Peter Oundjian. “They are both artists whose musicianship brings both freshness and depth to the stage. It’s a real thrill to have Leonard Slatkin with us; his insight into American repertoire is unmatched, and his presence always energizes the orchestra. And being able to premiere new music by Carter Pann, Leigha Amick and Valerie Coleman during our 50th anniversary feels deeply meaningful. It’s wonderful to step into our future with pride, optimism, and exceptional music.” 

Executive Director Elizabeth McGuire says, “This is a landmark season for us, a confluence of four milestone anniversaries. We celebrate the Festival’s 50th anniversary alongside the 30th anniversary of the Center for Musical Arts, our year-round community music school, while also honoring Colorado’s 150th birthday and our nation’s 250th with special programming. Together, our performance and education programs now reach more than 100,000 students and audience members annually. We are deeply grateful to everyone who has helped us thrive, and we are delighted to welcome audiences to a season that launches the next 50 years—and beyond.”

It was truly a privilege to hear the birth of a new work in such an atmosphere of warm collaboration. The capacity festival audience obviously appreciated this too, rising to its feet as one in rapturous applause.
–The Strad

Clockwise from top left: Yuja Wang (Photo: WelLai) | Nijoma Grevious (Photo: Jiyang Chen) | Tony Siqi Yun (Photo: Dario Acosta) | Himari (Photo: Naruyasu Nabeshima)

Selected Festival Highlights
A complete, chronological list of concerts can be found at the end of the press release. 

• July 9 and 10: the world premiere of a new orchestral work by Colorado-based composer Carter Pann and Himari, the 14-year-old violinist whose rapid ascent has drawn global attention, in Sibelius’s Violin Concerto

• Sunday, July 12: Free Family Day, including Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, offered in both English and Spanish, and—in partnership with the Chautauqua Association—food trucks, musical performances, and more

• July 16 and 17: Yuja Wang’s Colorado Music Festival debut, performing Barber’s Piano Concerto, conducted by Music Director Peter Oundjian, who also leads Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

• July 23: an All-American program to celebrate America’s 250th, conducted by Leonard Slatkin featuring a range of American orchestral writing by John Corigliano, Ron Nelson, and Cindy McTee, with violinist Njioma Grievous, plus two classics – Copland’s Rodeo and Gershwin’s An American in Paris

  
  Clockwise from top left: Nobuyuki Tsujii (Photo: Giorgia Bertazzi) | Fleur Barron (Photo: Victoria Cadisch) | Michelle Cann (photo: Titilayo Ayangade) | Ricardo Morales (Photo: Studio CLAUSE)

• July 30: the world premiere of a new orchestral work by Leigha Amick, opening a program anchored by Holst’s The Planets and featuring 2009 Cliburn Gold Medalist Nobuyuki Tsujii in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2

• August 2:  Gemma New conducts Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, featuring principal clarinetist of the Philadelphia Orchestra Ricardo Morales, as well as works by Prokofiev and Ravel

• August 6 and 7: pianist Michelle Cann in the Colorado premiere of a new piano concerto by Valerie Coleman, paired with Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique—a program that bridges contemporary American composition with one of the defining orchestral statements of the 19th century

• August 9: Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, conducted by Peter Oundjian and featuring mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron—an expansive closing statement for the Festival’s 50th anniversary

Tickets & Festival Information

CMF offers $10 tickets for youths (ages 18 and under) and students (with current school identification). For more information, visit coloradomusicfestival.org/ticket-info.

For more information about CMF, or to purchase tickets beginning March 4, visit ColoradoMusicFestival.org or call the Chautauqua box office at 303-440-7666.

For a full media kit, including details about performances and events and images, visit coloradomusicfestival.org/mediakit.

Colorado Music Festival concerts take place at Chautauqua Auditorium, which was built in 1898. Located at the base of Boulder’s Flatirons and one of only 25 National Historic Landmarks in the state of Colorado, the Colorado Chautauqua remains committed to its historic purpose. 

Colorado Music Festival Orchestra Musicians | Photo: Geremy Kornreich

Colorado Music Festival 2026
Chronological List of Concerts

Thursday, July 9, 7:30 p.m.    
Friday, July 10, 6:30 p.m. 
HIMARI PLAYS SIBELIUS + CARTER PANN WORLD PREMIERE
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Himari, violin  
Carter Pann, composer          
Carter Pann, World Premiere
Jean Sibelius, Concerto for Violin
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 5

The 2026 Festival opens with a once-in-a-generation violinist: Himari, a 14-year-old phenomenon who has already collected substantial awards and recognition; she joins the orchestra to perform Sibelius’s Concerto for Violin. Colorado-based composer Carter Pann, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, unveils a brand new piece of music to celebrate the start of the Festival season and Colorado’s 150th.
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Sunday, July 12, 10:30 a.m.      
FREE FAMILY CONCERT    
Samuel Hollister, conductor  
Really Inventive Stuff     
John Williams, Liberty Fanfare
Antonín Dvořák, Second Movement, Symphony No. 9
Sergei Prokofiev, Peter and the Wolf (Spanish and English)

CMS’s annual Free Family Concert will be offered in Spanish and English, a great reason to gather the whole family to enjoy classical and popular favorites. Ideal for music lovers aged five and under and their families.
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Tuesday, July 14, 7:30 p.m.                  
ROBERT MANN CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES
Canadian Brass     

The 2026 Robert Mann Chamber Music Series opens with the Juno Award-winning quintet Canadian Brass, called “one of the most popular brass ensembles in the world” by The Washington Post. With a discography of over 130 albums and an extensive worldwide touring schedule, Canadian Brass is a pioneer in bringing brass music to audiences through their trademark humor, charismatic stage presence, and sparkling musicianship.
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Thursday, July 16, 6:30 p.m.
Friday, July 17, 6:30 p.m.  
YUJA WANG + WEST SIDE STORY  
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Yuja Wang, piano        
Sergei Prokofiev, American Overture Op. 42bis
Samuel Barber, Piano Concerto
Camille Saint-Saëns, Bacchanale from Samson and Delilah
Leonard Bernstein, Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

The world-renowned, charismatic pianist Yuja Wang makes her CMF debut with Barber’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Piano Concerto, which has appeared often in Wang’s concerto repertoire in recent seasons. Regarding Wang’s performance of Barber’s piano music, The Guardian observed that her playing balanced “delicacy with fierce intensity, everything superbly controlled yet suggesting emotional spontaneity and freedom.” Music Director Peter Oundjian leads Bernstein’s vibrant Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, as well as works from Prokofiev and Saint-Saëns.
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Sunday, July 19, 6:30 p.m.       
BACH’S BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS
Jeffrey Kahane, leader 

Former Colorado Symphony Music Director Jeffrey Kahane leads all six of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos in a single program, directing from within the ensemble. Each concerto employs a different instrumental configuration, ranging from expanded ensembles with horns (No. 1), to the high trumpet writing of Concerto No. 2, performed by international trumpet competition winner and Julliard faculty member Maximilian Morel, to the all-string scoring of Concerto No. 3. Concerto No. 5 features an extended keyboard solo, while Concerto No. 6 omits violins entirely, emphasizing lower string voices.
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Tuesday, July 21, 7:30 p.m.      
ROBERT MANN CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES
Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence  
Colorado Music Festival musicians    
Jeffrey Work, trumpet
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Trio in E-flat Major K. 498 (“Kegelstatt”)
James Stephenson, Love Notes for Trumpet and Strings (World Premiere)
Tchaikovsky, Souvenir de Florence 

An ensemble of CMF musicians present a world premiere by “astonishingly innovative” composer James Stephenson (Musical America). His work reflects his background as a professional trumpeter and conductor and is often described as being written from a performer’s perspective. Love Notes for Trumpet and Strings places the trumpet within a chamber ensemble rather than a solo concerto setting. The program concludes with Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence, a string sextet that was the composer’s final chamber work.
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Thursday, July 23, 7:30 p.m.  
Friday, July 24, 6:30 p.m.  
ALL AMERICAN: COPLAND, GERSHWIN & MORE
Leonard Slatkin, conductor 
Njioma Grievous, violin 
Aaron Copland, Rodeo
John Corigliano, Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra from The Red Violin (1997)
Ron Nelson, Savannah River Holiday (1952)
Cindy McTee, Adagio for Strings (2002)
George Gershwin, An American in Paris

Six-time Grammy Award winner Leonard Slatkin, Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, conducts an all-American program. Framed by two American classics by Copland and Gershwin, the program includes John Corigliano’s Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra from the The Red Violin—for which the composer won an Academy Award—performed by violinist Njioma Grievous; a work by Ron Nelson, long associated with American orchestral and wind repertoire; and Cindy McTee, a former Composer-in-Residence of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
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Sunday, July 26, 6:30 p.m.                    
MOZART: HAFFNER, NIGHT MUSIC, & MORE
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Tony Siqi Yun, piano  
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Serenade No. 12, K.388 in C Minor, Nachtmusik (Night Music)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466 
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385, Haffner

An all-Mozart program opens with Serenade No. 12, K. 388, a work for winds. Tony Siqi Yun, Gold Medalist of the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, appears as soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20. The program concludes with the “Haffner” Symphony, originally conceived as a serenade and later transformed into a full symphonic work.
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Tuesday, July 28, 7:30 p.m.      
ROBERT MANN CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES
Beethoven & Stravinsky          
Colorado Music Festival musicians    
Bohuslav Martinů, Trio for Flute, Cello, and Piano H. 300
Ludwig van Beethoven, Quintet in E-flat Major for Piano and Winds, Op. 16
Igor Stravinsky, The Soldier’s Tale

An ensemble of Colorado Music Festival musicians play Martinů’s trio, written in 1944 during the composer’s American exile, with the uncommon instrumental combination of flute, cello and piano. Beethoven’s Quintet in E-flat major for Piano and Winds, his only work for this instrumentation, places the piano in dialogue with the wind ensemble. The program concludes with Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, composed in 1918 while Stravinsky was living in exile in Switzerland and under severe financial constraints caused by World War I; it was originally conceived as a theatrical work with a pared down ensemble.
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Thursday, July 30, 7:30 p.m. 
Friday, July 31, 6:30 p.m.  
HOLST’S THE PLANETS + AMICK WORLD PREMIERE 
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Nobuyuki Tsujii, piano 
Leigha Amick, CMF Co-commission with Music in the Mountains and National Repertory Orchestra (world premiere) 
Sergei Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 2
Gustav Holst, The Planets

In recognition of Colorado’s 150th, CMF presents the world premiere of a new orchestral work by Leigha Amick, co-commissioned by the Colorado Music Festival and two other Colorado-based organizations, Music in the Mountains and the National Repertory Orchestra. Amick, a Colorado-based composer, has developed a growing orchestral catalogue shaped by close collaboration with performers and regional institutions. Pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii appears as soloist in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2; blind since birth, Tsujii is known for learning repertoire entirely by ear and for his Silver Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The program concludes with Gustav Holst’s The Planets.
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Sunday, August 2, 6:30 p.m.                 
PROKOFIEV, COPLAND, ROSSINI & RAVEL
Gemma New, conductor  
Ricardo Morales, clarinet       
Sergei Prokofiev, Symphony No. 1, “Classical” 
Aaron Copland, Clarinet Concerto 
Gioachino Rossini, Introduction, Theme and Variations 
Maurice Ravel, Ma mère l’oye (Mother Goose) 

Guest Conductor Gemma New is Music Director of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and former Resident Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She and the orchestra are joined by Ricardo Morales, Principal Clarinet of the Philadelphia Orchestra, for Copland’s Clarinet Concerto (written for Benny Goodman) and Rossini’s demanding Introduction, Theme, and Variations. The program opens with Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1 and concludes with Maurice Ravel’s Ma mère l’oye, presented in its orchestral suite form.
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Tuesday, August 4, 7:30 p.m.   
ROBERT MANN CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES
Danish String Quartet  
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Divertimento in F Major, K. 138 
Dmitri Shostakovich, Quartet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 73 
Maurice Ravel, String Quartet in F Major, M.35

The GRAMMY®-nominated Danish String Quartet is one of the preeminent quartets in the world today. The ensemble is celebrated for its “intense blend, extreme dynamic variation (in which [the members] seem glued together), perfect intonation even on harmonics, and constant vitality and flow” (Gramophone) and renowned for the palpable joy they exude in music-making. The Quartet returns to the Robert Mann Chamber Music Series with a program that spans 150 years of quartet writing and brings together three works in F major, spanning Mozart’s early chamber writing, Shostakovich’s postwar Third Quartet, and Ravel’s only completed string quartet.
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Thursday, August 6, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, August 7, 6:30 p.m.
VALERIE COLEMAN COLORADO PREMIERE + MICHELLE CANN        
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Michelle Cann, piano  
Ezra Calvino, assistant conductor      
Giuseppe Verdi, La forza del destino Overture
Valerie Coleman, Piano Concerto (Colorado premiere & CMF co-commission) 
Hector Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique

The program features a new work by Valerie Coleman, a GRAMMY®-nominated composer, flutist and entrepeneur who was named one of The Washington Post’s “Top 35 Women Composers.” Coleman has emerged as a leading voice in contemporary American music, with works performed by major orchestras across the United States. Her new Piano Concerto, co-commissioned by the Colorado Music Festival, receives its Colorado premiere with Michelle Cann at the piano, returning to CMF following her 2023 Festival debut. Classics by Verdi and Berlioz open and close the program.
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Sunday, August 9, 6:30 p.m.    
MAHLER 3
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Fleur Barron, mezzo soprano
St. Martin’s Festival Singers
Boulder Children’s Chorus
Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 3

Music Director Peter Oundjian continues his tradition of closing the Festival season with Mahler’s massive Third Symphony, consisting of six movements and calling for orchestra, mezzo-soprano, women’s chorus, and children’s chorus.  Grammy Award-winning mezzo soprano Fleur Barron and the Boulder Children’s Chorus join the CMF Orchestra.
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