Aspen Music Festival and School extends Robert Spano’s contract

The Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) annouces the renewal of Music Director Robert Spano’s contract for an additional five years, extending his remarkable tenure through September 2030. This decision underscores the festival’s commitment to artistic excellence and the training of the next generation of conductors.

Since joining AMFS in 2011, Spano has been instrumental in shaping the festival’s artistic direction, elevating its reputation as one of the world’s premier summer music institutions. His innovative programming, inspiring leadership, mentorship of Aspen Conducting Academy fellows, and deep engagement with both audiences and artists have been hallmarks of his tenure.

“Robert Spano brings to Aspen an unparalleled array of personal and musical achievement,” AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher said. “Among the finest conductors in the world, with the broadest preparation and repertoire including significant focus on orchestral, operatic, choral, and contemporary music, he is also one of the great thinkers about music, and especially every aspect of the role of the conductor in a great musical enterprise. As a wonderful composer himself, he has an extraordinary record of advocacy for important new music. He is unsurpassed in his analysis and eloquence about music, culture, and learning. ‘Nice’ is far too simple a word; he is one of the most wonderful people I know in the world of music, and I know a lot of wonderful people.”

Under Spano’s leadership, AMFS has continued to build on its rich history while embracing innovation and inclusivity. Highlights of his tenure include the expansion of the festival’s repertoire, a renewed focus on interdisciplinary collaborations, and the launch of initiatives that bring music to underserved communities. Spano skillfully navigated the festival through the pandemic, pivoting to offer a season of virtual performances and distanced programming, as well as the festival’s recent 75th anniversary season, and has been an advocate for the commissioning of new works and the growth of the Aspen Conducting Academy.

“Working with the Aspen Music Festival and School for over a decade has been one of the great privileges of my life,” Spano said. “With our extraordinary faculty, staff, board, and extended musical family, I am blessed with incomparable colleagues. The students who come each summer, with their passion and talent, are invariably an inspiration. With them, our uniquely Aspen experience of music in these mountains comes to new life each summer. We all share in the joy of being a part of the discovery and maturation of this next generation of musicians. I’m thrilled to know that I’ll continue to be a part of this magic through 2030.”

As Spano’s renewed tenure begins, audiences can look forward to more groundbreaking programs, collaborations with iconic guest artists, and the continuation of AMFS’s mission to inspire through music.

With the theme “Concerning the Spiritual in Art,” the festival’s 2025 season promises to be a celebration of this ongoing partnership and a showcase of Spano’s artistic vision. Spano will conduct the world premiere of the AFMS composer-in-residence Christopher Theofanidis’s “Siddhartha, She” with libretto by Melissa Studdard; the Aspen Festival Orchestra’s opening program that includes in the “Good Friday Spell” from Wagner’s “Parsifal” and Thomas Adès’ “Inferno Suite” from “Dante” (July 6); and the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra’s performance of Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 featuring violinist Gil Shaham (Aug. 3), among others.

Tickets for the festival go on sale for the public April 16. Pre-sale tickets for donors, season passes, and locals go on sale April 8, 10, and 14, respectively. More info: aspenmusicfestival.com