The Complete Guide to Summer Classical Music Festivals for New Yorkers
The essential festivals from the Hamptons to Vermont that are worth the trip.
Summer changes the classical music calendar in the best possible way. While the regular season winds down, a different kind of music-making begins: orchestras setting up in the Berkshires, opera companies performing lakeside, chamber musicians gathering in converted barns.
This guide doesn't list every concert happening this summer, but focuses on the festivals that stand out for their setting, programming, or the kind of evening that makes you remember why you love live music. Whether you're thinking about a day trip to the Hudson Valley or plotting a weekend in Vermont, these are the festivals worth your time.
The Institutions
The festivals with serious history and cultural weight. These are places that have shaped classical music for decades.
Tanglewood
Lenox, MA · June 21–August 31
Tanglewood is a tradition. The summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for nearly a century and the place where generations of New Yorkers have made their annual pilgrimage to the Berkshires. It's not just the music that makes it memorable, but the feeling of hearing the BSO in the open-air Koussevitzky Shed, the sound carrying out over lawn and into the hills. It gives you the sense that you're somewhere with history and a lot of space to think.
I spent a summer here in high school. What I remember most vividly is sitting behind the Tanglewood Music Center orchestra in Ozawa Hall watching the conducting fellows pour themselves completely into the all-Sibelius program. You could feel the whole orchestra feeding off their energy. Then a few night later, the BSO playing Tchaikovsky's unsparing Symphony No. 6, the final notes quietly dissolving into nothing. That’s when it clicked for me.
This year, Andris Nelsons leads much of the season, joined by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Elim Chan, and Zubin Mehta. Soloists include Yuja Wang, María Dueñas, and Emanuel Ax. Go for the big orchestral pieces, but also make room for the chamber concerts, premieres, and student performances that sometimes outshine the headliners.
The Berkshire Flyer runs direct from Moynihan Station if you don't want to deal with weekend traffic.
ODEA Picks:
Sat, Jul 5 - All-Rachmaninoff Program with Daniil Trifonov
Mon, Jul 7 TMC Orchestra performs Brahms & Smetana
Sun Jul 13 - Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts Sibelius
Mon, Jul 14 - TMC Orchestra Performs Ravel & Stravinsky
Sun, Jul 20 - Symphonie fantastique and Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 with Yuja Wang
Fri, Jul 25 - Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with María Dueñas
Sat, Jul 26 - Mahler Symphony No. 1 and John Williams Piano Concerto with Emanuel Ax
Sat, Aug 2 - Elim Chan Conducts Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2 and Korngold Violin Concerto with Leonidas Kavakos
Mon, Aug 4 - Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra Performs Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges
Ideal For: Big Symphony Fans, Chamber Music Enthusiasts, Summer in the Berkshires, Weekend Trips.
Venue Notes: Concerts take place across Tanglewood’s relaxed, 500-acre campus in the Berkshires. Big nights happen in the open-air Koussevitzky Music Shed, while chamber and student performances are usually in Seiji Ozawa Hall, known for its clean acoustics and back wall that opens to the lawn. Bring a blanket. Lawn seating is a big part of the experience.
The Glimmerglass Festival
Cooperstown, NY · July 7–August 17
Glimmerglass is where classic operas and new stories get equal space, and where a summer day can include both a swim and a world premiere. This season includes a visually striking Tosca directed by Louisa Proske, the company’s first take on The Rake’s Progress, Stravinsky’s sharp edged parable of ambition and ruin, and the world premiere of The House on Mango Street, adapted by Sandra Cisneros herself with a nimble, episodic score by Derek Bermel. They’re also bringing back Odyssey, fast moving, one-hour opera for all ages that somehow fits in gods, monsters, and a surprisingly tender ending before attention spans run out.
ODEA Picks:
Tosca (10 performances: Jul 11–Aug 16)
Puccini’s opera of love, betrayal, and revolution. Directed by Louisa Proske, with sets by John Conklin.The House on Mango Street (World premiere: Jul 18–Aug 16)
Sandra Cisneros’s coming-of-age classic becomes a series of musical vignettes. Quietly powerful, vividly told. Music by Derek Bermel and libretto by Cisneros and Bermel.The Rake’s Progress (Company premiere: Jul 19–Aug 15)
Stravinsky's neoclassical opera gets a new staging by Eric Sean Fogel that puts choreography front and center. It's part satire, part cautionary tale about what happens when you let your worst impulses take the wheel.Odyssey (Aug 3, 5, 8)
Homer's epic condensed to one hour with resident artists and local kids. The mythical singing creatures who lure sailors to their doom remain the highlight.
Ideal For: Opera Enthusiasts, Literary Types, Lakeside Culture Seekers.
Venue Notes: The Alice Busch Opera Theater is a sleek, airy space tucked into a field outside Cooperstown. Ventilation is natural (read: bring layers), acoustics are excellent, and you’re never far from a lake view.
Saratoga Performing Arts Center
Saratoga Springs, NY · June 15–August 23
SPAC is where serious music goes to summer. The Philadelphia Orchestra and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center set up residencies in this massive park preserve surrounded by hiking trails, geysers, and natural mineral springs.
In August, the Philadelphia Orchestra returns with Yannick Nézet-Séguin for a stretch that includes Verdi’s Requiem and Stravinsky’s Suite from The Firebird. Marin Alsop opens the residency with a all-Tchaikovsky night, with Holst’s The Planets and a Gershwin & Bernstein program rounding out the next two evenings. You’ll also hear Laufey singing jazz ballads, Renée Fleming in her nature-focused program, and Cynthia Erivo with selections that pull from Broadway and soul.
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center handles the more intimate side of the season with Sunday afternoon concerts at the nearby Spa Little Theater. The programs are very much core canon (Beethoven, Dvořák, Brahms), with string quartets, piano trios, and wind quintets played by musicians who know how to keep familiar music sounding fresh.
ODEA Picks:
Sun, Jun 20 - Beethoven’s Quintet for Piano and Winds
Wed, Aug 6 - Tchaikovsky Spectacular
Sat, Aug 9 - Laufey: A Night at the Symphony with The Philadelphia Orchestra
Sun, Aug 10 - The Viano String Quartet
Wed, Aug 13 - Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff & Still
Fri, Aug 15 - Renée Fleming with The Philadelphia Orchestra
Wed, Aug 20 - Beethoven’s Fifth
Fri, Aug 22 - An Evening with Cynthia Erivo & The Philadelphia Orchestra
Ideal For: A Weekend Getaway, Big Night Out, Adventurous Listeners.
Venue Notes: SPAC’s main amphitheater is built for big sound. Surrounded by pines with lawn space that makes for a great picnic. Just down the path, the Spa Little Theater is the opposite: enclosed, low-lit, and tuned for chamber music.
Norfolk Chamber Music Festival
Norfolk, CT · July 4–August 16
This has been Yale School of Music's summer program since 1941, bringing chamber music to a wooden "Music Shed" that looks more like a town hall than a concert hall, but that's part of the charm. The acoustics are immaculate (cedar and redwood will do that) and the festival’s programs strike a balance: grounded in the canon (think Beethoven, Hadyn, Schubert), but often paired with more modern pieces. One night you’ll hear a Timo Andres string quartet slipped between Haydn and Dvořák, or Osvaldo Golijov’s mystical Dreams and Prayers setting up Beethoven’s transcendent String Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, Op. 132.
Some Friday concerts include Dialogues, with Yale professors leading pre-show conversation in nearby Battell Recital Hall. Whether or not you're there for the musicology, it’s the music that counts. The lineup shifts weekly, so check the schedule and pick your weekend wisely.
ODEA Picks:
Fri, Jul 4 – Dialogues: Celebrating America: Copland’s Appalachian Spring and more
Sat, Jul 5 – Brentano Quartet: Schubert, Webern, Beethoven
Sat, Jul 12 – Brentano Quartet: Haydn, Timo Andres, Dvořák
Fri, Jul 18 – Dialogues: Music & Hollywood: Classical meets the silver screen
Sat, Jul 19 – Miró Quartet with Romie de Guise-Langlois & Melvin Chen: Beethoven, Golijov, Prokofiev
Fri, Jul 25 – Miró Quartet: Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor and more
Sat, Jul 26 – Dialogues: Tradition & Innovation: Saint-Saëns to Valerie Coleman
Fri, Aug 1 – Shanghai Quartet: Beethoven, Zhou Long, Schubert’s Death and the Maiden
Fri, Aug 8 – Dialogues: Night in an Early 1800s Concert Hall: A time-travel concert experience
Ideal For: A Weekend Trip, Chamber Music Devotees.
Venue Notes: Concerts take place in the historic all-wood Music Shed, built from cedar and redwood and prized for its near-perfect acoustics. It’s not flashy, but the sound is the draw and it delivers.
The Discoveries
Intimate venues where the music feels more personal and the programming takes real risks.
Marlboro Music Festival
Marlboro, VT · July 19–August 17
In the hills of southern Vermont, Marlboro is less summer festival and more creative retreat. For seven weeks, established artists like Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss live, rehearse, and eat alongside early-career players, with no agenda beyond making music worth sharing. Programs aren’t announced until just before each concert. They emerge from weeks of quiet, obsessive rehearsal. When audiences finally gather in the plain wooden hall, it feels more like overhearing something personal than attending a show. Just deep listening in a place where the work is what matters.
Ideal For: Chamber aficionados craving the real deal, and anyone who needs proof that genuine artistic community still exists.
Venue Notes: Performances in the modest Persons Auditorium, where the world's elite musicians play as if no one's watching (though everyone definitely is).
Yellow Barn Music Festival
Putney, VT · June 22–August 9
Yellow Barn turns the quiet town of Putney into a four-week chamber music lab every summer. The performances take place in a post-and-beam barn just off Main Street. Think yellow pine, steep balcony, great acoustics, and the occasional creak. Small enough where you’re never too far from the action.
The concerts here are marathon affairs—seven or eight piece that actually justify the ticket price and the programming doesn’t play it safe. You'll get Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 sandwiched between Brett Dean's contemporary Approach and Mauricio Kagel's theatrical Osten, which tells you how seriously they take both old and new music. Intermissions come with ice cream and blueberries, because apparently someone finally figured out what classical music was missing all along.
ODEA Picks:
Fri, Jul 11 - Opening Night: Rachmaninoff, Bach, Beethoven.
Thu, Jul 17 - Festival Concert: Mozart, Aperghis, Nono, Pais, Tulve (free admission)
Jul 18: Verklärte Nacht and Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time - basically the heavyweight bout of the festival.
Sat, Jul 26 - Schubert, Virgil Thompson, Korngold and Ives.
Tue, Jul 29 - Schumann, Hollinger, Strauss, Brahms
Thu, Jul 31 - Stravinsky’s Duo Concertant, Schumann’s Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47
Mon, Aug 4 - Haydn’s String Quartet in F Minor, Op.20 No.5, Beethoven’s String Quartet in A Minor, Op.132
Fri, Aug 8 - Anderson’s String Quartet No. 3, Mozart’s String Quintet in D Major, K.593, Schubert’s Octet in F Major, D. 803
Sat, Aug 9 - Season finale includes Dvořák’s String Quartet in G Major, Op. 106, Fauré’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in E Minor, and a final course of Anderson’s Tiramisù
Ideal For: A Weekend Trip, Contemporary Music Explorers, Chamber music fans who don’t need headliners.
Venue Notes: Performances happen in a rustic-chic barn with warm, resonant acoustics. It seats about 125, and small enough to catch every expression.
Opera Saratoga
Saratoga Springs, NY · June 20–28
This is one of the smallest opera festivals in the region, and that’s part of the appeal. Opera Saratoga keeps the season short, performs everything in one downtown venue, and isn’t afraid to throw something strange on the bill. This summer opens with La Vie parisienne, Offenbach’s 1866 fast moving operetta that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The production is sung in French with new English dialogue, and it plays more like a cartoon than anything you'd expect from an opera company.
Also in the mix is A Mass for Women in Bathrooms, a new work-in-progress from Irish composer Emma O’Halloran and librettist Naomi Louisa O’Connell. It’s built around the format of a Catholic mass but staged like a domestic standoff, as a mother and her three daughters hash out faith, fertility, and family history from inside a bathroom. Think more sketchbook than final product for this production, but the ideas are bold and personal.
ODEA Picks:
La Vie parisienne (Jun 20, 22, 26, 28)
A Mass for Women in Bathrooms (Jun 22, 27)
Ideal For: Opera Enthusiasts, Upstate Weekenders.
Venue Notes: Universal Preservation Hall is a restored 19th-century church with vaulted ceilings and excellent acoustics. Intimate, atmospheric, and just a few blocks from downtown Saratoga eats.
Maverick Concerts
Woodstock, NY · June 29–September 14
Maverick Concerts, held June through September in a century-old barn deep in the Woodstock woods, offers chamber music with a laid-back feel.
The programming here doesn't look like every other summer festival’s. Take the Pacifica Quartet in July, they’ll start with Mendelssohn’s A Minor Quartet, full of tension, counterpoint, and strange fugue patterns, then jump to Bartók’s tightly wound String Quartet No. 4 , and close with Dvořák’s lyrical American Quartet. It's the kind of sequence that makes you hear familiar pieces differently. Or take the Dalí Quartet lining up Reynaldo Hahn’s quartet with Eleanor Alberga's restless String Quartet No. 1 before letting Tchaikovsky’s First Quartet wrap things up. These aren’t safe picks. They’re deliberate, contrasted programs that trust listeners to follow where the music leads.
ODEA Picks:
Sun, Jul 6 - Manhattan Chamber Players and Mariam Adam, clarinet
Sun, Jul 13 - Miró Quartet
Sat, Jul 19 - Adam Tendler, piano
Sun, Jul 20 - Pacifica Quartet
Sat, Aug 23 - Maverick Chamber Orchestra Concert
Sun, Aug 31 - The Dalí Quartet, Mayumi Tsuchida
Sun, Sep 7 - Borromeo String Quartet, Michael Stephen Brown
Ideal For: Upstate Weekenders, Curious Listeners, Contemporary Music Enthusiasts.
Venue Notes: Performances take place in the historic wooden concert barn built in 1916, with seating that puts you close enough to see the sheet music.
Kingston Chamber Music Festival
Kingston, RI · July 23–August 3
Kingston puts together a chamber music season that feels genuinely dialed in. Not bloated, not sleepy, just really good music played by people who mean it. Held at the University of Rhode Island, Kingston offers a strong lineup of world-class musicians performing everything from Brahms to Piazzolla, with a special spotlight this year on the clarinet. Ricardo Morales leads performances of Weber and Brahms quintets that promise to be festival standouts. The setting is relaxed, the artistry is top-tier, and the music, as always, is the main event.
ODEA Picks:
Wed, Jul 23 - Concert 1: A Celebration Of Latinx Music
Sun, Jul 27 - Concert 3: “Trout”
Wed, Jul 30 - Concert 4: A Night Of Stark Contrast
Sun, Aug 3 - Concert 6: Celebrating 37 Years Of Musical Excellence
Ideal For: Chamber Music Enthusiasts, Clarinet Aficionados, and anyone who believes the best summer nights end with live music.
Venue Notes: Performances are held in the University of Rhode Island’s Fine Arts Center, an unpretentious, well-balanced hall with clear acoustics. The vibe is relaxed but attentive, with a loyal local audience and a steady stream of curious newcomers.
Bang on a Can: LOUD Weekend 2025
MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA · July 31–August 2
Three days. Dozens of performances. Not a single quiet corner. Bang on a Can’s LOUD Weekend drops a tidal wave of experimental sound into MASS MoCA’s (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) sprawling industrial space, turning old factory halls and echoey courtyards into a maze of music.
You can come for just a day or the full weekend, but either way, plan on roaming. This year’s highlights include Sō Percussion opening with Steve Reich’s Drumming, a rare live tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto’s film scores, and Julia Wolfe’s Forbidden Love, a piece that makes violins do things you probably haven’t heard before. Elsewhere, you’ll find hurdy gurdies, turntables, field recordings, and chamber music that doesn't sit still.
Ideal For: Weekend Trippers, Experiment Music Aficionados, Curious Museum-goers.
Venue Notes: MASS MoCA is a vast former industrial factory complex turned contemporary art museum. Think concrete floors, old brick, sky-lit galleries.
Berkshire Opera Festival
Great Barrington, MA · August 14, 23, 26, 29
Ten years in, Berkshire Opera Festival has figured out what the big houses sometimes miss: opera works best when it feels personal. It’s easy to feel small in a big opera house, but here, you’re close enough to really feel those moments with a single note or phrase hits you right in the chest.
Every summer, the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center becomes the beating heart of this small but serious company, now celebrating ten years of gutsy, full-scale productions. La Traviata anchors this season, starring soprano Vanessa Becerra making her BOF debut as Violetta—the courtesan whose real love story begins just as everything falls apart. The cast also includes tenor Joshua Blue, returning after a memorable Don Giovanni (2022) and baritone Darren Drone as Giorgio Germont, the father who ruins everything trying to save it.
The season opens with a festive 10th Anniversary Concert on August 14 featuring operatic favorites from the cast members past and present.
ODEA Picks:
Thu, Aug 14 - 10th Anniversary Concert: Celebrating BOF’s Past, Present, and Future
Sat, Tue, Fri, Aug 23, 26, 29 - La Traviata
Ideal For: Opera newcomers, Berkshire Weekenders.
Venue Notes: The Mahaiwe is a 1905 beauty with great acoustics and 680 seats. Big enough for drama, small enough for catching the fine details.
The Escapes
Weekend-worthy destinations where beautiful settings make the performances even more memorable.
Bard SummerScape
Fisher Center at Bard, Annandale-On-Hudson, NY · June 27–August 17
A train ride up the Hudson gets you to one of the most consistently surprising arts festivals on the East Coast. Set across Bard’s hilltop campus and the grounds at Montgomery Place, SummerScape is where overlooked operas and choreographer-composer collabs all exist in one very picturesque pocket of the Hudson Valley.
This summer’s standouts include Pastoral, a new Pam Tanowitz work reframing Beethoven’s Sixth through movement and Caroline Shaw's textured score. Dalibor, Smetana's rarely staged opera of love and rebellion gets its first full American production. And this year’s Bard Music Festival turns its focus to Bohuslav Martinů, with two weekends of concerts spanning his chamber, orchestral, and vocal works. Between the concert weekends, the mirrored Spiegeltent becomes an all-night salon with cocktails, cabaret, and dance parties under the stars.
ODEA Picks:
Fri-Sun, Jun 27-29 - Pastoral: Tanowitz deconstructs Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony with her signature architectural choreography, set against live music by Caroline Shaw and abstract backdrops by artist Suzanne Bocanegra. A cerebral, sensual world premiere.
Fri, Jul 25-Sun, Aug 3 - Dalibor: Smetana’s romantic tragedy opera centering on the main character's quest for redemption and revenge.
Fri, Aug 8 - Opening night goes all in on Martinů, with folk tunes, Cold War energy, and a theremin cameo that’s more sci-fi daydream than orchestral standard.
Sat, Aug 9 - Jazz meets resistance in this all-orchestral night: Schulhoff’s fierce Symphony No. 2 opens, followed by Martinů’s dreamlike “Incantation” piano concerto, a rarely heard piece by Rudolf Firkušný, and a memorial to a village erased by the Nazis.
Thu, Aug 14 — Up close and acoustic. An evening of Martinů’s chamber works where every breath, bow stroke, and harmonic shift registers.
Saturday nights all summer — Spiegeltent dance parties where the line between audience and artists disappears completely
Ideal For: A Day Trip, Upstate Weekenders, Operagoers Off The Beaten Path, Cabaret Crowds.
Venue Notes: Performances unfold across Bard’s striking Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center, an intimate black-box theater, and the Spiegeltent—a mirrored 1920s salon for late-night sets, dancing, and drinks under its striped canvas.
Caramoor
Katonah, NY · June 15–August 3
Beethoven hits different when you're horizontal on a blanket with a bottle of Sancerre chilling in your cooler, surrounded by 80 acres of Westchester greenery. That's the whole Caramoor vibe. Set on a former estate about an hour north of the city, it’s one of the few places where classical music gets the kind of unhurried evening setting it deserves.
Caramoor’s programming covers a lot of ground, from full orchestra Beethoven and Brahms to a taut Haydn-Dvořák program by the Takács Quartet. Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion return with an evening of experimental chamber pop and percussion-driven minimalism. Monteverdi’s Poppea, a Baroque opera from 1643, feels more like a slow-burn drama than something pulled from the history shelf.
A free shuttle from Metro-North’s Katonah station makes it easy to skip the car and pack your best picnic instead.
ODEA Picks:
Sat, Jun 21 - Opening Night & Summer Gala: Orchestra of St. Luke’s – Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9
Fri, Jun 27 - Daniil Trifonov, piano
Thu, Jul 10 - Caroline Shaw & Sō Percussion featuring Ringdown
Sat, Jul 12 - Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea
Sun, Jul 13 - Orchestra of St. Luke’s & Stella Chen, violin
Fri, Jul 25 - Takács Quartet
Sat, Aug 2 - Claire Bourg, violin Jinhee Park, piano
Sun, Aug 3 - Orchestra of St. Luke’s & Garrick Ohlsson, piano
Ideal For: Classical fans who prefer their concerts with room to stretch, and anyone who knows a good picnic basket is half the experience.
Venue Notes: Performances happen throughout the estate, from the picturesque Spanish Courtyard to the 1,500-seat Venetian Theater. Picnicking on the lawn is highly encouraged.
Music Mountain
Falls Village, CT · June 8–September 14
In upstate Connecticut, there's this place called Music Mountain that's been doing one thing incredibly well since 1930: string quartets. We're talking about a venue where Jacques Gordon, former Chicago Symphony concertmaster, said something to the tune of "let's build the perfect room for chamber music" and had Sears ship up pre-fab Colonial Revival buildings to make it happen. Gordon Hall still has some of the best acoustics you'll find anywhere and there's something about driving up that mountain that makes you understand why musicians have been coming here for 93 years. These days they mix in some jazz on Saturday nights, but those Sunday afternoon quartet concerts remain the kind of pure musical experience that's getting harder to find.
ODEA Picks:
Sun, Jun 22 - Marmen Quartet & Victoria Schwartzman, Piano: Haydn, Grosshandler, Brahms
Sun, Jun 29 - Euclid Quartet: Haydn, Kauder, Tchaikovsky
Sun, Jul 6 - Arianna String Quartet & Judith Gordon, Piano: Beethoven, Tower, Korngold
Sun, Jul 13 - Penderecki String Quartet & Paul Marleyn, Cello: Brahms, Wijeratne, Schubert
Sun, Jul 27 - American String Quartet & Daniel Avshalomov, Viola: Beethoven, Ravel, Brahms
Sun, Aug 3 - Verona Quartet: Mendelssohn, Ellington, Shostakovich
Sun, Aug 10 - Ying Quartet: Wolf, Puccini, Dvořák, Schubert
Sun, Aug 24 - Cuarteto Latinoamericano & Oskar Espina Ruiz, Clarinet: Boccherini, Castellanos Yumar, Mozart, more
Sun, Sep 7 - Cassatt String Quartet & Magdalena Baczewska, Piano: Mozart, Shostakovich, Schumann
Sun, Sep 14 - Juilliard String Quartet: Beethoven, Dvořák “American” Viola Quintet
Ideal For: A Weekend Trip, String Quartet Purists, Acoustic Obsessives.
Venue Notes: All performances take place in Gordon Hall, a Colonial Revival concert space with famously warm acoustics and windows that let in mountain light. Dress is relaxed, reverence for the music is not optional.
Rockport Music
Rockport, MA · June 13–August 3
At Rockport Music's Shalin Liu Performance Center, the Atlantic Ocean provides a constantly shifting backdrop that either enhances or competes with the music, depending on your perspective. The Grammy-winning Imani Winds joins steel pan composer Andy Akiho for a program mixing his high energy compositions with Villa-Lobos and D'Rivera. The Isidore Quartet teams with saxophonist Steven Banks for an evening spanning Ravel and Beethoven plus Banks's own quintet. A Far Cry collaborates with writer Jeremy Eichler for a moving meditation on music and memory, featuring Bach, Mendelssohn, and Strauss. Rockport's seaside tourist appeal works in the festival's favor—the lobster rolls and gallery browsing feel like natural extensions of an evening spent listening to serious music with ocean views.
ODEA picks:
Sun, Jun 15 - Dover String Quartet with Roberto Diaz
Thu, Jun 19 - Isidore Quartet & Steven Banks
Fri, Jun 27 - Imani Winds & Andy Akiho
Sat, Jun 28 - Jonathan Biss, Piano: All-Schubert
Sat-Sun, Jul 5-6 - The Fauré Project with Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis & Jeremy Denk
Fri, Jul 11 - African Queens: Karen Slack & Kevin Miller
Sat, Jul 12 - Appalachian Spring: Parker Quartet with Todd Palmer & Rockport Festival Chamber Orchestra
Ideal For: A Weekend Trip, Chamber Music Romantics, Lovers of an Ocean View.
Venue Notes: Performances take place in the stunning Shalin Liu Performance Center, where the stage is backed by a glass wall overlooking Rockport Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean.
The Surprises
Classical music thriving in places that do it their own way.
The Princeton Festival
Princeton, NJ · June 6–21
Princeton's June festival gets what makes summer music special: three weeks where soul, cabaret, classical, and opera unfold in gardens, historic churches and auditoriums around campus. This year’s centerpiece is Tosca (June 13, 15, 17) with Rossen Milanov and the Princeton Symphony Orchestra under the festival tent, delivering all the high-drama heartbreak Puccini intended. The June 14 program pairs dancers from American Repertory Ballet with live music from the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, featuring scenes from Swan Lake, Don Quixote, and a contemporary duet by Ethan Stiefel.
ODEA Picks:
Fri, Sun, Tue Jun 13, 15, 17 – Tosca
Sat, Jun 14 – An Evening of Pas de Deux: American Repertory Ballet & Princeton Symphony Orchestra
Ideal For: Day Trippers, Date Night, Opera Enthusiasts, Fans of Big Feelings.
Venue Notes: Performances take place in various venues across Princeton University campus, including the festival tent, historic churches, and in gardens.
Newport Classical
Newport, RI · July 4–22
Chamber music in Gilded Age mansions? Now that's an event worth planning around. For over five decades, Newport Classical has been filling the kind of spaces where Vanderbilts once summered with the music they were built to showcase. Twenty-nine concerts across eleven venues, from The Breakers' limestone halls to Rosecliff's ballroom, plus Castle Hill Inn where you get chamber music with an ocean backdrop. String quartets, piano recitals, and the occasional percussion ensemble treat Newport’s historic mansions like the concert halls they nearly are. Even the Newport Art Museum and the 1739 Colony House get in on it. It's chamber music that knows exactly where it belongs.
ODEA Picks:
Wed, Jul 9 - Piano Quartets
Thu, Jul 10 - Third Coast Percussion
Sat, Jul 12 - Karen Slack: African Queens
Sat, Jul 19 - Attacca Quartet
Tue, Jul 22 - Closing Night with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Stefan Jackiw
Ideal For: Weekend Trippers, Chamber music devotees with a soft spot for Gilded Age architecture.
Venue Notes: Concerts rotate through Newport’s historic mansions, museums, and seaside lawns. Expect a range of acoustics, ocean breezes, and chandeliers overhead.
Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival
Cape Cod, MA · July 29–August 22
Yes, the Cape has beaches and lobster rolls. But it also has a chamber music festival that’s been doing its thing for over 45 years without needing much fanfare. What started as a summer project for pianist Samuel Sanders is now a full scale Cape tradition, concerts popping up from Cotuit to Wellfleet in churches and art centers.
This season has a ton of variety. You’ll hear the Parker Quartet go deep on Schubert and Ravel, catch a reworked Bach double violin concerto including two clarinets (somehow it works), and spend an entire evening with Beethoven’s Septet. There’s also new commissions, unexpected program pairings, and the kind of all-star ensembles that make a Tuesday night in Chatham feel like a big deal.
ODEA Picks:
Tue, Aug 5 - Popular Demand: The Return of the Claremont Trio
Thu-Fri, Aug 7-8 - Unity Through Music: We are the Catalyst
Mon, Aug 11 - Revelation: The Frautschi-Manasse-Nakamatsu Trio
Fri, Aug 15 - Music for 6 and 7: Many Instruments, Extraordinary Sounds
Tue, Aug 19 - Agile Virtuosity: Parker Quartet
Thu-Fri, Aug 21-22 - Phenomenon: Two Manasses, One Nakamatsu & More
Ideal For: A Week on the Cape, Chamber Music Enthusiasts.
Venue Notes: Concerts take place across the Cape in acoustically clear, small-scale venues, from the Simon Center for the Arts in Falmouth to historic churches in Chatham and Wellfleet.
Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival
Bridgehampton, NY · July 19–August 17
If you trade Manhattan concrete for Hamptons breezes come July, this is where to get your culture fix between beach days. The longest-running classical music festival on Long Island attracts both longtime chamber fans and the “what else is going on this weekend?” crowd. Artistic Director Marya Martin curates a tight, thoughtful lineup in settings that feel made for summer: Madoo Conservancy's rambling gardens, Parrish Art Museum's sleek galleries, and the sculpture garden at Channing. A lot of the players come from major orchestras or chamber groups, but they show up relaxed. It probably helps that the beach is ten minutes away.
ODEA Picks:
Sun, Jul 20 - Opening Night: Schubert's Trout
Thu, Jul 24 - Lyrical Contrasts: Schubert, Dohnányi & More
Sun, Jul 27 - Songs Without Words: Mendelssohn/Torke/Golijov/ Fauré
Thu, Jul 31 - Not The Stillness: Beethoven and More
Fri, Aug 7 - Friendly Rivals: Telemann and Bach
Sun, Aug 10 - Sublime Laments: Hummel/Watkins/Brahms
Sun, Aug 17 - The Last Word: A Festive Finale
Ideal For: A Weekend Getaway, Chamber Music Enthusiasts.
Venue Notes: Performances rotate between the Madoo Conservancy gardens, the modern outdoor spaces of Channing Sculpture Garden, and the contemporary galleries of the Parrish Art Museum.
Manchester Summer Chamber Music
Manchester-by-the-Sea & Ipswich, MA · August 9–23
Manchester Summer Chamber Music started as a way to bring chamber music to the beach crowd. Now, it’s become a summer fixture on the North Shore where concerts aren’t just about performance, but about sharing music with the community just as founders Sage Cole and Lorna Tsai intended. This August’s lineup moves from Beethoven to Caroline Shaw, with a Mendelssohn sibling project that adds storytelling to the mix. Concerts take place in a private home in Manchester and at the Barn at Castle Hill in Ipswich, where you can listen to a string quartet while the sun drops behind Crane Beach.
ODEA Picks:
Sat, Aug 9 - By The Moonlight: Movements from Quartets and Quintets by Beethoven, Dvorak, Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Jesse Montgomery
Sat, Aug 16 - Fractured Shadows: Quartets from Beethoven to Caroline Shaw at The Barn at Castle Hill
Sat, Aug 23 - Cellobration!: Featuring Vivaldi's Double Cello Concerto and Schubert's "Cello Quintet" at The Barn at Castle Hill
Wed-Fri, Aug 13-15 - Fanny & Felix: A Narrative Performance Exploring the Mendelssohn Siblings
Ideal For: A Weekend Getaway, Chamber Music Lovers Drawn to the Sea, Date Night with Coastal Charm.
Venue Notes: Performances happen in an elegant private home in Manchester and the beautifully rustic Barn at Castle Hill in Ipswich, where post-concert strolls through the estate grounds are part of the experience.
You’re probably looking for more than just another season brochure. That’s what ODEA is for. We cover the concerts that slip past the glossy previews: string quartets in crypts, operas in downtown theaters, new music in old churches. The kinds of performances you hear about a week too late. If that sounds like your thing, subscribe, share, or go check out something unexpected. I’ll be out there too.
— Owen