Bravo! Vail Music Festival

Background Statement

Since our incorporation in 1987, Bravo! Vail Music Festival has evolved from a small chamber music series to an international music festival with more than 70 performances and events throughout the Vail Valley community. Through extraordinary performances, dedicated leadership, and generous support from the community, Bravo! Vail has established its place as one of the best music classical music festivals in the world.

Bravo! Vail touches the lives of tens of thousands of people each year, from local residents to visitors from around the globe. Each summer Bravo! Vail brings together four highly renowned orchestras, as well as multiple acclaimed chamber ensembles, and dozens of talented solo artists to perform for six weeks in the beauty of the Colorado Rockies.

Bravo! Vail fully embraces our mission through our year-round Education & Engagement Programs, including enrichment activities for people of all ages, free Community Concerts, collaborations with local organizations, and an after-school piano and violin instruction program, Music Makers Haciendo Música, in partnership with Eagle and Lake County School Districts.

TIMELINE

1987: Founding Executive Director John Giovando and founding Artistic Director Ida Kavafian establish Bravo! Colorado Music Festival at Vail & Beaver Creek.

1989: The Rochester Philharmonic begins its 19-year residency, joining the National Repertory Orchestra and the Colorado Spring Philharmonic to round out the Festival’s orchestra roster.

1991: The first Soirée Series brings music lovers together for an elegant evening of music, food, and drink in beautiful homes throughout the community, becoming the Linda & Mitch Hart Soirée Series in 2001.

1998: Eugenia Zukerman becomes Artistic Director of the Festival.

1998: The organization changes its name to Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.

1999: The Dallas Symphony Orchestra is added to the orchestral line-up.

2003: The internationally acclaimed New York Philharmonic performs at the summer Festival for the first time.

2007: The Philadelphia Orchestra solidifies Bravo! Vail’s reputation as one of the leading classical music festivals in the world when it begins its residency with the Festival.

2008: Little Listeners @ the Library launches as Live @ the Library.

2010: Bravo! Vail begins offering after-school piano instruction to children in grades 2 – 5. Violin instruction is added eight years later.

2011: Anne-Marie McDermott becomes Artistic Director.

2012: The first Classically Uncorked series debuts as the Silver Oak Series, bringing an innovative chamber music series with cabaret-style seating and wine to the Donovan Pavilion.

2013: To reflect the evolving organization, the name is changed to Bravo! Vail Music Festival.

2015: Artistic Director Anne-Marie McDermott develops the annual Piano Fellows program to give two selected rising artists an opportunity to learn, perform, meet other artists, and immerse themselves into the Festival for two weeks.

2016: Academy of St Martin in the Fields with Music Director Joshua Bell comes to Bravo! Vail as the Festival’s first international and first chamber orchestra, creating the four-orchestra roster we see today.

2017: Inside the Music, a free, midday lecture series that offers a behind-the scenes look into the artistic process, begins as the Masterclass Series.

2018: Caitlin Murray returns to Bravo! Vail as Executive Director.

2019: The Festival presents Tosca, the first-ever fully staged opera at Bravo! Vail, performed by The Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

2020: In response to the global pandemic, Bravo! Vail created the Music Box, a mobile performance stage, which we took to neighborhoods and parks from East Vail to Gypsum to present 41 outdoor concerts to the community. A group of 14 musicians performed in various configurations on the Music Box and in eight amphitheater concerts for limited capacity, socially distanced audiences, which were live streamed and viewed more than 6,500 times by people from 28 countries and all 50 states. Bravo! Vail was one of the only music festivals in the world to present live music in 2020.

The first Immersive Experiences delves into Beethoven’s eight violin concertos featuring Founding Artistic Director Ida Kavafian on violin and current Artistic Director Anne-Marie McDermott on piano.

2021: The After-School Piano and Violin Program gets a new name, Music Makers Haciendo Música, and plans to expand to chamber ensembles to further advanced students’ music education.

2022: The New Works Symphonic Commissioning Project launches, with the goal of commissioning three new works each year for the next five years and engaging the composer in the Festival.

2023: Music Makers Haciendo Música students become more fully integrated with the Festival, enhancing their music education with the Summer Intensive camps, Young Musicians Day, and the Bravo! Vail Presto Club. Highlights included the artist debuts of Yunchan Lim, Time for Three, Lido Pimienta, and Maxim Vengerov among others.

2024: Opera returned to Bravo! Vail, with two evenings of The Philadelphia Orchestra performing Puccini’s La bohème, led by Music and Artistic Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Additionally, Bravo! Vail welcome their first Latin American orchestra in 2024, Mexico City’s Sinfónica de Minería.