Welcome to the Skaneateles Festival

A dynamic 4-week music festival providing intimate access to the world’s best music in the heart of the Finger Lakes Region.

For more than 40 years we have brought some of the world’s most talented musicians to perform on our stage, with the hope of building community and enduring friendships through music. Our goal is to provide an experience that is inspiring, joyful, and engaging.

Schedule:

July 26, 2023

3:00 pm - 4:00 pm - Season Preview: An Afternoon with Eliot Fisk

By popular demand, Eliot Fisk opens the Festival with a solo recital for the Skaneateles Festival’s first-ever matinee concert. More details to come! Program will include:

J. S. BACH – Cello Suite No. 1, arr. Eliot Fisk
Latin American and Spanish selections

Location: First Presbyterian Church

July 27, 2023

8:00 pm - 9:30 pm - Opening Night: Eliot Fisk & Friends

This concert is presented in memory of David Stam. World-renowned guitar virtuoso and Syracuse native Eliot Fisk opens the 2023 Festival with a celebratory program for guitar and strings. By turns lively and lyrical, the program showcases Fisk’s “fine balance of focused introspection and incendiary virtuosity” (New York Times): Bach’s famous Chaconne in D minor (arranged by Fisk), evocative Spanish music, a showpiece by Paganini, and Boccherini’s exuberant Spanish-flavored fandango for guitar, strings, and castanets.

Program:

Paganini Sonata Concertata for Guitar and Violin
George Rochberg selections from “American Bouquet”
J.S. BACH, arr. Fisk Chaconne from Partita in D minor, BWV 1004
Three Spanish pieces by Granados, Halffter, and Albéniz
Boccherini Quintet for Guitar and Strings, G. 448 (“Fandango”) feat. Julia Bruskin, cello

Location: First Presbyterian Church

July 28, 2023

8:00 pm - 9:30 pm: The Danish String Quartet

The Danish Quartet may well be the world’s most in-demand string quartet. The foursome from Denmark has captivated audiences worldwide with its blend of apparent ease and wild abandon. Their program showcases both their mastery of classics by Bach, Haydn, and Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, as well as their inimitable, joyful renditions of Nordic folk music. Hear why the Danish Quartet is “the string quartet’s best hope” (Wall Street Journal).

Program:

Haydn String Quartet, Op. 20, No. 2
Bach Selections from Art of Fugue and Well-Tempered Clavier
Shostakovich String Quartet No. 7
Folk Music Nordic selections, arr. Danish Quartet

Location: First Presbyterian Church   

July 29, 2023

8:00 pm - 9:30 pm - Béla Fleck: My Bluegrass Heart

Banjo king Béla Fleck is at the epicenter of American folk and bluegrass – but the 15-time Grammy winner has also “baffled the Grammy awards” (New York Times), winning for country, jazz, pop, world music, classical crossover, and folk. Returning to “the root of my musical soul,” as he puts it, Fleck has assembled a large ensemble of fellow bluegrass all-stars, including the charismatic Grammy-nominated singer, Sierra Hull; ever a restless explorer, Fleck is sure to seek out new musical terrain.

Location: Robinson Pavilion at Anyela’s Vineyards

August 3, 2023

8:00 pm - 9:30 pm - Inventing Mozart

250 years later, Mozart’s music continues to uplift and entrance us, as well as a new generation of composers. Hear Mozart’s joyous Exultate Jubilate for soprano and strings (featuring Kearstin Piper Brown); the ultra-famous Eine kleine Nachtmusik; a new work by jazz polymath Vijay Iyer based on Mozart’s music; and Brahms’s lyrical passionate Piano Quartet in C Minor, in a genre invented by Mozart.

Mozart Exultate Jubilate for soprano and strings, K. 165
Mozart Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525
Vijay Iyer Mozart Effects
Brahms Piano Quartet in C Minor, Op. 60

Location: First Presbyterian Church

August 4, 2023

8:00 pm - 9:30 pm - Following Harriet

The Festival celebrates the 200th anniversary of Harriet Tubman’s birth with a program of American music on themes of struggle and hope. Samuel Barber’s intense Cello Sonata (with Artistic Directors Julia Bruskin and Aaron Wunsch), William Grant Still’s Violin Suite based on Harlem Renaissance art and spirituals, and songs by Porter and Gershwin are preludes to a Festival-commissioned dramatic portrayal of Harriet Tubman by Nailah Nombeko, featuring rising opera star Kearstin Piper Brown.

Program:

BARBER Cello Sonata
William Grant Still Violin Suite
Nailah Nombeko Fortitude World Premiere, commissioned by the Skaneateles Festival
American Songbook Selections by Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, And George Gershwin

Location: First Presbyterian Church

August 5, 2023

8:00 pm - 9:30 pm - Kelli O’Hara: Songs From My Heart

Kelli O’Hara, star of stage and screen, has established herself as one of Broadway’s greatest leading ladies. Her portrayal of Anna in The King and I garnered her the 2015 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical; she recently starred in HBO’s The Gilded Age and at the Metropolitan Opera in The Hours, and has numerous Grammy, Emmy, and Olivier nominations. She shares a selection of her favorite Broadway songs.

Location: Robinson Pavilion at Anyela’s Vineyards

August 10, 2023

8:00 pm - 9:30 pm - Remember

Led by Time for Three’s Nick Kendall, ECCO (East Coast Chamber Orchestra) fills the stage to share music of loss, remembrance, and the will to live. The program features Jamaican composer Eleanor Alberga’s tender elegy for her mother; Grieg’s Holberg Suite “in the olden style”; and Franz Schubert’s searing, intense “Death and the Maiden” Quartet, heard here in Gustav Mahler’s unforgettable arrangement for string orchestra.

Program:

Grieg Holberg Suite, Op. 40
Eleanor Alberga Remember
Schubert, arr. Mahler: String Quartet No. 14, D. 810 “Death and the Maiden”, arr. string orchestra

Location: First Presbyterian Church

August 11, 2023

8:00 pm - 9:30 pm - Strings of Romance

Members of ECCO including Grammy-winning Time for Three member and ECCO founder, Nick Kendall, lead a program that includes Max Bruch’s lush, romantic Octet for Strings. Pianist Shai Wosner, known for his “remarkable blend of the intellectual, physical and even devilish sides of performance” (Chicago Sun Times), joins for additional works, to be announced.

Program:

BRUCH Octet for Strings

Location: First Presbyterian Church

August 12, 2023

8:00 pm - 9:30 pm - Mozart Under the Stars

The Skaneateles Festival welcomes back the “exciting conductor-less band of strings” ECCO (New Yorker). Led by founder-violinist Nick Kendall of Time for Three and recent 2023 Grammy-winner, the orchestra performs beloved music by Mozart as well as American composer William Grant Still’s joyous Dances from Panama. Eminent American pianist Shai Wosner joins ECCO to bask in the orchestra’s signature “warm glow” of sound (New York Times).

Program:

Mozart Divertimento for Strings, K. 136
William Grant Still Dances from Panama
Mozart Piano Concerto in A Major, K. 414

Location: Robinson Pavilion at Anyela’s Vineyards

August 16, 2023

11:00 am - 12:00 pm - KidsFest with Steven Banks

Kids Free; Adults $5 at the door

Location: First Presbyterian Church

August 17, 2023

8:00 pm - 9:30 pm - Parker Quartet: Beethoven Illuminated

The Grammy-winning Parker Quartet (“something extraordinary,” New York Times) leads a Beethoven-based program that includes a work by Beethoven’s teacher, Haydn; three short works inspired by Beethoven’s Quartets, by Suzanne Farrin, Anthony Cheung, and Michi Wiancko (also heard at the Festival as violinist); and Beethoven’s monumental String Quartet, op. 130 (with the epic Grosse Fuge). The Parker Quartet illuminates Beethoven’s quartet with an engaging verbal introduction to the work.

Program:

Haydn String Quartet in B minor, Op. 33, No. 1
Suzanne Farrin Two Worlds
Anthony Cheung rondo relay
Michi Wiancko Cosmic Visit
Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 130

Location: First Presbyterian Church

August 18, 2023

8:00 pm - 9:30 pm - Steven Banks and Friends

Steven Banks is a charismatic ambassador for the classical saxophone. Winner of the prestigious 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant, he captivates audiences with his balance of refined lyricism and virtuosic flair. Traversing classical, contemporary, and popular repertoire, he leads a program that includes Saint-Saëns Sonata for Saxophone and Piano (with Xak Bjerken, piano), music by tango master Astor Piazzolla, and Banks’s own quintet for strings and saxophone, Cries, Sighs, and Dreams.

Program:

Saint-Saëns Sonata for Saxophone and Piano
Carlos Simon hear them
Steven Banks Cries, Sighs, and Dreams
Piazzolla Milonga del Angel
Mozart Quartet for Oboe and Strings, K. 370

Location: First Presbyterian Church

August 19, 2023

8:00 pm - 9:30 pm - Festival Finale: Joshua Redman Quartet

The Skaneateles Festival welcomes back the explosive and exploratory saxophonist, Joshua Redman. In over 20 albums he has garnered top honors from critics and audiences, including a 2023 Grammy nomination for the Joshua Redman Quartet. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear a jazz great at the top of his game!

Location: Robinson Pavilion at Anyela’s Vineyards

Date: July 26 - August 19, 2023

Locations: 

First Presbyterian Church - 97 East Genesee Street Skaneateles, NY 13152
Robinson Pavilion at Anyela's Vineyards - 2433 West Lake Road Skaneateles, NY 13152

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