The Sun Valley Summer Symphony
The Sun Valley Summer Symphony celebrates the majesty of its Alpine setting with the beauty of outstanding free classical music performances, and enriches our lives through its artistic, educational and cultural programming, made possible through the philanthropic generosity of its community.
Our History
The largest privately funded free-admission symphony in America, the Sun Valley Summer Symphony celebrates its 26th season in the glorious Idaho mountains. Founded in 1985 as the Elkhorn Music Festival by Dr. Carl Eberl, professor emeritus at the College of the City University of New York, and his wife Julianne, the orchestra grew from 22 musicians to 55 at the time of his retirement. Under the leadership of Maestro Alasdair Neale since 1995, the orchestra has grown to more than 100 players and presents free concerts to over 50,000 people annually.
Maestro Neale, now in his 16th Sun Valley Summer Symphony season, conducts a full symphony orchestra that includes distinguished musicians from major orchestras throughout North America, including the San Francisco Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Houston Symphony, the Toronto Symphony and the St. Louis Symphony. The Sun Valley Summer Symphony also presents the Edgar M. Bronfman Chamber Music Series which precedes the regular concert season and features the Sun Valley String Quartet, comprised of Sun Valley Summer Symphony principal string players.
Throughout the years, the Sun Valley Summer Symphony has attracted internationally acclaimed guest artists and ensembles including Joshua Bell, Christine Brewer, Denyce Graves, Horacio Gutierrez, Lynn Harrell, Leila Josefowicz, Erich Kunzel, Audra McDonald, Midori, Brian Stokes Mitchell, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Jon Nakamatsu, Christopher Parkening, Jon Kimura Parker, Bernadette Peters, Gil Shaham, Frederica von Stade, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Deborah Voigt, Yuja Wang and Shai Wosner. This year, we welcome for the first time Itzhak Perlman, Emanuel Ax, Nathan Gunn and Michael Collins.
In keeping with its mission, the Sun Valley Summer Symphony has a variety of education programs for music students of all ages. The School of Music just completed its 10th Anniversary year and the Summer Music Workshops celebrate their 13th season this summer. As part of the Sun Valley Summer Symphony adult education programs, the community is invited to learn about music to be performed through Upbeat With Alasdair talks given throughout the year and Concert Preview talks given during the symphony season.
