“Defiance, Protest, Resistance, & Remembrance”
May 14-18, 2025
Using Mahler's Sixth Symphony as a starting point, we explore these themes with a deep dive that will include Korngold's Symphony, Totenfeier, and an opera by Ulmmann written in Theresienstadt.
You can also relive the May festival through photos! For the first time ever, we've gathered photos from the festival week into a photo gallery to share with you, our MahlerFest community.
From donated cars to concert sponsorships, there are a variety of ways to help us celebrate the life and music of Gustav Mahler. Whether you want to name an orchestra chair, include MahlerFest in your estate planning, give monthly, or make a small donation today we greatly appreciate your support.
Blog by Joseph Horowitz
"Introducing the Meistersinger Overture at a pre-concert talk, Woods highlighted a salient feature of Wagner’s inexhaustible opera: its celebration of cultural community. And this, finally, is what the Colorado Mahlerfest is about. As with last year’s memorable reading of the Resurrection Symphony, the audience for Mahler’s Fourth was strikingly inter-generational, including local families for whom Mahlerfest is an annual ritual."
"Woods directed his orchestra with precision and passion throughout. The climax of that third movement, an incredibly tricky moment featuring trumpets that emerge as if they were proclaiming the opening of heaven’s gate, was majestic and pristine. Guest concertmaster Alan Snow was visually and aurally arresting in the “demonic” violin solo of the second movement. And of course, Fredrick was sublime."
Karl Nehring reviewed our CD from MahlerFest XXXVI (2023) on the Classical Candor site.
"...it is hard not to be moved by a stirring performance of this majestic symphony, which is just what Maestro Woods and his assembled musicians deliver. Everything sounds balanced, tempos sound well-judged. It is a very good, very well-recorded performance."
Joe Horowitz made his first trip to MahlerFest in 2023 to speak at the symposium. He blogged about how much he enjoyed the festival.
"The rapt audience was remarkably inter-generational – something not to be found in New York City concert halls these days, and crucial to the ambience of shared experience. As unusual is that the orchestra of 100-plus players felt part of it all...
Woods’ performance of Mahler 2 left no doubt that he is a major Mahler interpreter. I have heard cleaner performance of this work, but never one more convincing."
