MahlerFest was bestowed the IGMS Mahler Gold Medal as part of the IGMS 50th anniversary celebration. Created to recognize major artists, arts organizations, and scholars for their outstanding contributions to all things Mahler, the medals have been awarded 42 times since the IGMS founding in 1955. The other 2005 honorees were the New York Philharmonic and the Gustav Mahler Committee of Toblach/Dobbiaco.

On the back of the medal, the words “Meine Zeit Wird Noch Kommen” means “My time will yet come”, an acknowledgement by Mahler that the world he lived in was not yet ready to understand his music.

MahlerFest’s Founder and Artistic Director (Emeritus) Robert Olson and Board President (Emeritus) Stan Ruttenberg accepted the award on behalf of the Colorado MahlerFest on September 20, 2005, in Vienna, Austria.

Past winners include the Vienna Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, Christa Ludwig and Dietrich Fischer Dieskau. Recipients who have participated in Colorado MahlerFest include scholars Donald Mitchell and Edward R. Reilly, and baritone Thomas Hampson.