Summer Music Festivals

one other factor that hasn’t been mentioned so far is what repertoire the festival is doing. most of them post that ahead of time (hopefully before the applications/fees are due) and I think what repertoire you will be performing should impact your decision. if you can go to a festival and play Mahler and Shostakovich symphonies with a great student orchestra, those can be very memorable and valuable experiences especially for those who may not be coming from a conservatory.

if there is a festival with a teacher you want to spend time with, has repertoire that is attractive to you on its season, and works for your financial situation, then you should spend a summer there even if it’s not tanglewood or music academy.

good luck!

There are some good insights/breakdowns in this thread, but I want to push back on the idea that the only festivals that are worth your time are the free ones. Sometimes a summer working by yourself on your technique is as useful as a festival. Sometimes, you meet a teacher at a festival who transforms your playing. It is possible that the few thousand dollars are actually worth it for your trajectory and career.

Having PMF on a resume is certainly nice, but that's not what everyone is hoping to get out of these experiences. Honestly, it seems like a robust festival resume services people's ego's more than it actually advances their careers.

I have been to all sorts of festivals and gotten different things out of each. For younger students, something like ARIA in western Mass is a really great chance to meet a lot of great teachers and make connections for applying for undergrad/grad programs (it also costs hundreds, not thousands of $). Festivals like Bowdoin/Brevard are expensive, but they also are really good educational experiences. You can offset the price a bit with scholarships - I was an RA which halved the cost.

Aspen is ridiculously expensive unless you find major scholarships. It also aggregates some insane teaching talent, and the orchestra program is quite strong. My experience there was super important in my development, and I'm glad that I hustled to make it work financially.

I didn't get into the more prestigious free/paid festivals until I was further in my career. But while those were wonderful experiences, they wouldn't have provided me what I needed when I was a student i.e. transformative teaching experiences and connections in the classical music world. I certainly don't think that the only festivals that are worthwhile are free. How much would you say a lesson with a teacher that totally changes your approach and technique is worth? People spend crazy amounts of money to go to school. Sometimes, a festival can be a similar investment.

I think the better advice is to figure out what you want/need when you are applying. Could that be fulfilled by a cheaper or less prestigious festival? There are small chamber music festivals that won't do much on a resume but will pay you to go and have a great time. Do you want to connect with world class teachers, or a specific world class teacher? Or do you just want the most prestigious thing possible?

Also, while it's true that the paying students often pay the way for the scholarship ones, the real scam is the application fees that festivals charge. NRO made $55k in audition fees last year. If you are only applying to moonshot festivals, you are still paying the way of more talented players, and you aren't even getting anything out of it....

Summer of 2023 I went to Eastern Music Festival. I got a pretty substantial scholarship, but since I had to fly there with a bass from the west coast that kind of cancelled that out. Think I wound up paying something like 4-5k including flights.

This summer, I mainly auditioned for free festivals and didn't get accepted (got waitlisted). I recently bought a new instrument so my finances are fairly tight, which is why I couldn't go to EMF again, or a few others. I took some regional orchestra auditions and made sublists and I have some pretty good gigs this summer, along with my current regional orchestra job's summer concerts. I'm pretty happy with how it's worked out.

There's some really terrific advice in this thread from people much more experienced than me. My two cents... sometimes it's better to just practice over the summer. I took a hard look at my playing after those two pro auditions and realized I didn't get the results I wanted largely because my fundamentals need work, so I'm taking this summer to really drill my fundamentals in.

I don't know how common it is for other festivals, but I think I appealed my financial aid offer to Aspen three times, ultimately ending up with free tuition and housing. There are also a number of work/gig opportunities while you're there to make some extra money - assuming they still do it the same way, they pay it out as a "scholarship" so it's tax free.

Here's a good breakdown of the major student festivals in the US, at least from what I've seen or heard from people who go there. All of these are free or close to free. This is more applicable for string players; I'm writing this quickly and probably forgetting some.

Marlboro, Ravinia, Menlo, Yellow Barn, Four Seasons - prestigious, fancy, and high level chamber music festivals, full fellowships. If you can get into one of these, you probably have management, a budding chamber music career, or will win a very nice job soon.

Verbier, PMF, Tanglewood, Music Academy - the top student orchestra festivals, all of them free. If you can get into these when in school and keep improving, you're probably on the right track to eventually win a job within a few years - and sometimes, going to one of these will get you past the resume round at auditions. Most top orchestra musicians in the US have been to one of these, but certainly not all.

Perlman chamber workshop, Sarasota, Taos, Colorado College, Madeline Island fellowship, Kneisel Hall - I think these all charge enough of an administrative fee ($500-1000) that I wouldn't call them "free", the level is generally high level conservatory students, more of the chamber music crowd but sometimes a lot of the same people from the four orchestra festivals I mentioned above.

Aspen fellowship, NRO - good student orchestra festivals, free, with a lower standard of playing to get in.

NOI, Round Top, TMF, Aspen, Brevard, EMF - a lot of people start here. These charge varying amounts of money, I think the first three have administrative fees and housing costs and the last three have tuition.

There are some festivals with a lower level of entry which charge a lot of money for people to play in orchestra. I would not recommend any of these for those seriously considering a full time orchestra career.

I had some lucky audition results early on and never paid tuition for a summer festival. The years I couldn't get a fellowship somewhere, I stayed wherever I was going to college, worked, and practiced. The fact that orchestra festivals exist that charge tuition is extortionist enough - don't aid the problem unless you truly can afford it and you really think it will help you more than lessons and private time at the instrument.

If you're not coming from wealth:

Apply for free/cheap festivals. The more accessible ones include Texas Music Festival, Round Top, NOI, Colorado College Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, Festival Napa Valley, NSO SMI (if you're young enough).

You can always apply for Aspen and just not go if they don't offer you enough money. You can even tell them outright that you're not willing to pay that much and try to negotiate a better offer—especially if you're also accepted to one of those other festivals.

If you don't get into any of those, spend your summer getting lessons with an excellent teacher who you have not regularly studied with before. Ideally a principal player, just because principals hire subs, so this is a good way to start cultivating the roots of a relationship that could get you gigs later. If you're back in your hometown staying with your parents, playing for the local principal player is a great idea because you can (hopefully) stay with your parents for free whenever your hometown orchestra calls. As a freelancer, it's sometimes hard to give up work to take a trip to visit family, so getting paid to visit family is a great arrangement to cultivate. (Maybe also get a part time summer job, but it's hard to have the energy to practice if you're working too much. Something like 30+ hrs/week is probably too much.)

Once you've gotten into one of the festivals above, start also applying to a couple of "reach" festivals each year: Music Academy, Tanglewood, Verbier, PMF, NRO... Getting accepted to any of these before you finish school is a major sign that you're on the right track.

As you transition from student into professional life, keep in mind that sticking around town during the summer is a great way to start getting your name out there in a freelance scene. Lots of highly-compensated orchestras have summer seasons where many of the regular players take time off, and even many of the other local freelancers also go off to festivals or on vacation, so the summer season is a great time to get your foot in the door (LA, Cleveland, etc.). Even if you're not getting called by the big orchestra in town, random gigs will still come your way where you'll meet other people who can get you more gigs later.

The best advice I ever got about studying music in the US (both in college and festivals etc.) is that if it’s you’re not offered a full ride (or, in some cases, nearly a full ride), you didn’t actually get in. You’re really there to pay for the training of the people they really care about, to whom they gave full scholarships or fellowships.

There are many people who attend these programs and pay a bunch of money, but I think it’s a big mistake to compare yourself to them. They are being fueled by huge family support or crushing loans.

Who is going to make more progress towards winning a job over the summer: the person who goes to a shorter festival or stays at home, and practices 6 focused hours a day: or, the person who pays $7,000 to go to aspen, practices two hours a day, and can’t fully focus in orchestra rehearsal because they were up until 3 am worrying about how they were going to find the money to pay for their summer?

Do not let social pressure about going to competitive festivals (or schools!) force you into financial stress or debt. If you put in the careful and smart work now, soon you’ll be getting invites for free opportunities (or ones that pay!).

There are some factors here. A lot of festivals are completely tuition free for fellows (i.e. Round Top or NOI,) and many others only give full scholarships to select fellows (i.e. Aspen or EMF.) Without any kind of financial aid, it can be like essentially paying for a summer semester of college. I know some of the tuition costs can be as much as $10k, not counting housing or anything. This is of course on top of the costs of submitting applications for all these different festivals, every year. The financial inaccessibility of summer festivals is definitely a major problem hindering equity for college/pre-professional orchestral musicians.