AMFS artist-faculty, all top musicians from renowned orchestras, opera companies, and conservatories, come together to play their favorite chamber music works. Always a joyful and creative 75 minutes of music-making.

The Aspen Contemporary Ensemble presents two works by living composers. After living in Alaska for much of his life, John Luther Adams now resides in the Sonoran Desert. In his words, “there is no one, not even the wind comes directly from my experience of the space and solitude, the stillness and light of the desert. Like all my recent music, this piece embraces layered time and physical space as central elements. The instruments are widely dispersed, and there are six simultaneous tempos. The title is a variation on words of the great Mexican poet Octavio Paz. His poem Piedra Nativa (Native Stone) contains this line: No hay nadie ni siquiera tú mismo (which translates: “There is no one, not even yourself”). I take this one step further and remove not only myself, but even that very last person - the wind.”

A Fiddler’s Tale is Wynton Marsalis’s answer to Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale. As Stravinsky did with earlier composers, Marsalis reworks and translates Stravinsky’s music into his own musical language. Telling the story of an idealistic, but upwardly mobile woman violinist who sells out her music to the Devil – in this case a record company executive – Marsalis uses Stravinsky’s movement layout and seven-piece instrumentation. Discover the excitement of music from our own time!