AMFS Artist-Faculty, all top musicians from renowned orchestras, opera companies, and conservatories, come together to play their favorite chamber music works.

Samuel Barber started composing his charming and melodious Souvenirs for his own amusement. As he described it, “One might imagine a divertissement in a setting of the Palm Court of the Hotel Plaza in New York, the year about 1914, epoch of the first tangos; ‘Souvenirs’—remembered with affection, not in irony or with tongue in cheek, but in amused tenderness.” 

British-born composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was the son of a doctor from Sierra Leone and an Englishwoman. He made several trips to the United States because of his interest in African-American culture and was even invited to the White House by Teddy Roosevelt. His Five Negro Melodies for Piano Trio are taken from his Twenty-Four Negro Melodies and include four spirituals and a southeast African song. 

Dvorak also traveled to the new world where he was influenced by African American melodies, but the work on this program, his fourth and final piano trio, was written right before that journey. The word dumky is plural for dumka, a Czech and Ukrainian term that means ballad, elegy, or lament. It led to a musical style of single-movement pieces that abruptly shift from slow, somber, melancholy sections to fast, wild, exuberant ones. Dvorak’s trio consists of six dumky, full of rhythmic vitality, color, and Bohemian folk melodies. Listening to this gorgeous piece, you’ll understand why it’s one of the most popular in the entire chamber music repertoire.

Also featured on the program is the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, comprising emerging young artists who perform music by prominent living composers and twentieth-century classics, as well as new works by the Festival’s student composers. Always a joyful and creative 75 minutes of music-making.

Summer 2026 Chamber Music Dates:
- Monday, July 6
- Saturday, July 11
- Saturday, July 18
- Saturday, July 25
- Sunday, August 2 (at 2:00 PM)
- Saturday, August 8
- Saturday, August 15
- Saturday, August 22