The Sarasota Music Festival, which began in 1965, has traditionally been a three-week affair welcoming guest faculty and accomplished music students from around the country and even the world. That schedule changes this summer, with the classical/chamber event lasting just two weeks and presenting four main concerts rather than six. 

It’s also the first festival without a music director, after Jeffrey Kahane stepped down from the position after nine years. Kahane was just the third director in the festival’s history, following founder Paul Wolfe and Robert Levin in that role.

Thirdly—and perhaps this matters most to the students—the demolition of the Hyatt Sarasota, which acted as an extension of the Sarasota Orchestra campus for decades, means no more walking from rehearsals to hotel rooms nearby. Instead, the students will be housed at downtown’s Art Ovation and will take trolley rides to and from.

RoseAnne McCabe, the festival’s longtime senior vice president of artistic operations, says nine years is a fairly usual length of time for a music director to remain in a position, and while there will be a search for a replacement, this season the concert repertoire was selected by faculty members “who’ve been with us for a while,” she says. “They helped to create programs they knew would resonate for the fellows [as students are called], that would be good at their stage of life and career, and also great programs for the audience to experience.”

That means listeners can expect to hear works from composers including Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Ravel and Dvořák, June 5, 6 and 12. Those chamber performances at the orchestra’s Holley Hall will be rounded off with a full orchestra concert June 13 at the Sarasota Opera House featuring compositions by Schubert, Mozart and, again, Beethoven.

McCabe, who’s been with the festival for more than a quarter of a century, says surveys are done with the fellows every year at the end of the festival to see what best serves them—what works and what doesn’t. “We’re able to see what they are looking for in a festival,” she explains. “They’re all at amazing music schools, so what does the Sarasota Music Festival offer them, what attracts them? A lot of the changes we make come from student needs. They’re not always able to study chamber music in the intense way they do here. This year, all the fellows [about 40] will be performing with faculty [20]; all performances are a mix [of faculty and fellows] onstage, and I think that’s one thing they don’t get elsewhere.”

The world of classical music, like everything else, changed hugely during and following the Covid pandemic. There have been declines in attendance across the spectrum of arts events, including concerts such as the festival presents. “I’m sure it’s a thousand things,” McCabe says about that decline. “My guess is that there’s just so much more out there to entertain us—although I’m not sure our phones really entertain us.

“But there’s something so different about being in a concert hall surrounded by human beings and listening to music that affects our emotions,” she continues. “The world is moving faster and faster, and it’s OK to pause a little.” She adds, too, that “Every single performance is like watching a circus performer on the tightrope. Anything can happen on the stage, and that’s some of the thrill of it.”

The future of the festival, of course, remains to be seen. “We want to wait and see how this works and figure out what’s the best path forward,” McCabe says. “But the festival has such a long history, and Paul Wolfe’s vision when he set it up was so strong. That continues. Our mission and what we bring to the community is not going to change. We’ll start planning for next year right after this one’s over.” And she adds, “If somebody hasn’t experienced the festival before, this year’s might be just the right one for them.”

For more information about and tickets to the 2026 Sarasota Music Festival, visit sarasotaorchestra.org.