If you are a music-lover looking for an opportunity to revel in live performances, run—do not walk—to the Sarasota Opera House for the final two concerts of the 2023 Sarasota Music Festival. Festival Music Director and world-renowned pianist Jeffrey Kahane has assembled a rich array of time-honored classics featured alongside 20^th century gems that redefined classical music, mixed in with cutting edge 21^st century voices. Combine this repertoire with the A-list performers that make their way to Sarasota every June, and you’ve got the recipe for two extraordinary evenings of music.

“Traditions and Transformations” on Friday, June 23 features heroic works by Beethoven and Mendelssohn paired with groundbreaking music by 20^th century masters Debussy and Ligeti. Flutist Jasmine Choi, who has been called “the goddess of the flute” (Korea Times) and “one of the 10 best flutists in the history of music” (Sinfini Magazine, UK), opens Friday’s program with Debussy’s haunting Syrinx for solo flute. A brief, yet mesmerizing work, Debussy paints a magical world where the Greek god Pan laments the loss of Syrinx, a water nymph with whom he is wildly infatuated. Choi is known for her dramatic performances, and this work will be enchanting in her hands.

Choi will return to the stage as part of a woodwind quintet performing György Ligeti’s 1953 Six Bagatelles. Even if you have never heard of Ligeti, you have likely heard his music. His groundbreaking compositions were incorporated into several film scores in the 20^th century, most famously in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles is as arresting as Debussy’s Syrinx is mesmerizing – pushing all the wind instruments to their limits with dramatic shifts of tempo and volume and consistently eliciting a chorus of “wows” from dazzled audience members.

New faculty cellist Gabriel Cabezas was recently named by The Washington Post as one of “23 Composers and Performers to Watch in ’23.” He will take the stage with Festival icon, pianist Robert Levin, for a performance of Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No. 2. Friday’s concert ends with the beloved Octet for Strings by Mendelssohn. Three Festival faculty members join forces with five Festival fellows for this magnificent work, written when the composer was only 16. It is one of those pieces that regularly makes lists of the greatest works of all time, and this combination of seasoned professionals performing alongside gifted young artists will be electrifying to watch and to hear.

On Saturday, June 24, the 2023 Sarasota Music Festival will close out its 59^th season with a heartfelt and jubilant program. Music Director Kahane is the featured soloist in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. He will also be doing “double duty” as conductor and will lead the Festival Orchestra from the keyboard, just as Beethoven himself would have done.

Jumping to the 21^st century, Emily Cooley’s Argo for orchestra is a lush meditation on the ideas of identity and renewal – is the great ship still the same if all its parts are replaced over time?  Cooley is an exciting young voice on the classical music scene. Argo’s inclusion on this program of 19^th century masterpieces is an acknowledgement that extraordinary classical voices are not just a thing of the distant past.

Robert Schumann’s jubilant “Spring” Symphony No. 1 caps off three weeks of music-making with all the vitality and youthful enthusiasm that have long been hallmarks of the Festival. With Kahane on the podium, the orchestra full of classical music’s next generation of superstars will dig into the joyous score in a rousing conclusion to the Festival.

There is an electricity that is undeniable when an entire orchestra of young talent gathers together and pours their collective energy into a performance of phenomenal music. You could travel to summer festivals across the world in search of these memorable concert experiences, or you could simply make your way to the Sarasota Opera House, where the best of the world travels here for three weeks every June.

To learn more and purchase tickets for the Sarasota Music Festival, visit the Box Office at the Beatrice Friedman Symphony Center, call (941) 953-3434, or visit SarasotaOrchestra.org/Festival. Program and featured artists subject to change.