Chestertown’s 2025 National Music Festival Includes Something for Everyone

From June 1-14, Chestertown’s renowned National Music Festival will bring together almost 30 esteemed mentors and 100 promising apprentices, presenting over 30 events, ranging from majestic symphonies to intimate chamber music, pre-concert talks, and master classes, plus dozens of free open rehearsals. Mentors are professional musicians who teach and perform all over the country and the world; apprentices are young professional musicians on the cusp of their careers. Festival musicians come to Chestertown each season from about a dozen countries and 30 US states.

This year’s mentors will include Yoshiaki Horiguchi (bass) and Diana Loomer (percussion), who are both alumni of the Festival, and several mentors who have been with the Festival since its inception in 2011: Dana Goode (violin), Jared Hauser (oboe), Jeff Keesecker (bassoon), Tom Parchman (clarinet), and Jennifer Parker-Harley (flute).

On Friday, June 6, National Music Festival Artistic Director and co-founder Richard Rosenberg conducts the Festival Symphony Orchestra in a program of movie music, starting with Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, which was famously used in the Walt Disney movie Fantasia. Violin mentor Emma McGrath, who travels from Hobart, Tasmania for her second season with the National Music Festival, will be the soloist in Korngold’s sumptuous Violin Concerto, which incorporates music from several of his film scores for Errol Flynn “swashbucklers,” including The Prince and the Pauper, Anthony Adverse, and more. The second half of the program features exhilarating music from the Star Wars movies by the legendary John Williams.

Several mentors and two apprentices will be featured as concerto soloists during the Festival. Saxophonist Laura Ramsay, a student at the University of Michigan, was selected through a highly competitive application process to attend the Festival as a saxophone apprentice and will perform on June 7 as the soloist in Jaques Ibert’s jazzy and tuneful 1930s Concertino da Camera.

Also on the June 7 concert is Frank Martin’s Concerto for Seven Wind Instruments. Trumpet apprentice Brandon Hebert of Louisiana has been awarded the opportunity to perform as a soloist alongside mentors Jennifer Parker-Harley (flute), Jared Hauser (oboe), Thomas Parchman (clarinet), Jeffrey Keesecker (bassoon), Michelle Stebleton (horn), and Michael Kris (trombone).

The guest conductor for the June 7 orchestra program will Matthew Kraemer, who serves as Music Director of the Louisiana Philharmonic in New Orleans, as well as the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra.

Concert schedules, tickets, and Festival Passes are available on the Festival’s website, nationalmusic.us.

Highlights of the much-anticipated 13th season include:

• Music from the cinema, including John William’s riveting score from three Star Wars flicks, as well as a short, long-lost 1907 Pathé film about a jilted pig in a tuxedo;
• Monumental symphonic works, including Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Brahms’ Symphony 1, and Hindemith’s Symphonie: Mathis der Maler;
• Concerto performances featuring mentors and apprentices; in addition to those mentioned above, on June 13, mentors Elizabeth Adams (violin), Joseph Gotoff (cello), and Minji Nam (piano) will be the soloists for Beethoven’s lighthearted Triple Concerto on June 13;
• Chamber music by Haydn, Korngold, Milhaud, and Stravinsky (his 1920 “Ragtime”), among others;
• A free Family Concert featuring woodwind instruments and followed by an Instrument Petting Zoo;
• Forest Music, a unique performance art event in collaboration with Adkins Arboretum (tickets available at adkinsarboretum.org).

“Whatever your musical palate, we have events you will love,” said Festival Artistic Director Richard Rosenberg. “In addition to our huge flagship orchestra concerts, try our free ‘Lunchtime Chamber Bites,’ our special Family Concert, or our Market Music in Fountain Park and enjoy!”

Asher greeting NMF
Lunchtime Chamber Bites are short, free concerts featuring performances and discussion with the artists. The Family Concert and Market Music concerts are also free, as are several other events. All rehearsals are free and open to the public; families with children are especially welcome at rehearsals! Attending open rehearsals is a wonderful way to introduce young children, (and even their grandparents) to concert music.

Venues for concerts and rehearsals range from local churches to Washington College to the Kent Cultural Alliance’s Raimond Cultural Center, and more. Concert and rehearsal schedules are available on the Festival’s website, nationalmusic.us.

For our talented, competitively selected apprentices, the National Music Festival advances the lives and careers of these promising musicians by providing access to world-class mentors and performance opportunities. Apprentices attend the Festival on scholarship, completely free of charge. The Festival is truly a community effort: Chestertown area residents open their homes as host families for apprentices and mentors, Emmanuel Church in downtown Chestertown provides free lunches for the musicians each weekday, and many local restaurants offer discounts to musicians. A few more host families are still needed; please email info@na’onalmusic.us for more information.

Visit the Festival’s website for the complete 2025 Festival concert schedule and repertoire and to purchase tickets or Festival Passes: nationalmusic.us. A number of concerts are free, as are all rehearsals.

The National Music Festival is supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council (msac.org), Kent Cultural Alliance (kentculture.org), Mid-Shore Community Foundation (mscf.org), The Peoples Bank (pbkc.com), and by tax-deductible contributions from music lovers. For more information about the Festival, visit the website at nationalmusic.us or contact [email protected] or (443)480-0221.