A true chamber music festival can be only as good as the performance space it occupies. By definition, chamber music is meant to be experienced up-close, in the salons of old or the intimate recital halls of today.
The five-week Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, now in its 36th summer season, is fortunate to have St. Francis Auditorium as its principal setting. The attractive and acoustically vibrant hall is part of the New Mexico Museum of Art, located just off the tree-filled main plaza in the center of this pleasant city of adobe charm and aggressive tourism.
Modeled on a Pueblo mission church, St. Francis Auditorium opened in 1917, part of the Pueblo revival period in Santa Fe architecture. A series of colorful murals depicts scenes from the life of St. Francis and the good works of Franciscans in New Mexico. A row of carved-wood ceiling beams are both imposing and beautiful.
The festival, which this summer offers 39 concerts of 100 works, including premieres, rarities and favorites, also presents some programs in the city's 821-seat Lensic Performing Arts Center, an elaborately decorated vaudeville house from 1931, renovated in the late 1990s. While here, I caught two concerts at St. Francis Auditorium: an appealing Schumann program on Thursday at noon and a fascinating contemporary-music program featuring Anssi Karttunen, a brilliant Finnish cellist, early on Friday evening.
The five-week Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, now in its 36th summer season, is fortunate to have St. Francis Auditorium as its principal setting. The attractive and acoustically vibrant hall is part of the New Mexico Museum of Art, located just off the tree-filled main plaza in the center of this pleasant city of adobe charm and aggressive tourism.
Modeled on a Pueblo mission church, St. Francis Auditorium opened in 1917, part of the Pueblo revival period in Santa Fe architecture. A series of colorful murals depicts scenes from the life of St. Francis and the good works of Franciscans in New Mexico. A row of carved-wood ceiling beams are both imposing and beautiful.
The festival, which this summer offers 39 concerts of 100 works, including premieres, rarities and favorites, also presents some programs in the city's 821-seat Lensic Performing Arts Center, an elaborately decorated vaudeville house from 1931, renovated in the late 1990s. While here, I caught two concerts at St. Francis Auditorium: an appealing Schumann program on Thursday at noon and a fascinating contemporary-music program featuring Anssi Karttunen, a brilliant Finnish cellist, early on Friday evening.
