2025 Chelsea Music Festival
June 20-28, 2025

Called a “gem of a series” (New York Times), this annual summer festival presents its 16th season—with a title that plays on the age-old tale of mythical Swiss hero William Tell—featuring nine days and evenings of concerts, dining and tastings, visual art, and family and community events that explore Swiss culture and stories through classical music, jazz, visual, and culinary arts. Several notable anniversaries of Swiss composers will be honored, including the 70th anniversary of Arthur Honegger’s death and the 135th and 145th anniversaries of Frank Martin’s and Ernest Bloch’s birth, respectively.

"There will be good fun had with all of the most popular Swiss associations to chocolate, cow bells, and yodeling, but audiences at this year's Festival will also be able to connect with perhaps less familiar terrain from the Swiss cultural and historical landscape. Switzerland has not only inspired composers through the years with its breathtaking summits and mountainous glaciers, but has had a history of providing sanctuary for refugees and organizations seeking to honor international conventions pursuing human rights and democracy," said Festival Artistic Directors Melinda Lee Masur and Ken-David Masur. "Our programming celebrates Switzerland as a symbol of a safe haven for the exchange of ideas and differences, and a fertile ground for artistic collaborations between the performing, visual, and culinary arts. This season, highlighting Swiss composers over the course of the last 900 years alongside folk, jazz, and multimedia music, will be a feast for the ears, eyes and palate, and a welcome place for audiences of all ages and backgrounds.”

Festival concerts will explore works by these composers, as well as World & U.S. Premieres by Doug and Brad Balliett, John Patitucci, Benedict Strahl, and Nicky Sohn.