Schedule of Events

August 27, 2025

5:30 pm - 7:00 pm: Opening Night Reception

In celebration of this landmark year passing the torch of artistic leadership at the Moab Music Festival, join us for a kick-off Opening Night Reception at the Moab Arts & Recreation Center (MARC) with an exhibit tracing 33 years of visionary music and joy born from Directors Emeriti Leslie Tomkins and Michael Barrett’s dream. The reception is free and open to the public.

Location
Moab Arts and Recreation Center

7:30 pm - 9:00 pm: Opening Night: Celebrating 33 Years of Moab Music Festival

We’re celebrating a landmark year for the Moab Music Festival as we unite its past and future. For the first time ever, all three creative directors—Emeritus Michael Barrett, Emerita Leslie Tomkins, and newly-minted Artistic Director Tessa Lark—come together onstage to reflect on the Festival’s rich legacy in performance. Begin the evening around the corner at the Moab Arts & Recreation Center (MARC) with an exhibit tracing 33 years of visionary music and joy born from Leslie and Michael’s dream. Then, enjoy a concert featuring classical masterworks that both echo the Festival’s inaugural 1992 performance and herald Tessa’s exciting new direction.

Location
Star Hall

August 28, 2025

11am: Grotto I: Colorado River Winds

An exhilarating jet boat ride down the Colorado River brings listeners to a pristine wilderness grotto carved from the surrounding red rocks, for an inspiring “once-in-a-lifetime” experience (Fodors). These MMF signature events weave a rich sonic tapestry of music with one of the most stunning natural environments imaginable, combining the beauty of music with the area’s scenic wonders.

Location
Colorado River Wilderness Grotto

August 29, 2025

8:00 am: Floating Concert I: WindSync

The virtuosic wind quintet WindSync shares music filled with loops and variations that defy classification. Each composer of the wide-ranging program takes inspiration from patterns of music and nature, from the night sky to the plants of the desert.

Location
Colorado River

6:00 pm: Next Week's Trees

Fuel up with complimentary bevvies and bites at Easy Bee Farm and follow the sounds of Tessa Lark’s fiddle to find mini-performances by Festival Artists in locations spanning the farm’s charming property. Composer-in-Residence Viet Cuong’s Next Week’s Trees is featured, surrounded by folk-inspired, toe-tappable gems spanning from Bach to Mark O’Connor.

Location
Easy Bee Farm

August 30, 2025

7:45 am: Music Hike I: A Little Respite

Experience a morning of musical serenity amidst the canyons. The concert begins with a Bach Viola da Gamba sonata (arranged for violin, cello, and bass), followed by a parade of duets: two violins, violin and bass, violin and cello, and bass and cello. This set of classic and modern works defy expectations, showcasing the surprising range and depth possible with just two stringed instruments.

Location: Moab Wilderness

7pm: Lau Noah

Hailing from Catalonia, now based in NYC, gifted guitarist/singer-songwriter Lau Noah’s masterful poetic compositions and guitar-voice counterpoint will shine on the Red Cliffs stage.

Location
Red Cliffs Lodge

August 31, 2025

7:45 am: Music Hike II: Catharsis Canyon

Escape the daily grind and find solace in the quiet beauty of Moab’s canyons, where sublime music meets breathtaking wilderness. Beethoven’s Heiliger Dankgesang, written in gratitude after recovering from a life-threatening illness, radiates a sense of exalted transcendence, making it a favorite for moments of reflection (and a top choice for Desert Island Disc lists). Violist Jessica Bodner performs a work by Tessa Lark, similarly composed to help her during a time of personal grief, while Bach’s luminous E Major Violin Partita dances through the canyon walls. Entrancing Irish and Danish folk melodies rounds out this program, heightening the sense of peace and quietude that only nature can provide.

Location
Moab Wilderness

7:00 pm: People of Earth: Latin Fusion Collective

The powerhouse Latin-fusion band People of Earth promises an unforgettable evening under the Moab moon at Red Cliffs Lodge. With a roster of world-class musicians from around the globe, prepare for a vibrant show of original music blending Cuban timba and rumba, Puerto Rican bomba and plena, Haitian kompa, Brazilian MPS, and American soul, R&B, and hip-hop.

Location
Red Cliffs Lodge

September 1, 2025

2:00 pm: Rocky Mountain Power Community Concert

The annual Labor Day concert gives our community a taste of what Moab Music Festival is all about. A lively contradance by Moab’s own Community Dance Band opens the show; WindSync dazzles with virtuosic chamber music selections for wind quintet; percussionists Ian Rosenbaum and Andy Akiho impress with a marimba and steel pan duo; and members of Latin-fusion band People of Earth bring the heat to close a beautiful afternoon concert on the Old City Park lawn.

Location
Old City Park

September 2, 2025

7:00 pm: Sips & Sounds: Conversations with Tessa

This edition of Sips & Sounds offers an intimate opportunity for the community to meet and engage with Moab Music Festival’s newly minted Artistic Director,
the incomparable Tessa Lark! Sip on your favorite beverage and enjoy a lively 60-minute conversation and mini-concert moderated by Artistic Director Emerita Leslie Tomkins discussing Tessa’s background, her creative vision for the Festival’s future, and of course, hear some fiddle tunes!

Location
Cafe & Lounge Italiano

September 3, 2025

6:30 pm: Kin

Longtime collaborators Andy Akiho and Ian Rosenbaum perform percussion duos from their recently released album, Kin, an encapsulation of their 15+ year friendship and creative partnership. The collection of works composed by Andy contains pieces old and new, reimagined and re-orchestrated for Andy on the steel pan and Ian on the marimba.

Location
Red Earth

September 4, 2025

11am: Grotto II: Classics Reimagined

An exhilarating jet boat ride down the Colorado River brings listeners to a pristine wilderness grotto carved from the surrounding red rocks, for an inspiring “once-in-a-lifetime” experience (Fodors). These MMF signature events weave a rich sonic tapestry of music with one of the most stunning natural environments imaginable, combining the beauty of music with the area’s scenic wonders.

Experience timeless masterworks, redesigned specifically for the extraordinary artists of the Moab Music Festival and the natural wonder of the Grotto. Allegri’s haunting vocal work, Miserere, is arranged here for two, distanced instrumental groups, allowing listeners to be surrounded by the myriad acoustical phenomena provided by the ancient canyons. Mendelssohn, who arranged the most widely performed version of Miserere, is featured next, in an impossibly thrilling arrangement of his beloved Piano Trio in d minor for piano, trumpet and trombone. Franz Schubert himself often recycled his own songs for transcendent moments in his later- composed chamber works, and his immortal Death and the Maiden string quartet is no exception. Its second movement borrows from the lied, Der Tod und das Ma?dchen, performed in this Grotto performance.

Location
Colorado River Wilderness Grotto

September 5, 2025

5:30 pm: Ranch Benefit Concert: Edgar Meyer—Then & Now

The Lark, Roman, and Meyer Trio brings together three of the most versatile and accomplished artists in the world of music, blending their distinct talents to create a musical experience unlike any other. Seven-time Grammy-winning double bassist Edgar Meyer, and acclaimed cellist and composer Joshua Roman, make their Moab Music Festival debut alongside Festival Artistic Director Tessa Lark.

Location
Private Ranch

September 6, 2025

7:45 am: Music Hike III: Living Legends

Edgar Meyer; Caleb Hudson; Jay Campbell; Yoonah Kim. People have dropped everything to hear any one of these musical geniuses on stages like Carnegie Hall, but to hear all of them in this incredible, remote outdoor experience is a once-in-a-lifetime rarity. Seven-time Grammy winning bassist Edgar Meyer plays his seminal interpretation of solo Bach.  Cellist Jay Campbell teams up for the first time ever with Meyer for his original duos; Caleb Hudson and Achilles Liarmakopoulos will break our brains with virtuosic Baroque arrangements; and clarinetist Yoonah Kim will charm us all in Weber’s fiendishly di?cult, yet delightfully hilarious, Clarinet Quintet.

7:00 pm: Sierra Hull: A Tip Toe High Wire

Following her energetic 2023 debut in Béla Fleck’s My Bluegrass Heart band, Moab Music Festival welcomes back virtuoso mandolist and two-time Grammy-nominated artist Sierra Hull. This time, Sierra headlines with her 5-piece band (Shaun Richardson, Avery Merrit, Erik Coveney, Mark Raudabaugh), playing tracks from her first new album in five years, Tip Toe High Wire. In Tip Toe, Sierra has perfected the daring act of stepping into a new, progressive sonic territory while never straying too far from the bluegrass and Americana roots she’s cultivated in her two-decade plus career.

Location
Sorrel River Ranch

September 7, 2025

8am: Floating Concert II: A la Django

Moab Festival favorite Frank Vignola returns, once again joining forces with Tessa Lark to play intricate original arrangements of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli classics. This unique guitar-violin duo mixes elements of improvisation with their collective breadth of musical styles, resulting in an unforgettably exciting performance.

Location
Colorado River

7pm: The Promise of Peace

“The Promise of Peace” delves into the profound impact of war on music, revealing the human spirit’s struggle, hope, and ultimate resilience. The program travels chronologically through pivotal conflicts, beginning with the American Civil War, then moving to the World Wars, and finally to Vietnam.

Experience the musical responses of composers across these eras, from Stravinsky’s “L’Histoire du Soldat” to Charlie Parker transcriptions reflecting post-WWII societal anxieties. The evening culminates with the world premiere of a deeply personal work by Viet Cuong, commissioned by the Moab Music Festival. His new clarinet quintet commemorates the 50th anniversary of the end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, reflecting his own experience as an American-born composer whose parents fled Vietnam in 1975.

Prior to the concert, join for a 30-minute Pre-Concert Talk with Michael Barrett, Music Director Emeritus, and Viet Cuong Composer-in-Residence, to learn about Viet’s MMF-commissioned work and how it fits in the historical context of the evening’s program.

Location
Star Hall

September 8, 2025

5:30pm: House Benefit Concert: An Intimate Evening with Inon, Kristin, & Frank

Three of the world’s greatest performers—pianist Inon Barnatan, violinist Kristin Lee, and guitarist Frank Vignola—take turns performing some of their favorite music across multiple styles. Witness these charismatic artists’ virtuosity up close in this year’s penultimate event as we celebrate the Festival’s momentous 33rd season.

Location
Private Home

September 9, 2025

11:00 am: Grotto III: Manouche

An exhilarating jet boat ride down the Colorado River brings listeners to a pristine wilderness grotto carved from the surrounding red rocks, for an inspiring “once-in-a-lifetime” experience (Fodors). These MMF signature events weave a rich sonic tapestry of music with one of the most stunning natural environments imaginable, combining the beauty of music with the area’s scenic wonders.

We’re sending off Moab Music Festival with a sassy, folksy bang. “Jazz Manouche” is the term for the style popularized by legendary guitarist Django Reinhardt, but Romani folk music was inspiring musical greats long before Django. The crowd favorites and barn-burners by Brahms and Liszt you’ll hear are chock-full of virtuosic twists and turns emblematic of Romani folk music; and even Papa Haydn had to try his hand at the style in the finale of his Piano Trio that opens this Grotto performance. Guitarist Frank Vignola returns to Moab to tie the program together with classic Jazz Manouche tunes we know and love from recordings of Django with fiddler Stephane Grappelli. A raucous, resplendent way to celebrate the conclusion of Moab Music Festival 2025.

Location
Colorado River Wilderness Grotto

Cataract Canyon Musical Raft Trip + Kenji López Alt

This musical excursion will satisfy thrill-seekers and music lovers alike, with daily concerts by renowned festival artists, the glorious scenery of Canyonlands National Park, and some of the largest and most challenging whitewater in the United States. This custom 4-day /3-night Musical Raft Trip starts with our signature grotto concert. Then, we continue on past the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers, with expert crew to guide you through exhilarating days of adventure. A scenic return flight over Canyonlands National Park brings us back to Moab at the close of the final day

Embark with Tessa Lark for an unprecedented, star-studded musical and culinary experience in Cataract Canyon! We will be joined for the duration of the trip by celebrated cookbook author and chef Kenji Lopez-Alt for a series of curated meals, intimate conversations, and demonstrations exploring the parallels between food and music. Powerhouse string players—violinist Geneva Lewis, and cellist Jay Campbell—transform the canyon and the mighty Colorado into nature’s concert hall.

Location
Cataract Canyon

September 10-12, 2025

Cataract Canyon Musical Raft Trip + Kenji López Alt

This musical excursion will satisfy thrill-seekers and music lovers alike, with daily concerts by renowned festival artists, the glorious scenery of Canyonlands National Park, and some of the largest and most challenging whitewater in the United States. This custom 4-day /3-night Musical Raft Trip starts with our signature grotto concert. Then, we continue on past the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers, with expert crew to guide you through exhilarating days of adventure. A scenic return flight over Canyonlands National Park brings us back to Moab at the close of the final day

Embark with Tessa Lark for an unprecedented, star-studded musical and culinary experience in Cataract Canyon! We will be joined for the duration of the trip by celebrated cookbook author and chef Kenji Lopez-Alt for a series of curated meals, intimate conversations, and demonstrations exploring the parallels between food and music. Powerhouse string players—violinist Geneva Lewis, and cellist Jay Campbell—transform the canyon and the mighty Colorado into nature’s concert hall.

Location
Cataract Canyon

Date:
August 27 - September 12, 2025

Location:
Various Venues at Moab, UT 84532

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