The Kapalua Music Festival was founded in 1982 by Maui visionary Colin Cameron and his wife, Margaret, with Yizhak Schotten and Katherine Collier as Music Directors. Held annually at the Kapalua resort, the Festival reorganized after 14 years, following the passing of both Camerons, and changed its name to the Maui Classical Music Festival. World-renowned musicians gather in a tropical setting of unparalleled beauty in historic venues across the island to create a program of wide appeal from the Baroque period to twenty-first century works. Distinguished ensembles, winners of international competitions, recording artists, illustrious soloists, principal chairs of some of the major orchestras of the world, and famous crossover musicians have performed at the Festival. Esteemed ensembles that have appeared at the Festival include the Tokyo, Shanghai, Jupiter, Amernet, Ying, and Formosa String Quartets, the Gryphon, Boston, and Koinonia Trios, and the Fine Arts Brass Quintet. Pianists Jon Kimura Parker, Wu Han, Ralph Votapek, Jose Feghali, Anton Nel, and Philip Bush, Kevin Fitzgerald, Gloria Chien, Anna Polonsky, and Heng-Jin Park have performed. Included are world-renowned violinists and violists Joshua Bell. Andrés Cárdenes, Cho Liang Lin, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Ilya Kaler, Ani Kavafian, Nick Eanet, Scott St. John, Emanuel Borok, Arnaud Sussmann, and Benny Kim, Martin Beaver, Robyn Bollinger, Soovin Kim, Aloysia Freedman, Fabiola Kim, and Sarah Oates among others. Famous cellists have been David Finckel, Steven Kates, Leslie Parnas, Steven Doane, Norman Fischer, Andrés Diaz, Godfried Hoogeveen, David Requiro, Anne Martindale Williams, Clive Greensmith, Edward Arron, Desmond Hoebig, and Ronald Thomas. Double Bass players Edgar Meyer, Harold Robinson and Kurt Muroki, harpist Heidi Lehwalder, banjo player Bela Fleck, and prize-winning guitarists Ricardo Cobo, Dusan Bogdanovic, David Leisner, and Kevin Gallagher have appeared. Wind players have included David Shifrin, Eddie Daniels, Daniel Gilbert, Chad Burrow, Michele Zukovsky, Jim Walker, Lorna McGhee, Leone Buyse, William Ver Meulen, and Yoonah Kim. Over the years the Festival has received extensive coverage in national newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the New York Times, the Hawaii newspapers, and travel and airline magazines. Feature articles written about the Festival have appeared in important musical publications such as Musical America, Chamber Music America, and American Record Guide.

Mission Statement

The mission of the Maui Classical Music Festival is to enrich and educate Maui's community by presenting renowned musicians to perform the highest quality chamber music, to build a growing audience of multi-cultural citizens of Maui, other Hawaiian Islands and visitors, and to provide outreach educational programs.