Chelsea Music Festival Artistic Directors Melinda Lee Masur and Ken-David Masur announce programming for the 2025 Festival—titled There’s More to Tell: Swiss Trails Ahead—which takes place in New York City, from June 20–28. With a title that plays on the age-old tale of mythical Swiss hero William Tell, the Festival features nine days and evenings of concerts, tastings, visual art, and family events. 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.”
Festival concerts will explore works by these composers, as well as World & U.S. Premieres by Doug and Brad Balliett, John Patitucci, and Benedict Strahl. Commissioned by the Festival, the Ballietts’ world premiere tone poem, inspired by the legend of Wilhelm Tell, will feature solo violinist Rachell Ellen Wong and the Festival Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ken-David Masur. Doug Balliett has also prepared a new edition of a 90-minute mass, Historia Sancti Magni (Midnight Office), by Hermann au Reichenau, which will be performed by the Theotokos Ensemble (tenor leiken and Balliett on organ). Reichenau was an 11th-century disabled monk, who was a polymath—poet, astronomer, mathematician—as well as a composer; the Reichenau monastery in Germany near Switzerland’s border, has long provided a place of refuge and learning. Patitucci’s world premiere, Planet in Peril, is a three-movement work scored for jazz trio and string orchestra, and aims to use music as a tool for social change, spiritual growth, and justice for all.
Verona Quartet will give the world premiere of a movement from Benedict Strahl’s Felix Mendelssohn's Schweizereisen (Felix Mendelssohn’s Swiss Journeys). The work was completed in 2007 and dedicated to Kurt Masur. The evening will feature projections of Mendelssohn’s watercolors and sketches from his travels through the Swiss alps, with which the composer was so enamored.
Featured Festival performers include the Verona and Ivalas Quartets, Le duo N’imPorte Quoi from Geneva, the Theotokos Ensemble, baroque violinist Rachell Ellen Wong, soprano Sonya Headlam, and tenor leiken. Pianist Melinda Lee Masur performs as part of several chamber ensembles, and Ken-David Masur conducts the Festival Finale weekend.
TIckets are on sale now; use code CMF2025GERMANY for 10% off tickets!

Date and Time: June 20 to 28, 2025

Location: St. Paul’s German Church, Swiss Institute, David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, Pier 57, The Lavaux Winebar, Neue House Madison Square, DiMenna Center

More Information: https://www.chelseamusicfestival.org/2025festival