Coachella. Bonnaroo. Lollapalooza. These music festivals are legendary, but if you’ve already been there and done that—or if you need even more live music in your life—why not add a few less famous festivals to your must-visit list?... It’s hard to find a more spectacular location to take in a concert than the red-rock canyons of Moab.
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January 2018
Where will the sounds of music take travelers in 2018? The destination may depend on your favorite song, but whether that means jazz, Afropunk, rock or another rhythm entirely, there’s definitely a place to go.
September 2017
Moab Music Festival celebrates a century of Leonard Bernstein: As the centennial of Leonard Bernstein’s birth approaches in August 2018, Michael Barrett is doing what he can to keep the great American composer-conductor-pianist’s memory alive.
“It’s bittersweet for me. There’s a whole generation that has grown up in his absence,” said Barrett, who was Bernstein’s assistant and rehearsal pianist for seven years, up until the legendary maestro‘s death in 1990, and has been a musical adviser to the Bernstein family since then. “People kind of forget who he was,” Barrett said. “A kid might know ‘West Side Story,’ but there’s already a remove. It’s nice to be able to share all the music of someone who was like my musical father … with younger people and show them what’s so wonderful about it.”
June 2017
Top Summer Events of 2017 - Don’t miss our editors’ picks for the season’s best happenings for foodies, art buffs, music lovers, and more.
April 2017
Twenty-five years ago, violinist Leslie Tomkins and her pianist/conductor husband Michael Barrett took a rare vacation to Moab. Like so many before them, they fell in love with the red rock and the magical landscape of southeastern Utah, and decided to pay homage to the breath taking surrounding by adding to it the joys of music-making. And so in 1992, they created the Moab Music Festival.
September 2016
It’s possible to hear chamber music in some pretty unorthodox settings these days, but few blend the intimacy of the concert hall with the expansive freedom of the outdoors as well as this Utah festival.
September 2016
From violin solos amid the red rock to Latin jazz in a concert hall, here are some of the sights from the first weekend of the Moab Music Festival, with its 24th season running through Monday, Sept. 12, in locations in and around the scenic southern Utah town.
August 2016
Lynn Rogers remembers a night listening to the notes of famous musicians echo off the sandstone walls flanking the Colorado River during the Moab Music Festival. As Béla Fleck and Chick Corea played after a wonderful meal, the Rio Rancho, N.M., music lover reveled in the moment, surrounded by beautiful music and spectacular scenery. The night ended with fireworks. Rogers and her husband, Kirk Benson, will be returning for the 24th season of the Moab festival, which runs Thursday through Sept. 12. It will be the fourth such visit for the couple.
August 2016
Are you looking to embrace nature’s true beauty, while enjoying incredible concerts performed by world-class classical, latin, world music and jazz musicians? If so, the renowned Moab Music Festival is the place for you.