Sun Valley Music Festival Unveils 2025 Winter Season

The Sun Valley Music Festival's seventh Winter Season will take place March 6-8 at the Argyros Performing Arts Center in Ketchum. The 2025 Winter Season features special guest curator and pianist Joyce Yang, an internationally renowned soloist and chamber musician who first rose to fame in 2005 as the youngest contestant and silver medalist at the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

A Sun Valley Music Festival favorite, Yang has performed several times with Music Director Alasdair Neale and the Festival Orchestra in past Summer Seasons. In March 2025, she joins forces with musicians from the Festival Orchestra for a chamber program that features music by Poulenc, Dohnányi, and Schumann; she will also perform solo piano works by Rachmaninoff. The program will be presented three times, on March 6, 7 and 8, at 7 p.m. (doors open at 6:30 p.m.) The concerts are about two hours long, including an intermission. As always, admission is free, but space is limited and reservations are required. Please see below for details and the full program.

"It's a privilege to welcome Joyce back to Sun Valley, this time in the winter and on the intimate stage of the Argyros," said Neale. "She has assembled an eclectic and intriguing program that she feels a special connection to. I'm particularly looking forward to her chamber music collaborations with our musicians, since her intensely sensitive and communicative style of music-making lends itself exceptionally well to that genre."

To kick off the Winter Festival, on March 5, at 5:30 p.m., the Music Festival will present "Upbeat with Alasdair," featuring Neale and Yang in conversation, at the Community Library in Ketchum. The event will also be livestreamed from the Music Festival's website. Reservations to attend will open to the public on Feb. 19, at 9 a.m.

During the week, Yang and Winter Festival musicians will interact with students in local schools, offering demonstrations, coaching, and master classes.

Yang has previously appeared at the Festival's Summer Seasons in 2021 (performing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2), 2016 (Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F Major), and 2013 (Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1).

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