Community Calendar

​The Lake George Music Festival is a premier classical music artist retreat held annually in the picturesque town of Lake George, New York. Celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2025, the festival is scheduled from June 8 to 19, marking a shift from its traditional August dates to better accommodate visitors and reduce overcrowding. ​

Each summer, the festival transforms Lake George into a vibrant cultural destination, offering two weeks of world-class musical entertainment. The repertoire includes both traditional masterworks and contemporary compositions performed by a diverse roster of established professionals and emerging artists. Concerts are primarily held at the historic Carriage House at Fort William Henry, a beautifully renovated 19th-century venue that provides an intimate and acoustically rich setting for performances. ​

Lake George itself offers a stunning backdrop for the festival, with its crystal-clear waters and scenic mountain views. Visitors can enjoy the area's world-class shopping, dining, and recreational activities, making the festival not only a musical retreat but also a comprehensive cultural and vacation experience. ​

For more information on the 2025 season schedule, tickets, and artist residencies, visit the official Lake George Music Festival website.

Established 13 years ago, Kids 4 Harmony, a youth development program of 18 Degrees, is a youth string ensemble serving over 65 students each year in grades 3-12 in Pittsfield and North Adams at no cost to families. The program builds musical excellence, family support, life skills, access to opportunity, and community. The Summer Gala Concert is the single largest fundraiser for Kids 4 Harmony.

At this year's event we welcome accomplished cellist and guest artist Francesca McNeeley and honor the dedicated longtime support of Ed Bride of Berkshires Jazz. Sponsorships now available! General admission tickets available in May.

TIME: 5pm reception at the Tent Club, 7pm performance in Ozawa Hall

COST: $150 General Admission (please visit our web page for further ticketing and sponsorship information)

Philadelphia Orchestra Guest Conductor Marin Alsop returns to SPAC for the first time since 2017 leading the orchestra in a dazzling evening of Tchaikovsky featuring the 1812 Overture with live cannon fire and a brilliant fireworks display. Philadelphia Orchestra Principal Cellist Hai-Ye Ni performs Tchaikovsky’s beautiful and elegant Variations on a Rococo Theme, inspired by the composer’s love for Mozart. And Hamlet Overture, originally conceived as incidental music to Shakespeare’s play, receives its SPAC premiere.

Learn more and buy tickets now at spac.org

One of the foremost conductors of our time, Marin Alsop, leads Gustav Holst’s iconic The Planets, a work that has inspired generations of sci-fi film composers, featuring the ferocity of “Mars, the Bringer of War”, the high-spirited “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity,” and the ghostly suspense of “Neptune, the Mystic.” Holst’s exciting, cosmic score features a seven-movement orchestral suite, with each movement named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst.

Learn more and buy tickets now at spac.org

The Philadelphia Orchestra Principal Guest Conductor Marin Alsop returns to SPAC leading the Orchestra in Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. Bernstein mentored and inspired Alsop throughout her career, establishing her as one of the foremost conductors of his music.

The program is bookended by the music of another American icon, George Gershwin. The evening begins with his rousing Cuban Overture, inspired by a trip to Havana and combining traditional Cuban rhythms with Gershwin’s original themes. The program closes with Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F Major featuring American pianist Clayton Stephenson. At just 26 years old, Stephenson has been praised for his joyous charisma on stage and natural ease at the instrument. In 2022, he became the first Black finalist at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and has received critical acclaim for his “extraordinary narrative and poetic gifts” and interpretations that are “fresh, incisive and characterfully alive” (Gramophone).

Learn more and buy tickets now at spac.org

GRAMMY-winning jazz singer, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Laufey brings a spell-binding sonic journey performing alongside The Philadelphia Orchestra for her new “Night at the Symphony” program. Last summer, Laufey (pronounced lāy-vāy) made her SPAC debut at our Saratoga Jazz Festival. Now, the “Gen Z It Girl” (The New York Times) will return to the SPAC stage for her Philadelphia Orchestra debut with her “Night at the Symphony” program, which premiered at the Hollywood Bowl and was made into a film directed by Sam Wrench (Taylor Swift |The Eras Tour).

Learn more and buy tickets now at spac.org

Philadelphia Orchestra Music and Artistic Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin returns to Saratoga to lead two unique programs that can only be heard at SPAC. The program opens with the suite from Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird. One of the most beloved ballets of all time, The Firebird was originally written by a then relatively unknown Stravinsky for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes in the early 1900’s. The imaginative score is equal parts thrilling and ethereal, bringing to life an old Russian tale and launching the composer’s now storied career.
Italian pianist, Beatrice Rana, returns to SPAC for the first time in more than a decade, performing Rachmaninoff’s inventive Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Since her first visit to SPAC, Rana has become one of the most sought-after pianists of her generation, earing praise for her “underlying calm command” (The New York Times) and refined approach.
Through SPAC’s and The Philadelphia Orchestra’s continued efforts to explore works by underrepresented composers, the program closes with the rarely performed Second Symphony by William Grant Still. A prolific composer who produced dozens of major orchestral works over his 50-year career, Still had a storied relationship with The Philadelphia Orchestra and longtime maestro Leopold Stokowski who proclaimed Still as “one of our greatest American composers.”

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Called “one of the most sublime and terrifying works in the repertoire” (NPR), Verdi’s Requiem is filled with transcendent moments from the ineffably sorrowful “Lacrymosa,” to the heavens-shaking final judgement of the “Dies irae,” to the hushed finale blessed by grace. The evening-length work features an all-star cast with soloists from the Metropolitan Opera stage alongside the Albany Pro Musica Chorus. Philadelphia Orchestra Music and Artistic Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin returns to lead the program, bringing the score to life with his masterful interpretation.

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One of the most beloved and celebrated singers of our time, five-time GRAMMY-winner Renée Fleming returns to SPAC with an all-new program alongside The Philadelphia Orchestra. This breathtaking performance begins with inspiration from the GRAMMY Award-winning album Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene, in which Fleming explores humankind’s evolving relationship with nature, performing works from ranging from Handel to Björk and The Lord of the Rings, with a beautiful projected film created for the program by National Geographic. The second half of the program features beloved arias and songs, from Puccini to Rodgers and Hammerstein.

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Relive the magic of year six in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince™ in Concert.
Displayed on a giant screen and accompanied by The Philadelphia Orchestra, audiences can relive the magic of Harry’s sixth year at Hogwarts™ School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Watch Harry become a wiz at potions, win Felix Felicis, and uncover the meaning of Horcruxes.
Nominated for the 2010 Grammy™ Award, Nicholas Hooper returns to the Harry Potter series with this magical score that features soaring and unique motifs that could only represent the grandeur and scope of The Wizarding World.

All characters and elements © & ™ Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Publishing Rights © JKR.

Learn more and buy tickets now at spac.org