Aspen Music Festival and School looks to the future

Alan Fletcher, the longtime President and CEO of the Aspen Music Festival and School, is stepping down from his leadership role at the end of 2026.

The festival’s board of trustees will honor Fletcher as the organization’s first-ever President Emeritus in 2027 for his many years of service to the organization.

Fletcher initially took the job in 2006 and later secured the largest gift in the institution’s history to build the Matthew and Carolyn Bucksbaum Campus, according to an AMFS press release. The total redevelopment cost was $80 million.

In an interview on Tuesday, Fletcher said establishing the Bucksbaum campus was one of his biggest accomplishments as leader of the festival.

“It depended on the generosity of a great many people, … but so much of the accomplishment of the campus was on staff, on other board members who made crucial contracts, contributions of time and expertise, as well as money, and Harry Teague, who designed it,” he said.

Fletcher also spearheaded several new initiatives in recent years, including the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS program alongside Renée Fleming and Patrick Summers.

He would not, however, take sole credit for any of these achievements, citing the support he received from other staff members.

“Everything that has happened has been the accomplishment of a whole community,” he said. “We have an amazing staff. We have a just world-renowned faculty, and then we have an extraordinary board who just constantly support and envision our work together.”

Fletcher is known for bolstering music education in Roaring Fork Valley schools through programs like AfterWorks, which offers private lessons and weekly group classes during the school year.

He also helped launch a partnership in 2017 with ArtistYear, where teaching artists are placed in public schools in Basalt, Carbondale and Glenwood Springs to teach after-school programs.

He recognized that declining enrollment and other funding issues could threaten music education in public schools; therefore, continued partnerships with nonprofits like the music festival and its philanthropists will be more vital to keep classical music accessible to young people.

“It’s proven in neuroscience that the experience of really making music for a child has just cascading benefits to them socially, intellectually, psychologically,” he said. “JAS Aspen has very important projects in this. Theatre Aspen does drama education, [Anderson] Ranch and the [Aspen] Art Museum do amazing education experiences for children, and the districts need us.”

In 2020, Fletcher oversaw the organization’s Culture, Excellence and Access initiative, examining the nonprofit’s internal policies and goals. One of their first goals was to diversify their performers and teachers to make Aspen’s classical music scene more inclusive.

He said there’s still more of this work to do, and acknowledged that the organization benefits significantly when new people attend their events and take their classes.

“If you come, you will make us different,” Fletcher said. “We will respond to you. [Our programming] is not just set out there for you. It’s a becoming, if you will, and I feel that way about the young musicians who come to us. It’s not that we’re … letting them in. It’s that they are changing us by joining us.”

Fletcher did not characterize his departure from the Aspen Music Festival and School as a retirement. Instead, he referenced the accomplishments of his late father, who died in June at the age of 106.

He said his dad, who officially retired at age 83, went on to write 11 books and do a lot of public service, so Fletcher doesn’t see this transition as the end of his professional career.

“My overall career is not over, but this extremely happy part of it in Aspen, we now have a plan about.”

Fletcher said he will offer his experience and support following his departure, and he will also participate in a new program at the Aspen Music Festival and School, where accomplished composers will write and perform their first symphonies.