Santa Fe summer music scene: Band together
May 24—The concerts are coming. And they're coming at such great frequency that even the local promoters are a bit surprised at their good fortune.
Jamie Lenfestey and Tim Franke created Lensic 360 last year in the hopes of bringing more acts to Santa Fe. Now, 16 months later, it seems as though they're adding another concert or act every time you check their site.
"Tim and I both laugh at it; we don't know why we do this to ourselves," Lenfestey says of Lensic 360's crowded summer schedule. "We're all gung ho and booking like crazy and making these shows happen and then all of a sudden, you go, 'Oh, god.' The summer is supposed to be a relaxing time. People have vacations, and we just kick our asses all summer long."
It seems the concert-loving public appreciates the efforts: Lenfestey and Franke say that about 90 percent of the Lensic 360 shows at the Lensic Performing Arts Center and the KiMo Theatre in Albuquerque are selling out.
Lensic 360 also recently released the schedule for the 2024 Summer Scene series at the Santa Fe Plaza and Railyard Park, among other venues. The lineup will include more than 50 free concerts and a slate of seven movies — including Barbie, Kung Fu Panda 4, and The Wizard of Oz — that will screen at Railyard Park this summer for free.
"I understand the ticketed shows pay the bills and some of the big shows are fun, but I get more joy out of the Summer Scene than anything else," says Franke. "Attendance last year was record-breaking. We're excited for it, and the community is so behind it. The businesses and the sponsors and the city have been very positive."
Franke rattled off several free shows that he predicts will offer a great audience experience, including the Digable Planets, who will be headlining a hip-hop festival at the Railyard on August 9. Franke also singled out La Dame Blanche, who will play the Railyard July 12, the night before the International Folk Art Market, and Fantastic Negrito (playing August 26) as acts that might be flying under the radar.
details
That's the ticket
* AMP Concerts: 505-232-9868; ampconcerts.org
* Lensic 360: 505-988-1234 (877-466-3404 for venues outside the Lensic); lensic360.org
* The Lensic Presents: 505-988-1234; lensic.org
* Live Nation: 800-653-8000; livenation.com
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That's the place
* The Bridge at Santa Fe Brewing: 37 Fire Place, 505-557 6182; santafebrewing.com
* HIPICO Santa Fe: 100 S. Polo Drive, 505-474-0999; hipicosantafe.com
* Railyard Plaza: 1612 Alcaldesa Street, 505-982-3373; railyardsantafe.com
* Santa Fe Opera: 301 Opera Drive, 800-280-4654; santafeopera.org
* St. Francis Auditorium: 107 W. Palace Avenue, 505-476-5072; nmartmuseum.org
* Lensic Performing Arts Center: 211 W. San Francisco Street, 505-988-1234; lensic.org
* Isleta Amphitheater: 5601 University Boulevard SE, Albuquerque, 505-452-5100; isletaamp.com
* Kit Carson Park: 211 Paseo Del Pueblo Norte, Taos, 575-751-2001; taos.org
For the younger crowd, there's Santa Fe Salutes: Taylor Swift, a tribute that will include several local artists who will converge on the Railyard to play songs for Swifties.
"We do Santa Fe Salutes every year, and that's been wildly successful," Franke says. "We aggregate all the musicians in the community, and generally where it started is we'd pick an artist who had passed away and do a tribute to them. But there's so much Taylor Swift fever; we talked to people in the community, and it felt like that's what they really wanted to do."
Headliners and pop concerts aren't the only game in town. This summer will also be packed with symphonies, sopranos, and sonatas. The following is a preview of the season's lineup that might make you want to save the date.
JUNE
Red Hot Chili Peppers — June 7 at Isleta Amphitheater, Albuquerque (Live Nation)
It may just be the biggest show of the summer. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are touring behind their 2022 release, Unlimited Love, their first new album since 2016's The Getaway. The Peppers aren't expected to tour in 2025 in order to start working on a new album, so if you want a chance to see Flea and Anthony Kiedis and company, timing may be of the essence.
Black Pumas — June 12 at Hipico (Lensic 360)
Come out and greet a band that has New Mexico roots. Black Pumas co-founder Eric Burton grew up in Alamogordo and began his musical journey in Las Cruces as a student at New Mexico State University. Years later, he teamed up with Adrian Quesada in Austin, Texas, and the pair are finding their footing as a rock duo in Black Pumas. Their latest release, Chronicles of a Diamond, came out in October 2023.
Meow Wolf Monster Battle: Polish Ambassador — June 28 at Railyard Plaza (Lensic 360)
It's part dance contest, part costume competition and 100 percent fun. The Railyard hosts Meow Wolf's Monster Battle, a freak-filled evening of creatures and mutants that features musical guest of honor EDM artist Polish Ambassador. Dress in your most inventive outfit and dance like everybody's watching at the annual Monster Battle.
Don Giovanni — Opening June 29 at the Santa Fe Opera
Mozart's Don Giovanni is universally recognized as one of the greatest of all operas, but it's damnably hard to stage successfully. The Santa Fe Opera's new production this season starts from an intriguing premise, the parallels between the late 18th-century title character and Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, who pursues an equally amoral life while never aging. It's a concept of Stephen Barlow, whose 2022 Barber of Seville here was a delight from start to finish. SFO Music Director Harry Bicket conducts a cast that includes Ryan Speedo Green as Giovanni, Rachael Wilson as Elvira, Nicholas Newton as Leporello, and Solomon Howard as the Commendatore. Performances are slated for June 29, July 5, 10, and 29, and August 3, 6, 16, 21, and 23.
JULY
The Avett Brothers with Iron and Wine — July 3 at Kit Carson Park, Taos (Lensic 360)
The Avett Brothers have a new album, and you'll be able to hear most of the tracks in person this summer in Taos. The self-titled album comes out on Monday, May 27. Fueled by namesake brothers Scott and Seth Avett, the band has been named Duo or Group of the Year by the Americana Music Honors and Awards three times, and last year, they took home a Lifetime Achievement Award for Performance.
La Dame Blanche — July 12 at the Santa Fe Railyard Plaza (Lensic 360)
Move over, Lizzo. Cuba-born Yaite Ramos Rodriguez, who goes by La Dame Blanche, brings it on the flute as well as percussion and vocals to produce an amalgam of hip-hop and hip-shaking music that also infuses a bit of cumbia, reggae, and a melting pot of other musical genres. Given those multicultural meldings, it's no surprise that the artist is getting Santa Fe in the groove as the Friday kickoff performer for the International Folk Art Market, which is in its second year at the Railyard.
The Righteous — Opening July 13 at the Santa Fe Opera
The world premiere of a new opera about the intersection of faith, ambition, fidelity, and desire during the era of televangelism, the mega-church, and the AIDS and crack cocaine crises is on tap at the Santa Fe Opera this summer. The Righteous, with a score by hot musical property Gregory Spears and a libretto by Tracy K. Smith, two-term poet laureate of the U.S., opens on July 13. This contemporary retelling of the Biblical story of King David, set in a state that looks an awful lot like Texas, has subsequent performances on July 17, 26, and 30, and August 7 and 13.
As We Speak: Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, and Edgar Meyer featuring Rakesh Chaurasia — July 18 at the Lensic Performing Arts Center (Lensic 360)
Fleck has a well-earned reputation as a banjo master, but on this tour, he'll play with peers who are every bit as accomplished on their own instruments. Hussain is a master of the tabla and generally plays Indian classical music, while Meyer is a double bass virtuoso who specializes in Western classical music. Chaurasia is a specialist on the Indian bamboo flute, also known as the bansuri, and the group as a whole works well in improvisation.
Der Rosenkavalier — Opening July 20 at the Santa Fe Opera
Almost every major Richard Strauss opera has been staged in Santa Fe during the last 30 years, with one glaring exception — Der Rosenkavalier. It makes a welcome return this summer, in a co- production with the Garsington Opera that was hailed by The Guardian as "a glamorous staging [that's] notably strong on subtle gradations of feeling and the complex relationship between love and sex." Rachel Willis-Sørenson, Ying Fang, and Paula Murrihy lead a strong cast as the Marschallin, Sophie, and Octavian, respectively. There are just five performances, on July 20 and 24, and on August 2, 8, and 15.
The Decemberists — July 22 at The Bridge at Santa Fe Brewing (Lensic 360)
They won't be playing by the water, but they'll absolutely be playing down by the old main drag. The Decemberists, fronted by lead singer and songwriter Colin Meloy, will headline an outdoor show on July 22 at The Bridge at Santa Fe Brewing. The indie rockers have a new album, As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again, that will be released in June.
Beethoven Piano Sonatas — July 23 and 25 at St. Francis Auditorium
The stars have aligned for fans of Beethoven's keyboard music. Thanks to the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, five of his great piano sonatas will be performed over a three-day span at St. Francis Auditorium. First up is Haochen Zhang, who won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition at the age of 19 in 2009. His July 23 recital features two of the late sonatas, Op. 109 in E Major and Op. 111 in C Minor. The first is a relatively intimate work notable for its unusual aspects in form and structure; the second, his final piano sonata, is even more groundbreaking and was virtually ignored by most pianists for decades.
On July 25, Gilles Vonsattel essays three of the earlier sonatas, starting with Op. 10, No. 2 in F Major, which dates from 1798. It's followed by Op. 26, the "Funeral March" Sonata in A-flat Major. It dates from 1801 and is contemporaneous with his first symphony, although the third movement, which incorporates a funeral march, anticipates the "Eroica" Symphony No. 3 and its famous funeral march. Vonsattel closes his program with the "Appassionata" Sonata in F Minor, Op. 57, one of Beethoven's most celebrated, challenging, and tempestuous works for the piano.
AUGUST
Das Lied von der Erde — August 4 and 5 at St. Francis Auditorium
The most notable event on the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival's program this summer is arguably Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) on August 4 and 5. Celebrated Mahlerian Deryck Cooke described it as a work in which "the sudden bitter awareness of imminent [death] is confronted and fused with a hedonistic delight in the beauty of nature and the ecstasy of living, both now possessed so briefly and precariously." Sometimes called a "song-symphony," Das Lied von der Erde requires two first-rate vocal soloists and a very large orchestra, although Mahler often used it in much smaller configurations. The performances here feature a chamber-music adaptation that was begun by Arnold Schoenberg and finished by German composer Rainer Riehn in 1980. Mezzo-soprano Annika Schlicht, tenor Clay Hilley, and 14 instrumentalists will be conducted by Donald Runnicles, music director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Wyoming's Grand Teton Music Festival.
Digable Planets — August 9 at the Railyard (Lensic 360)
Last year, Pharcyde rocked the stage at the Summer Scene's 50th anniversary celebration of hip-hop. Now, a year later, the Digable Planets come to town as Lensic 360 seeks to make its hip-hop festival an annual event. Digable Planets broke through to the mainstream with their infectious anthem "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)" from their 1993 album Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space). Their follow-up, Blowout Comb, came out in 1994. It was well received but was also their last album.
Béla Bartók string quartets — August 11 at the Lensic Performing Arts Center
Arguably the other most notable Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival event this summer is the Escher Quartet's one-performance traversal of Béla Bartók's six string quartets. Composed over a 30-year span, from 1909 to 1939, they are widely regarded as the most important works in the genre since those of Beethoven more than a century earlier. Escher's August 11 performance will be a mini marathon about 3 1/4 hours long, including two intermissions.
Dwight Yoakam and the Mavericks — August 24 at Kit Carson Park, Taos (Lensic 360)
Guitars, Cadillacs, and hillbilly music are all coming to Taos with local favorite Dwight Yoakam. Yoakam, a native of Pikeville, Kentucky, has always lived on the intersection of several genres including country, bluegrass, and honky-tonk. He hasn't released an album of original material since 2015's Second Hand Heart, which peaked at No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 200, but Yoakam has more than his share of hits from a career that has lasted for decades.
Zozobra: The Revenge — August 29 and 31 at the Lensic Performing Arts Center
How does a gigantic puppet that gets burned up every year celebrate its 100th birthday? By commissioning a new musical fable about itself, of course! Zozobra: The Revenge rises from the ashes on August 29 and 31, with music composed by Joe Illick, executive and artistic director of Performance Santa Fe from 2007 to 2017. His earlier stage works include Feel the Tango, Frida Kahlo and the Bravest Girl in the World, and Stone Soup. The text for Zozobra: The Revenge is by Douglas Preston, a Santa Fe-based author who has had more than 20 books appear on The New York Times' bestseller list.
SEPTEMBER
Santana — September 4 at Isleta Amphitheater (Live Nation)
Santana's been rocking audiences so long that the band's frontman and namesake, Carlos Santana, was literally launched to fame by a performance at Woodstock. The lead guitarist is the last link to that band, but he's been playing with several of his current bandmates for decades. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, and they returned to prominence the next year with the smash hit "Smooth."
New Mexico Jazz Festival — September 12-15 at the Lensic Performing Arts Center
The four-day fest kicks off with Ranky Tanky, a South Carolina band performing songs based on the Gullah culture, along with 20 Feet from Stardom vocalist Lisa Fischer. The Joshua Redman Group is here on September 13, featuring songs from their first Blue Note album, where we are, which Redman calls "a meditation on America and the power and importance of place." Bassist and NEA Jazz Master Dave Holland brings his new quartet to town on September 14. Meshell Ndegeocello closes the festival the next night with songs from her deeply jazz-influenced debut album on Blue Note, Omnichord Real Book.
Jon Batiste — September 16 at Santa Fe Opera (Lensic 360)
The man has an Academy Award and five Grammy Awards — and by all accounts, he's just getting started. Jon Batiste, the longtime bandleader and musical director for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, will be starring in a fundraiser for the Cancer Foundation for New Mexico at the opera (the show reportedly sold out in hours). Batiste set a Grammy standard in 2021, when his album, We Are, was nominated for 11 different awards in seven different categories.
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SAVE THE FEST FOR LAST
It's one thing to attract one artist to play a New Mexico venue, but it's quite another to stage an entire festival's worth of performers.
Blossoms & Bones (ghostranchmusicfest.com), the annual music festival organized by Lensic 360 and held at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiú, will be back for another iteration thisyear, and it boasts bringing a star-studded caststellar lineup for both days of the event. Legendary gospel singer Mavis Staples will headline Blossoms & Bones on September 13, and she'll be supported by indie singer-songwriters Lucinda Williams and Courtney Barnett.The next day, On September 14, will seeAustralian countrysinger-songwriter Vance Joy headlines the stage, and other acts will include Ethel Cain and the California Honeydrippers.
Jamie Lenfestey, the co-founder of Lensic 360, says the Blossoms & Bones festival is the realization of a dream he had many years ago.He's thrilled t By holding the festival in a place Georgia O'Keeffe made famous, he hopes to build it over the years to come.
"It's a really hard job to book a festival," he says. "It's remarkably expensive. There's so many artists you want to play that just get crazy amounts of money.The hope is that as the festival grows and the connection to O'Keeffe grows, agents are going to reach out and say, 'How do we get our artists on this festival?' It's already happening on a smaller scale."
Another festival, Taos-based She Rises (sherisesfest .com), is seeking to build itself into a tradition. The festival is led by women, created by women, and intended to nurture female artists. She Rises held its first iterationevent last year, and the second editionthis year's will be heldAugust 30 (VIP experience) and 31 and September 1at Kit Carson Park.
The bill for the festival will include YOLA, KT Tunstall, Jade Bird, Big Richard Band, festival co-founder Andrea Magee, and the Women's Indigenous Choir.
Taos will also host Michael Hearne's 22nd annual Big Barn Dance (bigbarndance.com) at Kit Carson Park September 5-7.
The festival is a lovingoffers a tribute to Americana, country, folk, and bluegrass, and it draws a loyal following who lovelike to dance into the wee hoursall night long.
The 18th annual New Mexico Jazz Festival (out postspace.org) September 5-29 will occupy several be held in a number ofvenues throughout Santa Fe, Taos, and Albuquerque.Taos, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe will all hold events during t The festival will wrap up with a September 29 performance at Outpost in Albuquerque. — S.F.
