A Salute to 20 Years of Music Excellence

Music is a defining creative force of the Vail Dance Festival, shaping the Festival’s identity as a place where dance and music are imagined together in bold and unexpected ways. Under Damian Woetzel’s visionary leadership as Artistic Director over the past two decades, music has evolved from accompaniment into an equal artistic partner—driving collaboration, innovation, and discovery across every stage of the Festival.

By bringing together extraordinary musicians, choreographers, composers, and dancers in this singular creative laboratory in the Rockies, the Festival has cultivated an environment where artistic boundaries dissolve and new work come vividly to life. Many of the leading musical voices of our time have contributed to this spirit of exploration, including Philip Glass, Jason Moran, Rhiannon Giddens, Gabriela Lena Frank, Davóne Tines, Kate Davis, Claire Chase, Youba Cissokho, the Festival Jazz Ensemble led by Joel Wenhardt, and the acclaimed ensemble Brooklyn Rider, the Festival’s Quartet-in-Residence.

This season, the Festival proudly celebrates Grammy-and Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Caroline Shaw on the occasion of her 10th anniversary as Leonard Bernstein Composer-in-Residence. Over the past decade, Caroline has been a driving creative voice both within the Festival and across the wider artistic world, helping define Vail as a vibrant home for innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration. Her music—radiant with curiosity, invention, playfulness, and profound emotional resonance—has become deeply woven into the artistic fabric of the Festival. Caroline’s collaborations with many of today’s most visionary artists—including Justin Peck, Pam Tanowitz, Lil Buck, Michelle Dorrance, Bobbi Jene Smith, Melissa Toogood, Damian Woetzel, Davóne Tines, and Brooklyn Rider—have produced works of extraordinary imagination and resonance. Through these collaborations, she has continually expanded the possibilities of what dance and music can become together, creating performances that feel intimate, daring, and transformative. Recently, Shaw and Woetzel joined a thought-provoking panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival to explore how modern technologies could shape the future of music over the next 250 years. Read Kimberly Nicoletti’s coverage in the Aspen Times to learn more about the conversation and the bold ideas shared at the event. 

The Valid Dance Festival’s rich musical identity has also been shaped by extraordinary pianists whose artistry has brought countless collaborations to life, among them Cameron Grant, Michael Scales, Derek Wang, Joel Wenhardt, Tony Siqi Yun, and Anne-Marie McDermott. A beloved artistic presence in Vail for many years, Anne-Marie has made a profound impact as the artistic leader of Bravo! Vail, where her vision, musicianship, and enduring commitment to artistic excellence have helped shape the cultural life of the community in lasting ways.

Through the artistry of the extraordinary musicians who have been part of the Festival, and through Damian Woetzel’s enduring commitment to collaboration as a creative force, the Vail Dance Festival continues to present performances in which music and dance are not only brought together, but continually reimagined,