Chris Rogerson. Photo source: chrisrogerson.com.
Colorado’s Bravo! Vail Music Festival has appointed composer Chris Rogerson as artistic director. Rogerson assumes the artistic director designate role immediately and the artistic director title on September 1, 2026, for an initial three-year term. He succeeds Anne-Marie McDermott, who steps down after a 16-year tenure. American-born composer Rogerson’s music has been performed by artists including Yo-Yo Ma, Anthony McGill, J’Nai Bridges, and Pablo Sáinz-Villegas, as well as orchestras and ensembles across the country. In 2023, Rogerson received the Elise L. Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Rogerson’s relationship with Bravo! Vail spans multiple commissions, including Samaa’ for piano, gongs, and strings, premiered in 2022 by Anne-Marie McDermott and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. The work was premiered as part of Bravo! Vail’s ongoing Symphonic Commissioning Project. Rogerson served as composer-in-residence of Young Concert Artists and as composer-in-residence and artistic advisor for the Allentown Symphony Orchestra and the Amarillo Symphony. In addition to being a member of the faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied, he is an alumnus of the Yale School of Music and Princeton University.
