Artist - Moab Music Festival

Ahmed is a pianist, composer, and conductor whose artistry bridges classical and popular traditions, earning him recognition as “one of the most versatile artists in the Western Hemisphere” (Diario de Mallorca). His unique voice blends the rigor and structure of classical training with the rhythmic and harmonic richness of his Cuban heritage, forging connections between the past and the music of today.

Ahmed’s compositions have been performed by world-renowned musicians, including Yuja Wang with the New York Philharmonic. As a soloist, he has appeared with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, New World Symphony, Orquesta Filarmónica de México, and Britt Festival Orchestra. He is also the youngest Artistic Director of the Washington Square Music Festival.

Deeply engaged in collaboration, Ahmed works across genres with leading artists such as Michael League, Antonio Sánchez, Teddy Abrams, Steve Hackman, Miguel Zenón, Mark Dover, Brandon Ridenour and Pedrito Martinez. His debut album, Exilio (2023) included the first complete recording of Luis A. Calvo’s Four Intermezzos. His chamber trio, Triple Cortado—with Caleb Hudson and Achilles Liarmakopoulos—blends classical virtuosity with new contemporary works, while his duo CrossCurrents with Pedrito Martinez navigates the intersection of Afro-Cuban music and European classical traditions.

A sought-after educator, Ahmed has given masterclasses at Berklee College of Music, the San Francisco Conservatory, Dartmouth College, Peabody Institute, and the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. His passion for new music has led to collaborations with Steve Hackman, the Pedro Giraudo Tango Quartet, and Ballet Hispánico’s Doña Perón.

Upcoming Performances:

Aug 31 – People of Earth: A Global Music Collective

Sep 1 – Rocky Mountain Power Community Concert

Sep 4 – Grotto II: Classics Reimagined

Sep 7 – The Promise of Peace

WindSync: Garrett Hudson, flute; Noah Kay, oboe; Graeme Steele Johnson, clarinet; Kara LaMoure, bassoon; Anni Hochhalter, horn

Versatile and vibrant, the musicians of WindSync “play many idioms authoritatively, elegantly, with adroit technique, and with great fun” (All About the Arts), showing off the uniquely wide-ranging sounds of the wind quintet. WindSync’s charismatic and personal performance style, combined with a three-pronged mission of artistry, education, and community-building, lends the group its reputation as “virtuosos who are also wonderful people, too” (Alison Young, Classical MPR).

WindSync has enjoyed an international touring career since winning the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition and the 2016 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. The group has appeared throughout the United States and abroad, including Weill Recital Hall, the Library of Congress, Ravinia, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Phoenix Chamber Music Society, Rockport Music, and Emerald City Music. WindSync’s recent premieres include works by Viet Cuong, Marc Mellits, Ivan Trevino, Mason Bynes, Nathalie Joachim, and Pulitzer finalist Michael Gilbertson.

WindSync has also served residencies with the Grand Teton Music Festival, Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, and the Lied Center. Winner of the 2022 Fischoff Ann Divine Educator Award, the ensemble regularly coaches at training programs nationwide, collaborates with youth orchestras, and performs for thousands of young people each year.

On the heels of “All Worlds, All Times,” WindSync’s 2022 release that “will make you want to get up and dance” (The Whole Note), the quintet’s second commercial album, recorded with composer Miguel del Aguila at Abbey Road Studios, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Albums chart in 2024.

Upcoming Performances:

Aug 28 – Grotto I: Colorado River Winds

Aug 29 – Floating Concert I: WindSync

Aug 29 – Next Week’s Trees

Sierra is a virtuoso mandolinist, a two-time Grammy-nominated artist, and a groundbreaking songwriter. Recognized for her acclaimed albums 25 Trips (2020) and Weighted Mines (2016), she’s also a six-time IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year—the first woman to ever receive this honor. A pioneer in acoustic music, Sierra has performed on iconic stages like Carnegie Hall, the Grand Ole Opry, and the White House. Her artistry has earned praise and collaboration with legends like Alison Krauss, Béla Fleck, Dolly Parton, Brandi Carlile, and Bill Strings. Hailing from Byrdstown, Tennessee, Sierra’s innovative sound is deeply rooted in bluegrass yet continually pushes boundaries.

Upcoming Performances:

Sep 6 – Sierra Hull

Michael is a drummer, educator and recording artist based in Brooklyn, New York who has worked with such artists as Wayne Krantz, Joshua Redman, Jason Moran, Tim Lefebvre, James Genus, Sara Caswell, Cyrus Chestnut, Bob Sheppard, Gregory Tardy, Gregg Belisle-Chi, Bob Lanzetti and many others. He is also a founding member of soul-rock band Caitlin Krisko & The Broadcast, which has been recording and touring extensively across the US and Europe since 2010. He has earned degrees from Manhattan School of Music and City College of New York, where he studied under John Riley, Nasheet Waits, Justin DiCioccio and Dan Weiss. As an educator, he has served as adjunct professor at City College of New York, and visiting instructor at various colleges across the country, including University of South Florida, University of North Carolina Asheville and University of Minnesota Morris.

Nick is a four-time Grammy Award winning cellist and one of the most innovative musicians of our time, collaborating with artists including Björk, Wilco, Bryce Dessner, Dawn Upshaw, Philip Glass, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars in tours throughout the world. Currently Professor of Chamber Music and Eminent Scholar at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, he has previously served as faculty at the Longy School of Music, the University of Michigan, and Northwestern University. Nick served for 24 years as the founding cellist and Artistic Director of Eighth Blackbird. For more information, go to nickphotinos.com.

Sara is a Grammy-nominated artist recognized as one of today’s foremost jazz violinists through her lyricism and technical facility. Voted into the DownBeat Magazine Critics and Readers Polls every year since 2013, Sara has released three highly acclaimed solo albums, the most recent of which is The Way to You (2023, Anzic Records). She has performed and/or recorded with such artists as the WDR Big Band, Esperanza Spalding, Brad Mehldau, Brian Blade, John Patitucci, Regina Carter, Donny McCaslin, Henry Threadgill, Darcy James Argue, Linda May Han Oh, Dave Stryker, and Miho Hazama at venues including Carnegie Hall, the Village Vanguard, Birdland, Jazz at Lincoln Center, SFJazz, and the Blue Note (NYC and Tokyo). Currently on faculty at the Berklee College of Music, Manhattan School of Music, The New School, and New York University, Sara regularly appears as a guest artist and clinician at schools and festivals around the world.

Described as “sleek, new” and “hyper- fluent” by the New York Times, Pascal is a Grammy- nominated composer, jazz pianist, and electronic artist whose works range from modern improvised music to hybridizing notation-based chamber music with production-based technology.

Recent compositions include Triple Concerto for violin, percussion duo and orchestra featuring Barbora Kolářová and Arx Duo; Imprints with Alarm Will Sound; I Am Not A Number commissioned by New World Symphony; and Out of the Gate commissioned and premiered by Nu Deco Ensemble.

As a keyboardist, Pascal has played as support for D’Angelo’s Black Messiah tour and Clean Bandit’s Rather Be tour with Australian pop artist Meg Mac. He actively performs with Le Boeuf Brothers, saxophonist Jeff Coffin, jazz vocalist Allan Harris, and his piano trio “Pascal’s Triangle.”

Pascal’s most recent awards include a 2023 Grammy nomination for “Best Instrumental Composition,” a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 2020 Copland House Residency Award, and various Independent Music Awards in “Jazz,” “Eclectic,” “Electronica,” and “Music Video” categories. Pascal has received commissions and grants from NEA, New World Symphony, Nu Deco Ensemble, the Lake George Music Festival, Lincoln Center Stage, Chamber Music America, New Music USA, and ASCAP. He composed music for the 2008 Emmy award-winning movie King Lines, and won first place in the 2008 International Songwriting Competition. Pascal is currently an assistant professor of the practice of music and technology at the Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music, and a “Harold W. Dodds Honorific Fellow” and Ph.D. candidate in music composition at Princeton University.

Amy is an award-winning soprano known for her “high-flying vocals” and “scene-stealing” charisma on operatic and symphonic stages, as well as her multi-disciplinary pursuits as a music educator, producer, and conductor (Opera News). She is known on concert stages for her interpretation of Carmina Burana, including multiple performances with the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center and Wolf Trap, as well as with MidAmerica productions for her Carnegie Hall debut. Career highlights include performances with the Santa Fe Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Utah Opera, Virginia Opera, National Symphony, San Diego Symphony, New York Festival of Song, Brooklyn Art Song Society, and Virginia Arts Festival. Her operatic and musical theater roles include Cunegonde in Candide, Johanna in Sweeney Todd, Chrisann Brennan in The Revolution of Steve Jobs, Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, Emily in Our Town, and Phoebe in Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. She is frequently sought after for contemporary works, including Santa Fe Opera’s world premiere of Sweet Potato Kicks the Sun, where she created the title role, and the workshop of Eurydice with the Metropolitan Opera. In addition to performing, she serves as the director of the Young Voices of Santa Fe Opera.

Upcoming Performances:

Dec 6 – Holiday Concert

Dec 7 – Family Holiday Concert

Zak is an award-winning author and journalist who has spent more than a decade writing about water and conservation issues in the western United States. He is the author of two books published by Torrey House Press, Confluence: Navigating the Personal & Political on Rivers of the New West (2019) and Life After Dead Pool: Lake Powell’s Last Days and the Rebirth of the Colorado River (2024). Zak is the recipient of the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers award and was the Entrada Institute’s writer-in-residence in 2023. Most recently, Zak was the southern Utah reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune. He lives in Bluff, Utah.

Upcoming Performances:

Aug 31 – Red Cliffs I: Colorado Currents

Andrew has performed recitals at Carnegie Hall, the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), the Ravinia festival, The Cleveland Art Song Festival, Camerata Pacifica, Andre-Turp Society Montreal, Voce at Pace, Cincinnati Song Initiative, Tuesday Morning Music Club, The Phillips Collection, Vocal Arts DC, college campuses around North America, and venues in Italy, Croatia, Greece, and Turkey.

Last season he released his tenth Album: El Rebelde: Gabriela Frank and Dmitri Shostakovich. Andrew has premiered works by Jake Heggie, William Bolcom, Stephen Paulus, Steven Mark Kohn, Lee Hoiby, Tom Cipullo, Thomas Pasatieri, and Gabriela Frank.

He has performed in concert with the Boston POPS, Atlanta Symphony, Boston Baroque, Handel and Haydn, Washington Master Chorale at the Kennedy Center, and National Chorale at Lincoln Center and leading opera roles at Seattle Opera, New York City Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Cincinnati Opera, Minnesota Opera, and many others.

Andrew is a mentor with Bel Canto Boot Camp, a coach with tonebase, and is on the faculty at CU Boulder. He bicycles year-round and for the past 31 years has ridden the Pan Mass Challenge. This is Andrew’s fourth appearance at the Moab Music Festival.

Upcoming Performances:

Sep 2 – Rocky Mountain Power Community Concert

Sep 4 – House Benefit Concert: Bernstein, An Intimate Portrait

Sep 5 – Red Earth: Mid-Century Modern America

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