Violinist Tessa Lark Named Artistic Director of Moab Music Festival

January 5, 2025, 11:30 PM · The Utah-based Moab Music Festival has named violinist Tessa Lark as its next Artistic Director.

Violinist Tessa Lark. Photo by Richard Bowditch.

The festival began in 1992 as a grassroots organization performing in a geodesic dome and has grown into a two-week, 20-concert festival that attracts top-notch musicians who performs at indoor and outdoor venues in and around the Colorado River wilderness and red rocks of Moab. It was founded by two New York-based musicians: violist Leslie Tomkins, who has served as its Artistic Director, and pianist/conductor Michael Barrett, its Music Director. Tomkins and Barrett will become Directors Emeriti.

"I am beyond excited to be handing the reins of the Moab Music Festival to Tessa Lark," Barrett said. "I’ve known Tessa for nearly 20 years and have watched with admiration as she has fulfilled the promise of her immense talent in such creative and unexpected ways. It brings me great satisfaction that she has agreed to become Artistic Director. She has a finger on the pulse of musical life in America, and I’m certain her instinct and artistry will guide the Festival toward the synthesis of art, nature, and community Leslie and I first imagined 33 years ago."

Lark made her debut as an artist with the Moab Music Festival in 2016. A concert artist who was nominated for a Grammy for her recording of Sky, the violin concerto written for her by Michael Torke, Lark also is a past recipient of Lincoln Center's Hunt Family Award, a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and top prizes in the Naumburg International Violin Competition and International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. She serves as a Co-Host of From the Top, NPR’s famed showcase for young classical musicians, and is Artistic Director of the Musical Masterworks series in Old Lyme, CT.

During Moab’s 2024 season, Lark performed works from her latest album, The Stradgrass Sessions, which pays homage to her love for both Bluegrass and classical music, as well as her Kentucky upbringing. A graduate of New England Conservatory and The Juilliard School, Lark plays a ca. 1600 G.P. Maggini violin on loan through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.

"I’ve already fallen in love many times over with the Moab Music Festival and what makes the community unique: the impactful relationships that Michael Barrett and Leslie Tomkins have forged through their loving leadership, the symbiosis of new classical music with canonical favorites, the complex network of the Native cultures of the region, and the presence of myriad musical styles," Lark said. "I take genuine pleasure in personally connecting with folks from all backgrounds, and am passionate about creating spaces that joyfully embrace both musical and spiritual confluence. What makes the Festival extraordinary is also my ultimate life goal: relishing nature and music, all at once. Sharing that heaven-on-earth with others is a dream come true."

"It has been a great honor and privilege to create and lead this organization for over three decades," Tomkins said. "Tessa came to mind immediately when considering a successor. She is a spectacular artist who brings joy and endless creativity to her playing and shines in musical genres beyond classical. Music in concert with the landscape distinguishes the Moab Music Festival from all others. Tessa has a deep connection to that special alchemy, and I look forward to seeing the Festival thrive and evolve under her imaginative, thoughtful leadership.”

The Moab Music Festival takes place annually in late August to early September. Past guest artists have included George Takei, Paquito D’Rivera, Bela Fleck, Marcus Roberts, Chick Corea, Clarice and Sergio Assad, David Amram, Lukas Foss, Chris Thile, Time for Three, Ned Rorem, Jamie Bernstein, and many more. Concerts are held in a variety of indoor and outdoor venues around Moab. Grotto Concerts, the Festival’s signature events, take place in a pristine wilderness grotto reached by jet boat some 30 miles down the Colorado River. Destination-worthy venues also include floating concerts along the Colorado at sunset, music hikes to secret wilderness locations, and three- and four-day Musical Raft Trips through Cataract and Westwater Canyons, or on the San Juan River.

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