Agarita Announces 2024-2025 Concert Season, Kick-Starting Next Month in San Antonio
San Antonio— Agarita, a prominent chamber ensemble renowned for devising progressive, collaborative musical events, has recently announced the schedule for its 7th concert season, commencing next month. The 2024-2025 season will hold more than 90 spellbinding concerts, including seven larger-scale community concerts. These inventive performances involving a medley of local and international artists will be bilingual and easily accessible to the public, free of charge.
Season Opener: A Celebration of Xicanx Month
The concert series will inaugurate with a performance by the acclaimed Me-Chicana songwriter Azul Barrientos on August 23, 2024, to celebrate Xicanx Month. This will be followed by a collaborative show featuring award-winning poet Jenny Browne on October 25, 2024, at the San Antonio Botanical Garden. The series for the year will wrap up on December 1 with an immersive musical experience at the McNay Art Museum.
In 2025, the celebration will continue as Agarita collaborates with the Olmos Ensemble at the University of the Incarnate Word and welcomes back internationally acclaimed Spanish guitarist Pablo Sáinz Villegas to the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts on March 9. The concert season will come to a close with the GRAMMY-winning quintet, Imani Winds at the Carver in June 2025.
‘Humble Hall Concerts’ & ‘Agarita Inspires!
Continuing their steadfast dedication to community outreach, Agarita plans to deliver free mobile, open-air Humble Hall Concerts in all ten council districts throughout San Antonio. Their objective is to bring live, innovative musical performances to the city, negating barriers such as travel time and concert hall or venue expenses. Via the ‘Agarita Inspires!’ initiative, the ensemble visits various schools and institutes across the city, providing unique musical education opportunities to thousands of residents and students.
Building Bridges of Collaboration and Education
This past year, Agarita Inspires! extended its educational outreach by partnering with the University of Texas at Austin. This collaboration involved a graduate-level woodwind quintet from UT Austin, lead by revered flute professor Ebonee Thomas. Through this partnership, all middle school band students in the Southwest Independent School District were impacted, and personal connections were forged between the quintet and the students. This upcoming season will see a continuation of this partnership and further expansion of Agarita’s educational reach.
A Legacy of Accessible Art
Agarita’s ardent dedication towards accessibility of art for all is noteworthy. To date, they have performed in front of more than 44,000 audience members, hosted 217 concerts at 134 venues, and collaborated with 45 artists and groups. The Agarita Inspires! initiative has provided over 50 educational concerts to more than 12,000 students free of charge.
Support For the Initiative
Agarita has garnered significant support from the local community, enabling it to continue providing free, high-quality performances. Generous donations have been received from supporters, including the San Antonio Area Foundation, the City of San Antonio, and H-E-B. This season’s performances are also facilitated by new additions to the Agarita Family, namely the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation, Nancy Smith Hurd Foundation, and the Elizabeth Huth Coates Charitable Foundation of 1992.
Agarita’s 2024-2025 concert season promises to carry forward its mission of fostering community engagement and promoting adventurous programming. It is dedicated to presenting high-quality concerts and promoting classical music in an accessible and free format, and hence is devoted to inspiring new audiences by reinventing the overall concert experience.
For more details about the scheduled performances and upcoming projects for the next season, visit www.agarita.org
