HE ROYCROFT Chamber Music Festival was founded in 1994 and 2008 will be its fifteenth season. Held in June each year at St. Matthias Episcopal Church in East Aurora, New York, the festival is recognized for the excellence of its programming and performances, and has become a highlight of Western New York's musical landscape. For example, the year 2000 performance of the Ravel Piano Trio was met with a "spontaneous, full standing ovation punctuated with cheers and bravos." [Herman Trotter, The Buffalo News, June 18, 2000] This kind of enthusiastic reception has become almost routine.

The festival was founded by its artistic directors, Juilliard graduates Eugene Gaub and Nancy McFarland Gaub, former residents of East Aurora now on the faculty of Grinnell College, Iowa. The principal goals of the festival are to help promote chamber music and enhance the quality of life in Western New York, by presenting a series of world-class, but readily accessible and easily affordable concerts in an intimate and uplifting setting. Each year, world-class nationally and internationally renowned musicians travel from all over the United States to participate.

As in previous years, the venue is the sanctuary of St. Matthias Episcopal Church in East Aurora, which provides wonderful acoustics and architectural splendor while maintaining an intimate atmosphere consistent with the chamber music genre. We are thrilled with the program for the 2008 season and look forward to seeing you at the performances this June.

Directions:
St. Mathias' Episcopal Church is located at the corner of Main Street (Route 20A) and Maple Street in East Aurora, New York. From the NYS Thruway, take Exit 54 (Route 400) ten miles to Maple Street. Turn right and follow Maple Street until it ends at Main Street.

photo by Marcia Scheideman