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The Olympic Music Festival, based in the historic, Victorian-era seaport of Port Townsend, Washington, is one of the Northwest’s premier chamber music events. The Summer concert series features world-class musicians, performing as soloists or with other combinations of players, each at the pinnacle of his or her artistic career. The concerts are held in the Wheeler Theater, located within the Fort Worden State Park, and at the Northwest Maritime Center on Water Street.

The mission of the Olympic Music Festival is

HISTORY Alan Iglitzin, violist and a founding member of the Philadelphia String Quartet, purchased a 55-acre farm near Quilcene, on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. He intended the barn as a place for the quartet to practice in a casual, rural setting. Word got out and people began to inquire about the possibility of seeing and hearing a world-class group of musicians in this same environment. The festival was conceived and planned, and the barn doors opened for its premiere concert in the summer of 1984, with performers on a rustic stage, and the audience listening among the hay bales and on the grounds nearby. Preliminary festival names included, “Beethoven in the Barn,” and “The Iglitzin Trio,” however, the festival became known as “The Olympic Music Festival” in reference to its location on the Olympic Peninsula.

In 1991, seven years after the festival’s inception, the Philadelphia String Quartet concluded their thirty-two-year partnership and artists from across the country were sought out to continue the legacy. The festival has become, in the years since, a home away from home for many outstanding performers.

In the fall of 2014, Iglitzin named Julio Elizalde as Artistic Director of the Olympic Music Festival.

JULIO ELIZALDE Julio Elizalde, a pianist and former student of veteran festival musician Paul Hersh, first appeared at the Olympic Music Festival in 2008, and returned every subsequent season. Over the years, his participation had grown exponentially as a festival artist and as a regular assistant to festival founder Alan Iglitzin. In 2010, Elizalde was named an associate artistic director, having been responsible for inviting new and rising talents to perform at the summer concerts in the barn. The following year, his title was changed to co-artistic director as his level of involvement increased. In the fall of 2014, Iglitzin named Elizalde as his successor, becoming the second artistic director in the history of the festival. Elizalde was, at that time, the youngest artistic director of a major arts organization in the United States.

Praised as a musician “of compelling artistry and power” by the Seattle Times, the gifted American pianist Julio Elizalde is one of the most sought-after artists of his generation. The multi-faceted musician has performed in many of the major music centers throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America, to popular and critical acclaim.

Mr. Elizalde has appeared with many of the leading artists of our time. He tours internationally with world-renowned violinists Sarah Chang and Ray Chen, and has performed alongside conductors Itzhak Perlman, Teddy Abrams, and Anne Manson. He has collaborated with artists such as violinist Pamela Frank, composers Osvaldo Golijov and Stephen Hough, baritone William Sharp, and members of the Juilliard, Cleveland, Kronos, and Brentano string quartets. Mr. Elizalde is a founding member of the New Trio, winner of both the Fischoff and Coleman National Chamber Music Competitions and is the recipient of the Harvard Musical Association’s prestigious Arthur W. Foote Prize.

Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Mr. Elizalde is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Jerome Lowenthal, Joseph Kalichstein, and Robert McDonald, and earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree in 2011.