3 Best Performing Arts in Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley, Colorado

Focusing on everything from chamber music to jazz, the Aspen Music Festival and School begins on the Thursday before Independence Day and runs for eight weeks. Musicians perform at hundreds of events held at the 2,050-seat Benedict Music Tent, the Victorian Wheeler Opera House, and the Joan and Irving Harris Concert Hall. Tickets are available online. A quarter of the performances are free, and one of the festival's great pleasures is showing up on the free-seating lawn outside the Benedict Music Tent with some friends and a blanket.

In June and September, Jazz Aspen Snowmass hosts popular music festivals that feature world-class pop, rock, jazz, and country bands and musicians. JAS also partners with the town of Snowmass Village to bring free concerts to Fanny Hill on Thursday nights in summer.

This intimate, historic performance hall hosts big-name classical, jazz, pop, and opera performers. Comedy shows and local musical-theater productions also take place here.