Basically Beethoven celebrates 45th Anniversary at Free July Festival

Three-Concert Series Showcases Dallas’ Finest Musicians 

DALLAS, TX – Basically Beethoven celebrates its 45th year at its annual Basically Beethoven Festival, three free concerts featuring a crowd-pleasing repertoire performed by exceptional professional classical musicians. The festival will take place on Sundays, July 12, 19, and 26, 2026, beginning at 2:30 PM (Rising Stars) and 3:00 PM (Featured Performers) at Moody Performance Hall.

Since it began in 1981, Fine Arts Chamber Players (now known as Basically Beethoven) has had many successful educational programs, and is now settled on free music residencies in voice, violin, and piano in several under-served schools. However, its foundation is its two free concert series - the October-May monthly Hallam series and July Basically Beethoven Festival - which together boast roughly 3,500 patrons per year.

"Forty-five years is a long time for any arts organization," said Morgan Vaughan, Basically Beethoven executive director since 2022. “But the fact that we’ve never once strayed from our mission of producing top-tier chamber music concerts, as well as training the new generation of classical musicians and concert-goers - for free - is truly extraordinary.”

“Most importantly,” Vaughan added, “Basically Beethoven concerts are incredible. The whole point is to offer concerts that are as good as you’d experience at any major hall, but that absolutely anyone can afford to attend.”

This year’s players include musicians from the Dallas Symphony, Dallas Opera Orchestra, Plano Symphony, Las Colinas Symphony, SMU Meadows School of the Arts, UNT College of Music, and others.

Concert Schedule and Highlights:

Sunday, July 12, 2026 - SARA DANESHPOUR, PIANO

• 2:30 PM - Rising Stars: Performer Diploma Students in the Music Division of the Meadows School of the Arts, SMU students Bradley Ritschel (baritone) and Kathryn Piña (soprano) with collaborative pianist, staff accompanist and alum of the Music Division Hannah St. Romain will perform Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Telephone, a 23-minute comic operetta. Special thanks to SMU Professor of Voice Virginia Dupuy
  

• 3:00 PM - Featured Performer: Sara Daneshpour, piano, performing Transcendental Études, a set of twelve masterful compositions for piano by Franz Liszt. Ms. Daneshpour is a piano professor at SMU and appears courtesy of Felsner Artists. Ms. Daneshpour has studied under the direction of  Leon Fleisher at the Curtis Institute of Music, with Yoheved Kaplinsky and Oleg Volkov at the Juilliard School, and with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Ms. Daneshpour previously was on the faculty at the University  of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and has joined the faculty of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, in 2025 https://www.felsnerartists.com/sara-daneshpour

Sunday, July 19, 2026  - PROKOFIEV QUINTET

• 2:30 PM - TexasCellos Ambassadors, 12 cello performers from Texas Cellos under Creative Director Joseph Kuipers, will perform the Allegretto from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92 (movement II), among other favorites
  

• 3:00 PM - Quintet - Filip Fenrych (violin), Sarah Sung (viola), Gina Ford (oboe), Marci Gurnow (clarinet), and Alexander Heather (bass) will perform the Prokofiev Quintet, Edgar Meyer’s Grand Duo for violin and double bass, and Rebecca Clark’s Duo for clarinet and viola

  
  

Sunday, July 26, 2026 - GRAN PARTITA

• 2:30 PM - Rising Star: Lucas Pei, piano – will perform Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in A minor, K 310/200d, Danse Russe (the first movement from Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrushka), and Fazil Say’s Black Earth 
  

• 3:00 PM -13-piece all-local Dallas ensemble will perform Mozart’s Gran Partita Serenade No. 10 for winds in Bb minor, K. 361/370a.  Players include Abigail Hawthorne and Arianna Kalian (oboe), Amy Woody, Ting-Wei Chang, Phillip O. Paglialonga, and Jon Jones (clarinet), John Searcy (bassoon), Stacie Mickens, Nancy Piper, Heather Test, and Nicolas Farmer (horn), and Ben Mitchell (bass)
  

• 4:15pm - 45th-anniversary celebration following the concert in Moody lobby, featuring live music, history of the organization 

Visit www.basicallybeethoven.org for specific repertoire, artist bios, and additional information such as parking suggestions and maps. All programs are subject to change due to any circumstances beyond our control.

Supporting Music Education Through Performance

The Basically Beethoven Festival features "Rising Stars" performances before each main concert, directly supporting Basically Beethoven's focus on music education by providing performance opportunities for students and pre-professional musicians.

2026 Rising Stars are:

July 12: Singers Bradley Ritschel and Kathryn Piña, Performer Diploma Students in the Music Division of the Meadows School of the Arts, SMU, performing Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Telephone, a short (23-minute) comic opera in English, with Hannah St. Romain, collaborative piano.

July 19: 12 cellists from Texas Cellos, the TexasCellos Ambassadors, performing Beethoven

July 26: Lucas Pei, piano, performing Mozart, Stravinsky, and Fazil Say

All Rising Star performances begin at 2:30pm and are followed by Featured Artists after a short break.

Poster Art

This year’s Basically Beethoven poster art is from the portfolio of Jacob Johnson, DFW-area guitarist and artist. Johnson's large format film photography captures the beauty of performance halls across North Texas, as well as natural spaces, people, instruments, and more.

The three photographs featured in this summer's posters and program books are from Johnson's latest work:

"Songs Without Words is an interdisciplinary project, comprised of a photobook, an EP of solo guitar music, and public exhibitions including a performance element. The visual and musical elements are intended to be experienced as a unified work. "

Find his work at https://www.johnsonguitarstudio.com/. 

45 Years of Basically Beethoven

In June 2024, Fine Arts Chamber Players changed its logo and “doing business as” name to Basically Beethoven in honor of FACP’s original and flagship festival of the same name that began in Dallas in 1981.

The Basically Beethoven Festival was modeled after Lincoln Center's famous Mostly Mozart Festival whose repertoire included many composers from the classical era as well as Mozart - and through the Romantic movement into the modern era. All 10 free Basically Beethoven concerts per year, including the festival at Moody Performance Hall and the Hallam concerts at Central Commons are similarly curated, sometimes featuring Beethoven, sometimes featuring other composers in the traditional canon as well as contemporary composers.

For 45 years, Basically Beethoven's mission has been to provide - for free - all concerts and music education in our programming. Its mission puts it in a unique position as high-level concert producers to open our doors 100% of the time to anyone who can attend a concert or access our YouTube channel. According to Basically Beethoven, "free" doesn't equate to "less than." Its concerts are professionally produced and executed, and players are among the best classical players in Dallas, performing regularly or permanently with the DSO, FWSO, Dallas Opera Orchestra, and professors and teachers with terminal degrees from area colleges, universities, and private studios.

Basically Beethoven Music Residencies provide free group and private lessons in violin, voice, and piano to students attending Dallas schools without robust music programs. Its students have gone on to careers in music and/or used their musical background and arts education as a stepping stone to college careers in other fields. Several BB students receive scholarships from the Rogene Russell Scholarship through the Dallas Foundation, including 2 singers this year (2026) from David W. Carter High School - one a full scholarship to Dallas College and another a large partial scholarship to a Dallas-area private college.

Ticket Information and Support

Admission is always free for Basically Beethoven concerts. Basically Beethoven asks patrons to RSVP on its website - www.basicallybeethoven.org - in case there are last-minute changes or information. Links to support the concerts and music residencies through donations via Zeffy or Stripe are there as well. 

For more information about Basically Beethoven's Music Residency program or to support music education through donation, visit www.basicallybeethoven/donate or email morgan@basicallybeethoven.org.

Media Contact: Morgan Vaughan, Executive Director, morgan@basicallybeethoven.org and 310.600.4296 (mobile)

Capital One is the presenting sponsor of the 2026 Basically Beethoven Festival. This is its 5th year as presenting sponsor. Other vital supporters include Fanchon & Howard Hallam, The City of Dallas Office of Arts & Culture, TACA - The Arts Community Alliance, Texas Commission on the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, Moody Fund for the Arts, DART, Individual Donors, and its board of directors, as well as Sammons Center for the Arts, Moody Performance Hall, and Central Commons, who rent to us at reduced nonprofit rates.

High-resolution photos, artist bios, and additional information available upon request.

Basically Beethoven continues the legacy of Fine Arts Chamber Players while embracing a new vision for classical music that celebrates excellence, accessibility, and the transformative power of music education.

Basically Beethoven Festival 2026 Poster, Sundays, July 12, 19, and 26, 2:30pm at Moody Performance Hall, Dallas, TX FREE