Alexandra Munroe, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS), announced today that Meghan Martineau Umber has been named the organization’s Munroe President and CEO, effective from October 1, 2026. Umber joins AMFS from the LA Philharmonic, where she currently serves as President, Hollywood Bowl & Chief Programming Officer.
Marking the seventh executive leader in AMFS’s 77-year history and the first woman in that role to date, she will succeed Alan Fletcher, who will transition to the position of President Emeritus after 21 years of transformational leadership.
Umber, a pianist with a music degree from the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, has provided strategic leadership at the LA Phil, where she has been key to the artistic planning and functioning of America’s most innovative major orchestra for two decades. She’s thrilled to be taking the reins at AMFS.
“As much as I'm known for my work on the programming side, I've always found myself to be a generalist,” she said. “I love talking about the artist’s experience and the audience’s experience, [as well as] getting to know board members, donors, and what makes people click, and why a larger community should care and does care about an arts institution.
She added, “I'm excited to get deeply involved in the Aspen community at large, and in particular, in Aspen, since the AMFS has year-round music education programming in the Roaring Fork Valley. I can't wait to get to know that side of their business better and to make a difference in a new community.”
Umber also acknowledged Music Director Robert Spano, who, she called “a gift. If you look at the programming they have this year, it’s really extraordinary. He has both ambition and great taste, and his heart is with the students to create amazing educational experiences, and he does that very much hand-in-hand with the faculty there.”
Indeed, AMFS is a thriving organization, and under Fletcher’s auspices, its annual budget has grown from $14 million to $23 million, and its endowment from $43 million to $115 million. As the United States’ premier classical music center for performance and education, it presents more than 400 musical events during its eight-week summer season in Aspen.
Drawing top classical musicians from around the world for a rich combination of performances of orchestral works, opera, chamber music, recitals, contemporary music, works by new or previously unrecognized voices, popular genres, family events, and talks, competitions, and classes, AMFS attracts some 500 music students from 40 U.S. states and 40 countries each summer.
For Fletcher, who leaves behind a 21-year legacy of expansion and transformation and will become president of the Advisory Board for the Arts, Umber’s appointment is an exciting one. “The LA Phil has been a center for innovation and great thinking about music, and she’s been at the heart of that. It’s fortunate for Aspen that she will come to us, and my wish is that everyone believe in Aspen and care for it the way I have done. I have no doubt that she will.”
Having played a central role in shaping the LA Phil’s innovative artistic identity, including spearheading the orchestra’s debut at Coachella, she’s also championed such composers as Gabriela Ortiz and Ellen Reid. With Caroline Shaw as AMFS composer-in-residence this season, Umber said that “it’s all about the growing of what is already the core values of the festival itself. Incredibly, they co-commissioned David Lang’s new piece [the wealth of nations] that the New York Philharmonic just premiered. Any successful orchestral school and festival needs to have living, modern voices at the center of it.”
While at the LA Phil, Umber also worked on a number of cross-disciplinary projects with bold-faced names that included Esa-Pekka Salonen, Frank Gehry, and Gustavo Dudamel. But it’s the students at AMFS that she keeps top of mind. “What’s most important is the student experience and keeping the school at the heart of everything they do. But I think Aspen is custom-built to dream big.
“The festival shares the campus with the Aspen Ideas Institute,” added Umber. “There is such an open-mindedness around what can be in their world and in their future. Certainly, being engaged in dialogue with people in the music industry and outside of music, but in other creative fields, is a value added to everyone that participates in the festival.”
Umber, who said she is looking forward to moving to Roaring Fork Valley in August with her husband and two young children, is decidedly energized about the future. “What is so clear to me is how beloved this festival and school are – to everyone – alumni, practicing faculty. The passion they all have is what makes me so excited to join their community.”
