Sir Donald Runnicles and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra Deliver a Landmark Recording of Mahler’s Fifth – That Eric Alper

Few symphonies in the orchestral canon carry the weight of Mahler’s Fifth, and fewer conductors carry the credibility to do it full justice. Sir Donald Runnicles, widely regarded as one of today’s pre-eminent Mahler interpreters, leads the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra through a landmark performance of the symphony, released today via Reference Recordings. It’s the Festival Orchestra’s second album for the label, following its acclaimed recording of Beethoven Piano Concertos with Garrick Ohlsson, and it arrives as one of the more significant classical recordings of 2026. Listen here.

Recorded live in July 2024 during the Festival’s summer residency at Walk Festival Hall in Teton Village, Wyoming, the performance captures an ensemble of more than 250 elite musicians drawn from 84 orchestras and 72 institutions across North America and Europe. These aren’t studio musicians assembled for a session. They’re principal players and section leaders who gather annually under Runnicles’ artistic leadership, and the recorded result reflects that collective intensity. Celebrated hornist and brass pedagogue Gail Williams and preeminent trumpet player Thomas Hooten lead the Festival Orchestra brass throughout.

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