The Moab Music Festival's signature events, the Grotto Concerts celebrate music in concert with the landscape by combining the beauty of the region's scenic wonders with classical chamber music. The concerts take place in a pristine wilderness grotto, which is carved from the red rock by the spring floods of the Colorado River. In describing the grotto’s acoustics, Festival Music Director Michael Barrett said in the New York Times, “This is our Carnegie Hall. God made this one and Carnegie made the other one.”

2010 Festival Grotto Concerts will take place on Thursday, September 2; Thursday, September 9; Monday, September 13.   Program details and tickets.

Patrons gather in Moab at midday and board buses for a scenic 30 minute ride to the boat put-in. There they board comfortable, canopied jet boats for a breathtaking 45 minute calm water Colorado River tour through the canyons to the grotto. Highlights of the trip include a view of famous Dead Horse Point and a chance to float under now equally notorious cliff where Thelma and Louise met their ultimate fate. Once at the site, patrons settle in the Festival’s comfortable camp chairs to listen to chamber music performed by world-renowned artists. The enthralling experience of hearing the musical notes drift up the rock walls, sometimes joined by the trill of a Canyon Wren, is surpassed only by the incongruous sight of a grand piano and by the rich sound it achieves in these magical surroundings.

The Grotto Concerts are benefit concerts. Tickets are partially tax-deductible and provide important financial support to the Moab Music Festival and to the Festival’s educational activities in the community. Children: No children under 12 years of age are permitted.