FIU Music Festival Opens October 15 as the Wertheim Performing Arts Center Marks 30 Years

Miami Wire Staff

The 2026 FIU Music Festival opens October 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the Herbert and Nicole Wertheim Performing Arts Center, celebrating 30 years of the venue and FIU’s Wertheim School of Music & Performing Arts. The ten-day festival runs through October 24 and brings alumni, students, faculty, and guest artists together on the same stage.

Key Takeaways

The Amernet String Quartet, FIU’s Artist-in-Residence ensemble, opens the festival with Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and Mendelssohn’s Octet, performing with Wertheim alumni and current students.
Six FIU jazz alumni return on October 16 for “Jazz All-Stars: A Wertheim Homecoming” with the FIU Studio Jazz Band.
On October 20, Vincent Dubois, an organist at Notre-Dame Cathedral, performs with accordionist Marie-Andrée Joerger.
The October 24 closing concert features “Kaddish,” a cello concerto by Frederick Kaufman, the founding director of FIU’s School of Music.
The festival is the centerpiece of the Wertheim’s 2026–27 anniversary season, which also includes the New Music Miami ISCM Festival and the FIU Miami International GuitART Festival.

The Festival Opens With Alumni and Students on One Stage

The opening concert sets the tone for the whole anniversary. The Amernet String Quartet, FIU’s resident ensemble, anchors the night, but it is not performing alone. Wertheim alumni and current students join the quartet for Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and Mendelssohn’s Octet.

The program choices fit that lineup. Both pieces are written for larger string groups than a standard quartet, so they need extra players. The Mendelssohn Octet in particular calls for eight string players working closely together. Putting former and current students in those seats turns the piece into a picture of 30 years of teaching: musicians who trained in the building now share the stage with the ensemble that coached them.

Jazz Alumni Come Home on Night Two

On October 16, the festival shifts to jazz. Six accomplished alumni from the Wertheim School’s jazz program return for “Jazz All-Stars: A Wertheim Homecoming,” performing with the FIU Studio Jazz Band.

For Miami audiences, this may be the clearest look at what the school has produced. The city’s jazz and Latin jazz scene relies on players who can move between styles, and FIU’s program has supplied many of them. A homecoming concert shows where those musicians have gone and lets current students hear their own possible futures from the stage.

Voices, Strings, Organ, and Accordion Fill the Middle of the Festival

The middle of the schedule covers a wide range. “Arias and American Voices” on October 17 puts the school’s vocal program in the spotlight, and the Toomai String Quintet performs on October 18.

The October 20 program brings an unusual pairing to Miami. Vincent Dubois, an organist at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, performs with accordionist Marie-Andrée Joerger in “French Suites to Fiery Tangos.” The concert moves from French repertoire to tango, a Paris-to-Buenos Aires route that suits Miami’s place between European and Latin American musical traditions.

The program continues with “Tony Succar and Mimi!” on October 21 and “Liszt & Jiménez: Piano, Song and Virtuosity” with Gekic, Baker, and Lopez on October 22. The second program pairs the Romantic piano repertoire with song and features the school’s keyboard faculty.

The Closing Concert Honors the School’s Founding Director

The festival ends on October 24 with a nod to its own history. The FIU Symphony Orchestra performs Frederick Kaufman’s Concerto for Cello and Strings, “Kaddish,” with Jason Calloway of the Amernet String Quartet as soloist. Kaufman was the founding director of FIU’s School of Music, so the anniversary festival closes with a work by the person who started the program.

Ending a 30th-anniversary festival with the founder’s music is a deliberate choice. The festival begins with students and alumni playing beside the quartet that trained them and ends with the school’s founding vision performed by today’s orchestra.

Thirty Years of Training Miami Musicians

The anniversary is about more than a concert hall. For three decades, the Wertheim has served as both a training ground and a stage, mentoring young musicians and sending them into Miami’s orchestras, jazz clubs, churches, schools, and studios. FIU has described the anniversary season as a celebration of 30 years of educating, mentoring, and launching musicians.

That educational mission ties into wider conversations in the city about who gets access to music training. Developments such as adaptive music technology that is widening access to music education and production in Miami show that the region’s music schools and creative communities are rethinking who gets to participate.

A Busy Classical Week Across Miami

The festival lands in a crowded week for classical music in South Florida. Miami City Ballet opens its season at the Adrienne Arsht Center on October 16, the Miami International Piano Festival presents a two-piano program in Aventura on October 18, and New World Symphony has a baroque program on the calendar. For listeners in western Miami-Dade, the FIU festival offers ten days of programming close to home.

FAQs

When is the 2026 FIU Music Festival?

The festival runs from October 15 to October 24, 2026, at the Herbert and Nicole Wertheim Performing Arts Center at FIU.

What is performed at the FIU Music Festival opening night?

The Amernet String Quartet performs Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and Mendelssohn’s Octet with Wertheim alumni and current students on October 15 at 7:30 p.m.

Why is the 2026 festival significant?

It celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Wertheim Performing Arts Center and FIU’s Herbert and Nicole Wertheim School of Music & Performing Arts.

Who is the Amernet String Quartet?

The Amernet String Quartet is FIU’s Artist-in-Residence ensemble. Its members coach student musicians and perform throughout the school’s concert season.