Year after year, festival patrons travel not only from Puget Sound communities but from as far as Asia and Europe to enjoy performances at one of the Pacific Northwest’s premier chamber music concert series, the Olympic Music Festival.

Last year, however, many stayed home to watch and listen virtually as the festival held only one in-person performance. This year, however, will begin in person on Aug. 13.

“It’s going to be a reunion of sorts,” said Emilie Baker, managing director for the event.

“It’s incredibly difficult to do all of this remotely,” she said, noting that this year they’re “learning how to live within the pandemic and still bring people together for these events that do so much for people mentally and socially through music.”

While the festival is known for wowing crowds with those musical performances, some of the most important work they do goes on behind the scenes in the Olympic Chamber Music Fellowship.

The fellowship brings in five young musicians fresh out of college to prepare them for what a professional touring schedule is like.

A rigorous eight hours of rehearsal begins the day after fellows arrive on the peninsula and continues daily up until their performance.

Then they rinse and repeat this process for four unique concerts.

The group is paired with five mentors who offer not only tips on their performance, but also sit with them to talk about the nuts and bolts of the musician life—like how to negotiate contracts and figure out what their taxes might look like as professional musicians.

Julio Elizalde, artistic director for the festival, began the fellowship program in 2015 when he took over the directorship. Elizalde has performed at the event since 2008 and become co-artistic director in 2012 before being handed the reigns.

Historically, the festival has included an educational piece.

Founder Alan Iglitzin would bring high school students from around the country for a similar, if not quite as intense, form of education. This eventually fell away until Elizalde brought it back in its current form.

Of course, all that effort and education shows itself in the music.

When asked what she was most looking forward to this year, managing director Baker hesitated to name any one group, but in the end had to go with returning crowd favorite GardenMusic.

“This is an eclectic group of classically trained musicians that play classical improv,” she said.

“They show up and we don’t know what they’re going to play,” she added.

This year, GardenMusic has at least divulged that they’ll be playing a medley of John Williams’ scores, but not which pieces or or how they’ll be arranged.

Elizalde will also be taking the stage as he has done since 2008, years before he began working as artistic director. He’ll be performing on multiple occasions, some which will include piano four hand duets.

For information on tickets and event dates, go to olympicmusicfestival.org.