The 2025 season is dedicated to the memory of Carolyn “Kay” Bucksbaum for her vision and steadfast devotion to the AMFS. Through her service as an AMFS Trustee and Chair of the Board from 2010 to 2012, Kay added another crowning contribution to her decades of philanthropic leadership and advocacy alongside her work in promoting social justice and women’s rights. She never wavered from a strong personal moral compass, nor from her belief in tolerance and understanding. Kay first came to Aspen in 1953 when she and her new husband, Matthew, discovered the Music Festival. That summer Matthew attended his first-ever orchestral concert. From that summer visit their lives became intertwined with Aspen and the AMFS, and many generations of Aspenites have benefited from their love of this community. Matthew would go on to join the AMFS Board in 1985 and serve twice as its chair, and both he and Kay were honored as Life Trustees of the organization. Matthew, Kay, and their family developed a profound love for music during their Aspen summers: their children, Ann and John, grew up attending the beloved “Uncle Forrest” children’s concerts well before each became advocates for the AMFS in their own right. Each summer Kay and Matthew would invite students to their home to practice on their piano and enjoy the beautiful vistas; they hosted many dinners with musicians that often ended in spontaneous chamber music concerts. Throughout their involvement with the AMFS Kay and Matthew carefully considered the long-term, indelible impact of their philanthropic leadership. Deeply committed to the excellence of our students and faculty, Kay and Matthew created the New Horizons Fellowship program, which supports a cohort of thirty students every summer. Their historic anchor gift during the “Where Dreams Begin” campaign made the new teaching campus on Castle Creek, which bears their names, a reality. If ever there were a person about whom one says with love and confidence, “May her memory be a blessing,” it would be Kay Bucksbaum.
