The last of the summer strings
Welcome back to The Santa Fe Weekender — five handpicked things worth your weekend, no scrolling required. After last weekend’s Indian Market, the city exhales. This is the quieter kind of Santa Fe weekend, the one locals keep for themselves: chamber music downtown, red chile without the wait, and a farmers market in the morning cool.
The main thing
The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival’s closing weekend, downtown. One of the country’s great summer music festivals plays out its final concerts after a full season, in the beautiful 1931 Lensic on San Francisco Street. Saturday at 5, Harry Bicket conducts a program of Bach’s orchestral suites. Sunday at 6 brings Schubert and Brahms, alongside a festival-commissioned premiere from Magnus Lindberg. And if you can steal a Monday evening, the season finale at 6 is Czech masters — Martinů, Mysliveček, and Dvořák’s radiant Piano Quintet with the Dover Quartet. Tickets at lensic.org or santafechambermusic.org; go for the quiet thrill of great players in a small, warm room.
Eat
The Shed, just off the Plaza on East Palace — red chile enchiladas that have drawn lines since 1953, served in a cool warren of adobe rooms. With the Indian Market crowds gone, this is the weekend to finally get a table without the wait.
La Choza, The Shed’s sister spot on Alarid Street, a short hop from the Railyard — voted the city’s best New Mexican by Santa Fe Reporter readers, with the same family recipes and a little more elbow room.
Both are walk-in only and both close Sundays, so make it a Friday or Saturday.
Do
The Santa Fe Farmers Market, Saturday morning at the Railyard. Eight to one at the market pavilion on Paseo de Peralta — one of the oldest and best farmers markets in the country, and late August is its peak: tomatoes, peaches, flowers, and green chile by the sack. Go early while it’s still cool, follow your nose to the chile roasters, grab a breakfast burrito, and take home a bag for the freezer.
See
Indian Theater at SITE Santa Fe. In the Railyard, SITE’s summer headliner — Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969 — is a landmark show on how Native artists have used performance to tell their own stories. It runs through September 7, it’s the perfect cool, quiet way to ride out a monsoon afternoon, and it’s a deeper cut for anyone still thinking about last weekend.
Also on
The opera is still going. The Santa Fe Opera’s season runs through the end of the month, and Saturday night brings Mozart’s The Magic Flute under the open-air roof. If you’ve never done the opera house at sunset, this is the one to start with — come early, tailgate in the parking lot like a local, and watch the storm light move across the Jemez.
And a word on the weather: it’s monsoon season, so afternoon thunderstorms roll through most days. Hike and shop in the morning, keep galleries and music for the afternoon, and always leave a jacket in the car.
Looking ahead: Fiesta de Santa Fe kicks off next weekend and runs into September — if you’re planning around it, book dinner and parking now.
That’s the weekend. If a friend would love it, forward it their way — they can subscribe at thesantafeweekender.com.
See you next Friday, The Santa Fe Weekender
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