“The classical music world mourned last year when Spring for Music, an innovative festival that brought adventurous American orchestras to Carnegie Hall each spring for four years, ended for lack of funding. But now a successor festival is being planned in Washington,” writes Michael Cooper in Tuesday’s (1/13) New York Times. “A new three-year festival, to be called ‘Shift: A Festival of American Orchestras,’ is being planned by the Kennedy Center and Washington Performing Arts, the organizations announced on Tuesday. It will bring four or five North American orchestras to Washington each spring beginning in 2017…. The original Spring for Music festival rewarded orchestras for their innovative programming. The new festival, Shift, will showcase their work in community outreach. The festival is being paid for in part by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for $900,000, of which $700,000 will be used to attract matching funds. The idea is not only for orchestras to perform at the Kennedy Center, but also to perform and hold workshops and talks in nontraditional venues around Washington to show the kind of work they do in their hometowns…. Orchestras will be invited to apply to participate in the festival later this month, and their proposals will be due in March.”
Posted January 13, 2015
Photo of Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts by Carol Pratt
