1/9/08 PRESS RELEASE

GREENWICH MUSIC FESTIVAL
Office: 39 Patterson Avenue, Greenwich, CT 06830

Contact: Ted Huffman, Artistic Director
203.820.3668 ted@greenwichmusicfestival.com



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 9, 2008


Greenwich Music Festival Wins National Award from Chamber Music America


Greenwich, CT – The Greenwich Music Festival was presented on January 5th with the prestigious Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming in a ceremony at the annual CMA conference. The award honors excellence and innovation within the field of chamber music. Past recipients include the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. The Greenwich Music Festival is the first and only organization in the state of Connecticut to receive this coveted national prize.

“It is a great honor, and the first national recognition for the work we are doing in town,” said Greenwich native and Artistic Director Ted Huffman. “We set out from the start to build something truly ground-breaking and dynamic. Too often in this country we operate under the assumption that leadership and innovation in the arts has to originate in urban centers like New York. Greenwich, with its combination of highly educated audiences, generous arts patrons, and excellent musical training in schools has proven an ideal place for our artists to live, share, and create.”

The award, sponsored jointly by Chamber Music America and The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, is determined each year by a jury of industry leaders. The Greenwich Music Festival was chosen as this year’s festival recipient along with the Music Series at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Representatives from both organizations spoke on a panel this weekend about innovative programming and the importance of new music.

“It was a wonderful feeling to know we had been chosen along with an organization (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) that has been in existence for decades and has a vastly larger budget,” said Huffman. “We’re also proud of the humble way we began and the rate at which we have grown. The first festival—held just four years ago in 2004--was produced with funds from the artists themselves. There were no salaries. We all wanted to be here. We all wanted to create this.”

Further proof that the GMF is already gaining an impressive national and international reputation is that on February 8th the Ravinia Festival, home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, will present Mason Bates’ Red River, a work commissioned, developed, and premiered by GMF in the 2007 festival.

“We especially want to thank Charles and Deborah Royce,” said Huffman, “who underwrote the commission of Red River. Without their vision and generosity, we wouldn’t have had the means to produce this first commission, which was a very large and important step for our company.”

“Our goal now is to raise local awareness of our company. We realize that many music lovers in Greenwich and the surrounding communities have never heard of us, which I suppose is the challenge of every new company. We hope that in continuing to produce good work and attract new audiences we can change the perception that for the finest quality classical music you have to travel to New York.”

The festival invites a group of artists—musical, dramatic, and visual—to live, collaborate, and perform in Greenwich for one month each year. The artists live with host families, rehearse various projects, and bring outreach programs to local classrooms. The artists who receive GMF Residencies perform regularly as soloists with the finest opera companies, orchestra, and festivals around the world including the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, and many others.

The festival was founded by baritone Ted Huffman and conductor Robert Ainsley. Huffman, a native of Greenwich, now lives in New York City and spends much of the year performing with opera companies and orchestras across the U.S. and Europe. Ainsley, having completed the Metropolitan Opera’a Lindemann Young Artist Program, is now Head of Music for Portland Opera in Oregon. He returns each year as Principal Conductor of the festival.

Plans for the 2008 season are under way. The festival will be anchored by three performances of Monteverdi’s rarely-heard masterpiece The Return of Ulysses. Additional programs will explore Monteverdi’s role in musical history as innovator and rebel.

“Monteverdi had a very public life-long battle with the musical establishment, in particular the critic Artusi. His catalogue of works is the best documentation we have of the musical revolution that took place between the Renaissance and the Baroque eras,” said Huffman. “His operas are strikingly modern and accessible; Ulysses teems with passion, comedy and tragedy all at once.”

For more information about the Greenwich Music Festival, visit www.greenwichmusicfestival.org.

PLEASE SEE ATTACHED IMAGES

Captions:

1. Artistic Director Ted Huffman receives award plaque from Chamber Music America Program Director Susan Dadian

2. Artistic Director with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec, one of the composers featured on the 2007 Greenwich Music Festival

3. Artistic Director Ted Huffman speaks on new music panel at Chamber Music America conference at Westin Times Square


INTERVIEWS WITH ARTISTIC DIRECTOR TED HUFFMAN UPON REQUEST.

Contact: (203)820-3668, ted@greenwichmusicfestival.org

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