After considerable deliberation, the Board of the National Music Festival has made the difficult decision to cancel the planned August 2021 season.
While the COVID-19 situation is improving, it is not yet possible for NMF to responsibly and successfully hold a two-week orchestral event with musicians who travel from throughout the United States and from abroad to be here, the festival’s directors explained.
“The safety of our musicians, audience, and community is of paramount importance,” said NMF Artistic Director Richard Rosenberg. “Some of our musicians have told us that they are not yet comfortable traveling or congregating with groups of people, and we take those concerns seriously.”
“We must also safeguard the long-term financial viability of NMF,” added Executive Director Caitlin Patton. “The best way to do that is to wait until June 2022 to return to the Festival that we all know and love. Social distancing requirements for both our performers and audience members would make it impossible to produce the quality of music to which you are accustomed, and to sell enough tickets to make the festival financially viable.”
NMF is already working hard on the 2022 Festival, which is scheduled for June 5-18, 2022. It will be an exciting season, including riveting music by Beethoven, Gershwin, Mendelssohn, Strauss, and Tchaikovsky. Several mentors will be featured as concerto soloists, among them guitarist Camilo Carrara (Vivaldi, “Concerto for Lute in D”) and violinist Simon Smith (Korngold’s cinematic “Concerto for Violin”). More details will be announced soon.
And the Festival’s Resonance concert series is scheduled to resume this fall with six performances October 202 through April 2022. For more information, visit their website here.
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