Our Story:
In 2015, we launched the Danbury Chamber Music Intensive (CMI), a week-long summer program housed at the Danbury Music Centre, an 80 year-old community music organization. The program invites emerging professional musicians to Danbury to teach and perform with local aspiring musicians through chamber music rehearsals, master classes, and performances. CMI now annually provides a unique and intense chamber music experience to local musicians, both children and adults, who may not have ever been exposed to chamber music.
In conceiving of CMI, we decided one core aspect of this program would be a concert series the artists perform. We planned four free community concerts throughout the week of CMI because we wanted to provide CMI program participants and the community at large with the opportunity to hear high-quality chamber music performance alongside the daily educational activities the participants engaged in. One of concerts the first year was a new music concert called "Charles Ives and His Living Legacy" featuring the music of Ives alongside living composers. It was a hit! Our community loved the idea that their hometown hero spurring an entire tradition of American concert music and also meeting the composers who were carrying on that tradition. In 2016, we expanded our series from 4 concerts to 6, programmed more contemporary music, and had our first ever composer-in-residence, Robert Beaser. Today, we are beyond excited to announce that after consulting with the Charles Ives Society, our concert series is now officially the Charles Ives Concert Series, which is committed to exploring the legacy of Ives and his music.
In the broadest of terms, our goal is to celebrate Ives' legacy by transforming the musical life of the Danbury area. With your help, we can begin to make Danbury a place known not just for its hometown composer, but for its numerous performances of today's American composers powered by a concert series that regularly features dynamic and unique emerging artists performing their works alongside the music of Ives and music that transcends the traditional boundaries of classical music to incorporate other styles - an "Ivesian" tradition. In just two years, we've performed and/or premiered the work of almost 30 American composers and are poised to hit 40 by the end of the year. We can envision a future in Danbury where this series is not only a hub for American music, but one in which this series is a Danbury area cultural icon.
We realize this is a long road, but it's one we're excited about traveling and your contributions to this launch fund allow us to chart a course that gets us to our destination.
We're trying to raise $5,000 to transform Danbury's musical life. Here's how we get started:
1. Your support ensures a successful inaugural season and many more.
We have a really exciting lineup planned for our first-ever season, but we need your support. Your contributions go toward fees for our outstanding artists, marketing and promotion, instrument rental, and recording. Your support also enables us to keep our concerts FREE!!
Here's what we've got on tap for this summer:
August 6th: Folk Music in the Age of Ives, featuring Ives Series Artist-Faculty performing a program of music by Ives and his contemporaries that use folk music in creative ways, a hallmark of Ives' music.
August 8th: Enduring Traditions, featuring Ives Series Guest Artists Julian Schwarz (cello) and Marika Bournaki (piano) performing a program of American music spanning from the 19th century to today's 21st century composers, including our composer-in-residence, Justin Dello Joio.
August 10th: Harmony, featuring a collaboration between CMI participants and Ives Series Artist-Faculty followed by Ives Series Guest Artist Charles Yang (violin) and Peter Dugan (piano).
August 12th: The Ives Living Legacy: Today's American Compsoers, featuring Ives Series Artist-Faculty and Ives Series Guest Artist Simon Boyar (percussion) performing the works of Ives and today's American composers, including 2017 featured composer Max Grafe, composer-in-residence Justin Dello Joio, David Ludwig, Kevin Puts, Caroline Shaw, the winner of our call for scores, and Paul Frucht, our artistic director.
Our Artist-Faculty include: Isabel Hagen (viola), Hannah Ji (violin), Ben Laude (piano), Mitch Lyon (cello), Ariana Nelson (cello), Mika Sasaki (piano), Jacob Shack (viola), Caeli Smith (viola), and Chelsea Starbuck Smith (violin). Read about them here: http://danburymusiccentre.org/c-ives-artists/
2. Your support goes toward the commissioning of living American composers.
Last year we launched our Composer-in-Residence and Featured Composer programs. This year those programs are continuing and we're introducing a call for scores. The next step in doing our part to support composers is to start commissioning them. We want to commission our first composer in 2019 and no later than 2020.
3. Your support goes toward programming additional concerts and inviting additional artists in the future.
When we launched CMI in 2015, we invited 6 artist-faculty members and 2 guest artists. Two years later, we've invited 9 artist-faculty members and 5 guest artists. In addition to our 4 annual August concerts, we programmed two additional spring concerts in 2016, and three additional spring concerts in 2017 for a total of 7 concerts this year. The math here is a no-brainer. The more artists on our roster, the more concerts we can program (and with greater flexibility). The more concerts we can program, the more we can program the work of living composers and serve our community. Eventually, we'd like to have 10-15 concerts year round including our week of 4 every August.
4. Your support goes toward supporting and expanding opportunities for young composers in the future.
Currently we have a composition program through the Chamber Music Intensive that offers program participants the opportunity to write two works each year: one for other instrumental participants to perform and another for artist-faculty to read and record. Participants also work with the Ives Series Composer-in-Residence through lessons and master classes. With your support, we can expand this opportunity to offer more composers this opportunity as well as new ones, such as a young composers concert on the Charles Ives Concert Series with an expanded Call for Scores serving more composer.
We value every single contribution, no matter how small. The Danbury Music Centre is a 501-(c)(3) organization so every contribution is tax-deductible.
Our perks range from a thank you in our program to a digital download to a private house concert, but everyone, regardless of contribution size, gets one thing: a recorded personal thank you video by one of our Series Artist-Faculty, Guests Artists, Composer-in-Residence, Featured Composer, and/or Artistic Director.
*Please note: In the midst of our perk creativity, we'd like to clarify that our composer-themed perks do not denote any value judgement about the composers based on the monetary amounts they're associated with!
Aren't able to donate at this time?
That's ok! We understand not everyone who feels passionate about what we're trying to accomplish is necessarily financially able to donate. So here are some other ways you can help:
-Share our campaign with your friends or on social media and tag The Danbury Music Centre.
-Spread the word about our concerts, which you can read about here:
http://danburymusiccentre.org/charles-ives-conc...
-Tell us you're interested in what we're doing and we'll put you on our mailing list.
-If you're local, let us know if you'd like to volunteer. We always are in need of additional help on the ground!
E-mail us at CMI@danburymusiccentre.org
Thank you for your support!
-Danbury Music Centre