Past Festivals
IFCP’s sixth year was successful beyond expectations and enthusiastically received by a spirited audience which significantly increased in size from preceding years. The festival, held at Mannes College New School for Music and Frederick Lowe Theatre, NYU, featured Artistic Director Marc Ponthus in a multimedia performance of Boulez, Schumann, Stockhausen, Outis; cellist Joel Krosnick in a solo recital of Carter, Schuller, Shapey, Wernick; and violinist Rolf Schulte in a recital of Bartok, Carter, Martino, Stravinsky. Speculum Musicae presented a concert of Davidovsky, Lieberson and Rakowski and the IFCP Ensemble and Kolot Ensemble performed works of Crumb, Sanford, and Webern.
IFCP presented a diversity of events, concerts, workshops, symposia, pre-concert talks involving the performers, composers, IFCP participants and audience participation. Time Out New York announced that IFCP “spreads the new-music gospel all over town.”
The guest artists, performers, composers, and participants, including pianists Marc Ponthus and Aleck Karis, violinists Rolf Schulte and Curtis Macomber, clarinetist Allen Blustine, and the Dean of Mannes College, Joel Lester, conducted daily workshops. The Institute interacts with the Festival through a unique apprenticeship program and integrates the younger generation of performers by offering them unique opportunities to work and perform with, and alongside some of the most accomplished and experienced performers of new music within a larger forum of ideas and educational support. Indeed, this principle was reflected not only in music but in the inclusion of Institute participants in the various pre-concert discussions.
In spite of lacking sufficient resources to advertise the events in the press, IFCP received free daily announcements in the New York Times and Time Out New York, which called the festival an “invaluable new music boot camp,” and IFCP was chosen as a listing in Critics’ Picks.
We feel that the goals set out for the sixth year were fulfilled well above and beyond expectations. The significant increase in the size of the audience clearly creates a need not only to pursue but to expand this effort, answering a clear demand from the musical community and audience alike. We fully intend, with the greatly needed support from our donors, to build on these accomplishments.
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