For more than 60 years, beginning in late June, the sounds of classical music-making filled the campus of Guilford College: home of the Eastern Music Festival. This summer brings silence, though, as the festival was canceled due to a dispute between faculty musicians and the board over compensation and the best path forward.
To help keep the spirit of the festival alive, dozens of current and past faculty and students from across the country are coming to Greensboro next week to perform a free concert. Organizer John Shaw is a percussionist and a lead negotiator. He says more than 50 EMF faculty and alumni are traveling from as far away as California to perform.
"It's a lost opportunity for this year, but we want to make sure that we preserve the model of the festival and keep moving forward into next year, and we need the community's help to ensure that we do that," says Shaw.
On the program will be music by Gustav Mahler, Aaron Copland, Beethoven, and more. Leading the orchestra will be EMF alumna and North Carolina Symphony Assistant Conductor Sophie Sze-ki Mok. She says the festival changed her life.
"It was my first formal conducting a summer festival," says Mok. "And I have gained so much knowledge and experience in that festival, and friendship also. And without that year that I was in Eastern Music Festival, I would not have had a career like this."
Eastern Music Festival Executive Director Chris Williams provided WFDD with a written statement in which he highlights that EMF has engaged in a 16-month collective bargaining process with the American Federation of Musicians.
He notes that while the June 30 concert is intended to bring attention to the union’s concerns, EMF is not affiliated with or producing this event.
The concert takes place on Monday at 7:30 p.m. at Temple Emanuel in Greensboro.