California Summer Music
For General Operating Support
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Amount$40,000
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Program
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Date Awarded3/22/2011
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Term12.0 Months
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Type of SupportGeneral Support/Organization
Strategies
Overview
California Summer Music is a three-week summer training program for young musicians held at Sonoma State University; enrollment consists of sixty to seventy advanced students from around the world under the age of twenty-five. California Summer Music has been supported by the Foundation since its founding in 1995, but given the limited number of Bay Area students who are accepted into the program, the expensive tuition ($4,000 per student), and the very small amount of scholarship support available, we have concluded that ongoing funding is not the most effective way for our Program to reach its goals in arts education and artist training. A history of inattention to building a strong base of support, to developing a plan for establishing itself in Sonoma after twelve years in Monterey County, and the lack of understanding about its current and potential audiences has landed California Summer Music in a very vulnerable position. This final grant would enable California Summer Music to operate its 2011 summer training and strengthen its fundraising capacity.
About the Grantee
Grantee Website
www.csmusic.org
Address
P.M.B. 104 236 West Portal Avenue, San Francisco, CA, 94127-1423, United States
Grants to this Grantee
for general support
Founded in 1995, California Summer Music (CSM) is a three-and-one-half-week summer training program for young musicians held in Pebble Beach. Enrollment consists of sixty to seventy advanced students from around the world under the age of 25. Under the musical direction of cellist Irene Sharp, CSM focuses on intensive one-on-one instruction and on chamber music, both standard repertory and new music, as a means for increasing individual technical/musical facility. CSM occupies a distinctive niche among top-flight summer programs for exceptional young artists by placing special emphasis on cultivating young composers. The composition students are in their early 20s and are all provided scholarships so that they can attend CSM and with Pulitzer Prize winning composer Paul Morevac. In addition to furthering the program’s strategic objectives around sustaining musical excellence and promoting arts education, CSM’s presents 20 annual free public concerts at local schools and to audiences throughout Monterey County, one of the least well served of the Bay Area’s 11 counties. With ongoing general operating support this $340,000 organization will be able to improve organizational effectiveness by retaining the services of Cynthia Mei, hired in 2007 to share administrative and managerial responsiblities with CSM founder Irene Sharp.
