Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music

The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music is recognized nationally as one of the finest music festivals devoted primarily to twentieth- and twenty-first-century American music for orchestra. The organization presents an annual summer festival for contemporary music that draws more than 3,000 audience members to Santa Cruz, along with some of the world’s most renowned composers, musicians, and conductors. During the grant period, Cabrillo plans to expand its commissioning program, continue expanding engagement opportunities for audiences, and increase contributions from individual donors by targeting campaigns and hiring additional staff for fund development.

Founded by composer Lou Harrison in 1963, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music is recognized nationally as one of the finest music festivals devoted primarily to 20 and 21st-century American music for orchestra. Each summer the Santa Cruz festival offers more than two weeks of sixty-plus ticketed and free events to an audience of more than 18,000. Composers whose work is presented usually attend the Festival and participate in open rehearsals, symposia, informal talks, post performance discussions, and a free family concert. The festival, under the musical direction of Marin Alsop since 1991, also includes workshops for young new music composers, coveted ‘podium time’ for gifted young conductors and runs a year-long student-staff program to provide 20-25 high school and local college music students access to the festival’s professional musicians. Maestra Alsop is a 2005 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and, with her 2006 appointment to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the first woman to lead a major American orchestra. Her involvement with the Cabrillo Festival attracts top musical talent, significant media coverage and increasingly greater donor support for commissions of major new works. With renewed support the festival will continue it s commitment to early-career composers, present five symphonic programs each summer and develop digital platforms for disseminating new music on the internet.