Carmel Bach Festival

Carmel Bach Festival celebrates the Baroque period and the works of J.S. Bach, engaging more than 17,000 audience members through concerts, recitals, lectures, films, open rehearsals, and vocal training sessions. Becoming increasingly multidisciplinary, the festival and the organization’s off-season programs seek to provide new points of entry for current and potential audiences, particularly in underserved areas such as Seaside and the Salinas Valley. With both new artistic and executive leadership, renewed support would help the organization implement its recently completed strategic plan, focusing on diversifying programs and community engagement as well as strengthening the board and infrastructure.

The West's oldest music festival, Carmel Bach Festival celebrates the Baroque period and the works of J.S. Bach, entertaining 22,000 audience members through concerts, recitals, lectures, films, open rehearsals, and vocal training sessions. The Discovery Series, a free educational outreach feature of the Festival, attracts families to its concerts at local community centers and senior facilities, and its Youth Chorus and Young Musicians Showcase develop the talents of the aspiring young musicians who attend. With both new artistic and executive leadership, and a number of challenges in building audiences in classical music, as well as in building the institution, the organization plans to implement an assessment of its operations as it prepares to embark on strategic planning effort for 2014-2017.