The Hot Springs Music Festival has no plans to return to Spa City this summer, the festival’s board of directors recently announced.
“We have been evaluating various strategic partnerships over the past few months, and it has recently become clear that we will not be able to meet the resources required for this summer festival,” said David Palmer, interim executive director of the festival. said in the news. release.
This was the 25th edition of the festival, which was founded in 1996. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was not held in 2020.
“We had a year off that year just for safety and everything was closed,” she said.
“And in 2021, our mentors, who are professional musicians, felt very strongly that something needed to be done for the festival to survive and survive, so they organized a virtual festival. It really was. We don’t have a lot of money for that.”
Palmer, founder of Texas chamber music Amarillo, was brought in in February as interim executive director to help revitalize last summer’s event.
“We came up with the idea of doing something in person, but on a smaller scale, with more chamber ensembles and a few concerts, and the level of support from the community, different partnerships, relationships, etc. We just evaluated everything,” Orsay said.
“It was successful in that it happened. We didn’t get the funding we wanted,” she said.
Orsay said the festival will cost more than $300,000.
“Ideally, we expect about $316,000 to run this festival at full capacity and to get people rewarded for their work.” We also have to think about the number of musicians and mentors.”
Although the event is expensive, the event’s founders, Laura and Richard Rosenberg, planned it to be “an important celebration of music and education.”
“In 2020, when I wasn’t on the board, we were having conversations. Her general sentiment was that having a festival could have a negative impact on the festival, but that I think it’s a legacy,” she said.
“She founded the festival as a full orchestra, including mentors, training apprentices, to fill the city and make this a massive, two-week, important celebration of music and education.”
Dorsey said the Rosenbergs looked at communities across the country before deciding to host the festival here.
“They chose Hot Springs for many reasons,” she said.
“One was that we didn’t have a full-time symphony orchestra, so we had to support classical music in the community.
“Another reason was that, despite the lack of classical music production, there was a very vibrant arts community. It was school.
“Having an infrastructure of places where students and mentors can stay is huge. So you need places with residential high schools, college dorms, etc. Hot Springs had that.”
The festival won’t take place this summer, but Orsay said he hopes it will take place next year.
“We hope to be back,” she said. “We’re not going to walk away.”
