GRAMMY, Pultizer, And ASCAP Honorees Come Together For The Next Festival's 2024 Season In June

The Next Festival of Emerging Artists, an arts immersion program for early-career string musicians, composers, and choreographers, launches an expansive 12th season from June 1–14, 2024. Founded in 2013, The Next Festival provides 20 young string performers (ages 20-30), selected from a global open call, with a countryside residency, New York performance tour, and groundbreaking cross-disciplinary workshop. 

The Festival will learn and perform 9 premieres in two weeks by some of today’s most exciting composers, including Curtis Stewart, Michael Dudley Jr., Rebecca Saunders and Next Fest Artistic Director Peter Askim. Two-time GRAMMY® nominee Seth Parker Woods, “a cellist of prodigious technical gifts and sharp intellect” (New York Times), will appear as Featured Guest Artist.

The Next Festival Artists also participate in recording sessions of the newly-commissioned works and take part in multi-disciplinary collaborations with composers and choreographers, mentored by Pulitzer Prize and GRAMMY-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis, Festival Director Peter Askim, and choreographer Sidra Bell.

PUBLIC PERFORMANCES

Friday, June 7, 2024 at 7:30pm
PS21/Center for Contemporary Performance, 2980 NY-66, Chatham, NY 12037
Tickets (Pay As You Wish): bit.ly/ps21-concert-june7
All proceeds benefit the Crellin Park Summer Camp Scholarship Fund

Saturday, June 8, 2024 at 7:30pm
Merkin Hall at Kaufman Center, 129 W 67th St, New York, NY 10023
Tickets ($25/$15): bit.ly/kaufman-concert-june8

Peter Askim leads an orchestra of String Performance Fellows in a program of three world premiere commissions: Essay #1: Leave the People by GRAMMY® nominee Curtis Stewart, ...there is yet beauty by ASCAP Award-winning Michael R. Dudley, and a new work by Askim. The evening concludes with Herencia, a deeply personal ode to hybrid cultural identities by cellist Andrea Casarrubios and the East Coast Premiere of the wildly unpredictable Ire: Concerto for Cello, Strings, and Percussion by Rebecca Saunders with Seth Parker Woods as soloist. 

Thursday, June 13, 2024 at 3:00pm
Gibney Dance, Studio H, 53A Chambers St, New York, NY 10007
Tickets (Donation Based): bit.ly/comp-choreo-june13

The Next Festival’s 2024 Choreographer, Composer and String Performance Fellows premiere new music and dance works in a free, public showing. This is the culmination of a week-long workshop, consisting of rehearsals, collaboration and spontaneous creation, aided by Composer Mentors Aaron Jay Kernis, Peter Askim, and Choreographer Mentor Sidra Bell.

The workshop's unique structure focuses on developing new languages to work across disciplinary boundaries, prioritizing processes rather than a finished product.

About The Next Festival 

The Next Festival has supported more than 250 emerging artists with professional development in contemporary music, entrepreneurship, collaboration, jump-starting professional careers by treating emerging artists like established talent, not students. Collaborating directly with major composers and performing alongside leading soloists, Fellows dramatically expand their network. Festival alumni become working musicians, leaders in their fields, and socially-conscious citizens. 

Past participants include performers with the Handel and Haydn Society, the Executive Director of Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and players for the Le Concert des Nations, Malmo Symphony Orchestra (Sweden) and improvising chamber ensemble 9 Horses. They’ve also launched non-profits like Performers for Change, Sound Off: Music For Bail, Bass Players for Black Composers, and more. 

Prioritizing artist futures, not bottom line, the Festival supports Fellows through a radical “pay-what-you-can” model, ensuring that deserving talent is able to participate regardless of financial circumstances.

A champion of living composers, The Next Festival commissions new compositions by both established and early career composers every year, presenting over 75 guest artists since 2013, including Pulitzer, GRAMMY, and MacArthur award winners.