Cabrillo Festival Of Contemporary Music Announces The Yannick Nezet-Seguin Conducting Fellowships

The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music is pleased to announce that it has received a $30,000 gift commitment from Conductor & Pianist Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera and The Philadelphia Orchestra, and Artistic Director of Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal.

Nézet-Séguin's gift will underwrite the Festival's Conducting Fellowships over the next three years. Nézet-Séguin stepped forward with this multi-year gift after a major grant from the Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation, which was awarded in 2010, sunsetted this year.

The Yannick Nézet-Séguin Conducting Fellowships will provide free tuition and travel support to the top-tier Fellows of the Cabrillo Festival Conductors/Composers Workshop. The Workshop brings together leading faculty, the award-winning Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, and early career conductors and composers for a professional training program that focuses on the creation and performance of new music.

"I firmly believe we must invest in the future generation in order for our art form to thrive and inspire," said Nézet-Séguin. "Contributing to the Cabrillo Festival is all the more meaningful because of my history with Cabrillo's Music Director Cristian M?celaru." In his role as Music Director of The Philadelphia Orchestra, Nézet-Séguin became M?celaru's mentor, colleague, and friend, as M?celaru served as the Orchestra's Assistant Conductor, Associate Conductor, and Conductor in Residence, respectively.

Each summer for the last nineteen years, twenty conductors and three young composers have been selected to participate in this internationally recognized professional development program. The Workshop gives participating conductors and composers five full days of intensive training with some of the world's most respected contemporary music professionals. This season's Conducting Faculty include conductors M?celaru and Octavio Más-Arocas and composer Kristin Kuster.

"I was blown away by Yannick's immediate willingness to support us, and was left speechless by the significance of his gift, which is both an endorsement of our program and a great financial help to keep it going," said M?celaru. "Because I benefitted so tremendously from his artistic support early on in my career, I am both flattered and deeply thankful by the trust he has placed in me to continue guiding other conductors and composers who wish to deepen their musical knowledge. "

America's longest running festival of new orchestral music, the Cabrillo Festival celebrates its 57th season this July 28 - August 11, 2019, with a remarkable women-centric season featuring a series of relevant and forward-looking commissioned works. This is the Festival's third season with Music Director and Conductor Cristian M?celaru at the helm, and the esteemed conductor continues to push the leading edge at Cabrillo. This year the Festival presents four commissioned works-four world premieres, two US premieres, and seven West Coast premieres. Season highlights include a major symphonic work celebrating U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; a multimedia harp concerto by Tan Dun about a disappearing women's language in China; an evening of Wynton Marsalis' works; and much more.

More info at www.cabrillomusic.org.

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