Arts Capacity and Wyoming Festival of New Music to Unite as One Organization

Beginning this summer, Arts Capacity will provide the administrative and operational backbone for The Wyoming Festival-New Music in the Mountains (The Wyoming Festival), welcoming the annual event as a core program under its existing organizational framework. This structural alignment creates a powerful, year-round pipeline between the creation of new works and the communities that need them most.

While Arts Capacity maintains its administrative headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, its mission expands to prisons, correctional institutions, and communities across the country. Under this new model, The Wyoming Festival serves as an official creative laboratory and year-round incubator. Pieces developed during the summer residency will directly feed into Arts Capacity's national interactive recital schedule, traveling from the mountains of Wyoming to state facilities and traditional concert halls nationwide.

"For a decade, I have worked alongside Wyoming composer, Anne Guzzo in the summers, witnessing the incredible artistry born at this festival," said Holly Mulcahy, Executive Director of Arts Capacity. "By bringing The Wyoming Festival under the Arts Capacity umbrella, we are creating a full circle lifecycle for new music. Wyoming is where the works are born, and Arts Capacity is how they reach the world. This alignment ensures the festival's long-term sustainability while giving our resident composers a unique, profound platform for civic impact on a national scale."

This specialized integration directly channels art inspired by the natural world into places of deep isolation and healing, such as prisons, while simultaneously engaging the broader public. Composers from the region and across the nation, inspired by the nature, science, and culture of the Teton regions, write brand new music for virtuosic performers. Bringing music that evokes nature and natural elements offers a provocative, evocative way for individuals to tap into their emotions, sparking meaningful conversations with audience members, composers, and musicians alike.

Furthermore, the collaboration provides living composers with a permanent platform where their music is performed over and over again, opening a gateway of curiosity for the public. Whether through partner symphony orchestras, traditional concert venues, or Arts Capacity directly, diverse audiences come to deeply know the composers, follow their works, and witness the profound impact of the music over time.

The upcoming summer season marks the first official venture under the Arts Capacity umbrella, highlighted by the in-person residency of special 2026 guest composer and newly appointed Arts Capacity Composer in Residence, George S. Clinton. Known for his work on over 100 Hollywood films, including the Austin Powers movies, and his wildly popular violin concerto, The Rose of Sonora, Clinton will anchor the lineup with the world premiere of his new work, Sibling Rivalry.

Commissioned specifically to spark raw, honest human connection, the multi movement piece features Arts Capacity Executive Director and violinist Holly Mulcahy alongside her brother, Craig Mulcahy, Principal Trombone of the National Symphony Orchestra. The work explores universally relatable themes of competition, jealousy, family conflict, and ultimate support, providing a powerful tool for Arts Capacity's "listening first" audience engagement philosophy.

Director and founder of The Wyoming Festival, Dr. Anne M. Guzzo, is an Emmy nominated Wyoming based composer who draws on science and nature in her works. She was the 2025 composer in residence for the Wyoming Symphony and taught at the University of Wyoming for over two decades. The festival, established in 2017, features music director and violinist Holly Mulcahy, a frequent national soloist and concertmaster of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra. To achieve its dual mission of environmental appreciation and human impact, the festival partners with the AMK Ranch in Grand Teton National Park and Arts Capacity to encourage support of science and nature, while empowering people facing challenges to find hope and positive change.

Following the summer premieres in Wyoming, Sibling Rivalry and other festival selections will integrate into Arts Capacity's national facility tours, allowing audiences within the justice system and communities far beyond the opportunity to engage directly with the performers, the composers, and the creative process.

For more information about the upcoming season, partnership opportunities, or to support Arts Capacity's mission, visit www.artscapacity.org.

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