Mostly Modern Festival

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NEW YORK: classical music is often disregarded as a conservative art form that values the past more than the present, and even the future.

For example, New York’s Lincoln Center – an elite cultural institution situated in the heart of the modern West - produced an annual music festival called Mostly Mozart. As implied in its name, the festival was a series of concerts of well-known music by well-known composers, performed by well-established professional musicians for well-heeled patrons.

However, two enterprising musicians have steadily been reversing the classical music value proposition. For six years now, they’ve organized a three-week summer music festival in Saratoga Springs, New York. The festival is radically inclusive of today and tomorrow: not only does it feature all different kinds of composers, its performers are both music professionals and students, who spend the entire festival closely working together. Each day, they rehearse, perform, listen to and support each other on their unique artistic journeys. Even the festival’s financing and administration are community-oriented endeavors that offer anyone present a place at the table. The festival’s name, why, Mostly Modern, what else?

Let’s visit the music festival of the future!