The Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival remains dedicated to promoting the arts to its surrounding community through performances, workshops and collaboration.

JUNE 16 | LUNCHEON IN CONVERSATION WITH SENGHOR REID
Sponsored by Beverly Baker & Dr. Edward Treisman

The Morning Glories concert will be followed by a reception with Festival Visual Artist, Senghor Reid at 1 p.m. Reid draws inspiration from current events and from his hometown of Detroit.

JUNE 17 | CLASSICAL FAMILY: LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD
Sponsored by Gwen & S. Evan Weiner

The Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival’s “Classical Family: Little Red Riding Hood” is an enchanting performance that tells the story of this classic fairy tale through music. The whole family will be captivated by the whimsical and evocative sounds of the instruments as they journey through the beloved story.

JUNE 17 | IN CONVERSATION WITH CARLOS SIMON

Join Stone Composer-in-Residence Carlos Simon and Artistic Director Paul Watkins for a pre-concert talk prior to the In Search of the Sublime concert. This discussion will begin at 6:15 p.m.

JUNE 20 | SYMPOSIUM AT WSU MEDICAL SCHOOL | CLOSED EVENT
Sponsored by the Charles H. Gershenson Trust

Members of the Shouse Institute will present a workshop to students in the Wayne State University School of Medicine. In partnership with WSU faculty, the musicians will perform and demonstrate how they communicate nonverbally. The goal is to create an opportunity for medical students to observe and learn lessons in non-verbal communication, an “art-form” in which chamber musicians must excel to survive.

ACCENT PONTIAC PERFORMANCE AND WORKSHOP | CLOSED EVENT
Sponsored by Mr. & Mrs. B.N. Bahadur

A Shouse ensemble will host a workshop for Accent Pontiac students, helping them realize their own compositions and interpret each other’s works. Accent Pontiac focuses on strengthening Pontiac’s youth and community through equitable access to intensive and consistent music-making.

SENIOR CENTERS OF OAKLAND COUNTY | CLOSED EVENTS
Sponsored by the Mary Thompson Foundation and the Phillip and Elizabeth Filmer Memorial Charitable Trust

In line with our efforts to expand our Great Lakes family, the Festival is resuming in-person satellite performances at Senior Centers across Southeastern Michigan. Out of an abundance of caution, these events had to be paused during the height of the pandemic, but are now returning thanks to our generous supporters. During these special events Shouse ensembles will perform and engage with the seniors in our community.

Intern Programs

The Festival is also dedicated to fostering the next generation of arts administrators. For the past several years, our organization has hired college-age interns to assist with administrative tasks in Marketing and Development, Box Office and Production during the Festival each summer. With support from MCACA’s “New Leaders Arts Council of Michigan Retention and Engagement” program, opportunities for professional development have flourished through this grant funding–not only to help underwrite stipends, but to give them greater access to resources that teach them about interviewing, donor engagement and public speaking.

Three of our current staff members were first introduced to us as interns or apprentices.

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

GLCMF is firmly committed to being a welcoming, inclusive cultural organization, one that will fully embrace, respect, and value the diverse voices and shared experiences of all – on the stage, in the community, and in all aspects of the organization.

Past Activities During the Festival

As the Festival has grown, so too has our responsibility to the community in which we live and work. The Festival included activities in many non-traditional spaces:

• A concert in cooperation with Southwest Solutions at Piquette Square, a residence for homeless veterans in Detroit
• Educational services for elementary students in the Pontiac Schools, in partnership with Accent Pontiac, with support from the Filmer Trust
• A seminar, open rehearsal and question/answer session on non-verbal communication with a Shouse Institute ensemble for medical students at Wayne State University

The Festival maintains an ongoing relationship with the Sphinx organization. Each year, Sphinx provides a young ensemble or musician to act as apprentices, participating along with Shouse ensembles in coachings and performance opportunities.

These activities are an extension of services that the Festival has taken over the last several years to spread more thoroughly throughout our community. For example, in the summer of 2018, we partnered with such disparate organizations as Holy Redeemer Church (Southwest Detroit), Slow Roll and the Charles H. Wright Museum. At the latter, we commissioned an African American classical composer, a jazz trio, a hip-hop artist and an electronic musician to each create their take on a seminal piece of art in the Museum’s collection.

Activities During the Year

Festival artists participate throughout the year in a number of educational and engagement activities. Past education programs include residencies in the Bloomfield Hills, Pontiac and Dearborn Schools. In the latter, the Festival delivered a program entitled “Code to Compose,” simultaneously teaching students how to write music and computer code. Festival musicians also provided services at Detroit’s Holy Redeemer School. Funding for these programs has come from a variety of sources, including the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Filmer Trust and a number of generous individual donors.