Next Fest is a two-week, practical learning experience consisting of performances, individual lessons, coachings, workshops, and masterclasses for 20 participating string players. Fellows design their own work path, participate in workshops and recording sessions of newly-written compositions, and explore multi-disciplinary collaboration and improvisation with composers, choreographers and dancers.

In recent years, the Next Festival has featured some of the most prominent figures in new music today: Guest Artists including Tony Arnold, Ashley Bathgate, Miranda Cuckson, Matt Haimovitz, Jennifer Koh, Nadia Sirota, Richard Thompson, Jeffrey Zeigler,  ETHEL, and the Aizuri Quartet; and composers including Derek Bermel, Lisa Bielawa, Anna Clyne, Liisa Hirsch, Pierre Jalbert, Aaron Jay Kernis, Phil Kline, Jessica Meyer, Caroline Shaw, Jeffrey Scott and Aleksandra Vrebalov; as well as choreographer Christopher D’Amboise, and Performance Architect S. Ama Wray

The Festival’s concerts have drawn capacity audiences and have been featured on WQXR/Q2, National Sawdust, (le) poisson rouge, The New York Center for the Performing Arts, and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Festival was awarded the Ernst Bacon Memorial Award in the Performance of American Music and was also recognized by the Vytaytas Marijosius Memorial Award in Orchestral Programming.

The Festival has been recognized through grant support from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Achelis & Bodman Foundation, the Amphion Foundation, the ASCAP Foundation, the BMI Foundation, the Heineman Foundation and the Williamson Foundation. 

The Festival became virtual for 2020 and 2021, presenting over 55 Guest Artists and Thought Leaders, including Pulitzer, Grammy, and MacArthur honorees, all tuition-free, and with many of its 75+ events free and open to the public. Almost overnight, the Next Festival’s constituency has expanded nearly tenfold, from an intimate group of artists and audiences to an international community of students, professional musicians, and individuals who have been inspired by the power of music during a dark time.

WildKat is delighted to be working on Press and PR for Next Fest