Outreach
The festival has developed one of the most unique outreach programs in the country, shaped by the conviction that a student who has the opportunity to participate in classical music at a high level will benefit more than one who passively listens to an "outreach" concert. Students are given the opportunity to work with and perform alongside professionals from the festival in at least one event each year. This collaboration between student and professional is made possible in part because of the high level of musical training and education which students already receive in our community.
In the first outreach program (2005), local students performed in the chorus of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, a collaboration which proved so successful that the next year (2006) fifty students joined the GMF chorus for Orff’s Carmina Burana. Students have since participated in performances of Richard Hundley’s cantata The Sea is Swimming Tonight (2007), Monteverdi's Eight Book of Madrigals (2008) and choral works of Ullmann, Klein, Krasa and Haas, all composers from the Theresienstadt camp (2009 & 2010).
In addition to offering performance opportunities for students, the festival sends professional musicians into local classrooms to lead discussions and workshops about classical music. Festival artists have led in-class discussions and demonstrations on topics as various as early baroque opera, electronic music, the process of composing new chamber music, music composed in the Holocaust, and many others.
The festival mentors twelve students each year through Greenwich High School's senior internship program. These students participate in every aspect of the festival's activities, from marketing strategy to technical theater.