The Festival is looking for volunteers for its June 21st Village Music Walk. Volunteers will serve as liaisons between artists and Festival staff during the event, introducing artists and collecting donations on their behalf. If you'd like a front-row seat to an amazing evening of adventurous music, email our production manager Clint Davis at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Volunteers will attend a short orientation on Wednesday, June 19th at 6pm, and will plan on arriving in Carlsbad Village by 4:30pm on Friday, June 21st.

The Carlsbad Music Festival is seeking a Marketing Manager to hire in May 2013. This is a new, part-time, year-round, independent contractor position. A full job description can be accessed here.

In celebration of our 10th Anniversary season, the Carlsbad Music Festival is presenting a Village Music Walk on the evening of Friday, June 21st! The Village Music Walk has been such a fun part of our regular September season that, this year, we decided to make the Walk its own event! The June 21st Village Music Walk will feature a full evening of 30+ performances of adventurous music in intimate venues around Carlsbad Village. All performances are FREE to the public and within a walkable radius of the Village, so come enjoy an evening of adventurous music by the beach! Check back in the coming weeks for a full schedule.

Attention Musicians! This year, to better represent the creativity of local musicians, we're hosting an open call for performers for a limited number of spots. Anyone interested sharing their music at the June 21st Music Walk can find more info and fill out our application here! Deadline for applications May 10.

The Festival has been selected to participate in the San Diego Foundation Creative Catalyst Program – a competitive grant program which pairs artists with a nonprofit partner and provides support for the creation of a new work in the artists chosen field. Grants range from $10,000-$20,000.  The Festival is one of 25 pre-selected arts nonprofit arts and culture organizations that have been chosen to participate.  Diego-based professional artists working in the disciplines of visual, performing, literary and film arts are encouraged to apply. Interested artists should check out the link below to learn more about the program. The deadline for Letters of Intent for the artists is February 27th. Interested artists can find out more here.

The Carlsbad Music Festival, in partnership with ArtPower at UC San Diego, announces its eighth annual Composition Competition with a prize of $3,000 to write a new piece for MacArthur "Genius" Grant winner and Artistic Director of ICE, flutist Claire Chase. The winning composition will be premiered by Chase at the 10th annual Carlsbad Music Festival in September 2013.

Claire Chase is active as a soloist, collaborative artist, curator and arts entrepreneur. Over the past decade Claire has given the world premieres of more than 100 new works for solo flute. Claire founded the International Contemporary Ensemble in 2001 and has served as ICE's executive director since its inception. In 2012, Claire was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in recognition of her dedication to modern music.

Those interested in applying can find more details and the application by clicking on the 'Competition' link in our menu, or clicking here. 

This year's 9th annual Carlsbad Music Festival was a great success with our largest audiences ever and a wide array of incredible music! Highlights included: the West Coast premiere of Michael Gordon's Timber by Mantra Percussion, a new collaboration between pipa player Wu Man, bassistMark Dresser, shakuhachi player Kojiro Umezaki and percussionist Kjell Nordesson, performances by steel drum player and composer Andy Akiho and the premiere of his new string quartet by the Calder Quartet, and a performance in Magee Park by Sara Watkins. Check out all of the great photos by Tommy McAadams on our FLICKR slideshow!

 
Sara Watkins gave a free performance at Magee park on Sunday


The Calder Quartet performed at the magnificent St. Michael's chapel on Friday night.


Mantra gave an unforgettable performance of Michael Gordon's 'Timber'.  


Timothy Andres performed a mix of classical and contemporary compositions


Audiences take to the rooftops to catch some of the artists at the Village Music Walk. 

The Festival will kick-off with the return of the highly-popular Village Music Walk on Friday, September 21st at 5:30pm. The Walk starts with a performance timed to trains passing through Carlsbad's Coaster Train Station. It will be followed by a series of performances by Festival and local musicians at incredibly intimate venues across the Village. The Village Music Walk is a fun, social, and adventurous evening of music and exploring the Village of Carlsbad. All performances are free! 

Artists

red fish blue fish, Calder Quartet, Eric Byers, Timothy Andres, Andy Akiho, Sean Conway, Trouble in the Wind, Susanna Kurner, MandoBasso, Son de San Diego, Zimbeat

Venues

Carlsbad Village Train Station, The Foundry at New Village Arts Theatre, Spin Records, It's a Grind Coffee Shop, St. Michael's By-the-Sea, Box'd, Giacoletti Music

The Carlsbad Music Festival, in partnership with ArtPower! at UC San Diego and the Calder Quartet, is thrilled to announce the selection of Andy Akiho as the winner of the 2012 Carlsbad Music Festival Composers Competition. He was selected amongst 203 applicant composers from 22 different countries, with representation from Europe, Asia and Latin America, including Mexico, Columbia, Denmark, Greece, South Korea and Japan.
 

Described as “mold-breaking” and “vital” by The New York Times, Andy Akiho is an eclectic composer and performer whose interests run from steel pan to traditional classical music. Akiho came to composition through the steel pan (an instrument which originated in Trinidad) and has since gone on to study composition at Manhattan School of Music, Yale School of Music and Princeton University where he is currently a doctoral fellow. Recent highlights include winning the Finale Eighth Blackbird Composers Competition in December 2011, a commission from the New York Philharmonic for a premiere on its December 2012 Contact! series concert, and the release of his debut CD "No One the Know One" on the Innova label in the spring of 2011. Akiho also frequently performs his own music on the steel pan as he will on May 8, 2012 on the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella concert at Disney Hall.
 

On Wednesday, December 14 at 7 AM PST through Thursday, December 15 at 7 PM PST, the Carlsbad Music Festival will be participating in giveBIG organized by the San Diego Foundation. During this period, all tax-deductible donations to the Fest will be match by the Foundation at 25%. So, if you donate $100, we get $125. The nature of this fundraiser is social, so please help us spread the word. We hope to get many small donations and hopefully a few large ones. All funds raised through this event will help make next year's Fest more exciting than ever, so please mark your calendars and consider making a donation. Click here to donate and for complete info:

"It was all like a dream, and I didn't want to wake up!*"

The 2011 Carlsbad Music Festival in September was a tremendous success! It began Friday night with the percussion of red fish blue fish at the Carlsbad Train Station and ended on Sunday with a haunting solo viola at the conclusion of the Calder Quartet's world premiere performance of bad black bottom kind, the commissioned string quartet by our Composers Competition winner Jacob Cooper.

In between, we experienced artists creating new worlds of musical possibility by mixing up sounds from European classical, African dance, and American indie music.  We heard new compositions by composers-in-residence Sarah Kirkland Snider, Florent Ghys and Matt McBane and Shara Worden, and heard performances by My Brightest Diamond, Build, Vicky Chow, Burkina Electric and Mando Basso, all while enjoying the beautiful Village of Carlsbad.

In addition to the raves of the Festival-goers, the Fest got great reviews in the press. Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times said the Fest "is making a significant statement. It reminds me of what the Ojai Festival was before it became famous." James Chute of the San Diego Union Tribune praised Jonathan Moerschel's solo viola performance: "you could go a lifetime and never hear a more expressive, certain account” of the works he played.

*a quote from one of our fans!