“one of the area’s most innovative music showcases”
-KPBS 

“magnificently enlightening”
-Los Angeles Times

Winner 2010 ASCAP/CMA Award for Adventurous Programming

Matt McBane: Founder and Director 
Calder Quartet: Founding Ensemble-in-Residence

The 8th annual Carlsbad Music Festival will take place in the charming seaside Village of Carlsbad from Friday-Sunday, September 23-25, 2011. The Festival has been praised by KPBS as “one of the area’s most innovative music showcases” and by the Los Angeles Times as “magnificently enlightening.” This year’s Festival will feature the Calder Quartet, My Brightest Diamond, Build, several composers-in-residence, and many more exciting artists. All festival events will take place in the Village of Carlsbad, within short walking distance of each other, the train, beach, restaurants and hotels. The Festival will kick-off with the fun, free “Village Music Walk” on Friday evening continuing with indoor and outdoor concerts at a variety of venues on Saturday and Sunday.

The Festival was founded in 2003 by composer Matt McBane for its first festival in the spring of 2004. It has since received critical acclaim and drawn enthusiastic audiences to its concerts in the coastal California city of Carlsbad.

What people are saying about the Festival:

“It may be too soon and too hyperbolic to declare Carlsbad as a new hotbed of contemporary classical music action. But as the sixth annual Carlsbad Music Festival unfolds this weekend featuring new music notables the Calder String Quartet, the California E.A.R. Unit and guitarist-composer-conceptualist Fred Frith, clearly something is abuzz in the seaside town, at least for one weekend each year...

Founded and nimbly run by young composer-violinist Matt McBane, the festival provides a fresh West Coast forum for new music, commissioned, performed and served up with seriousness as well as audience accessibility.”
–LA Times

Founding Ensemble-in-Residence, the Calder Quartet: 

 "I've written before that every time I hear the Calder, the ensemble seems to have reached a new level. That remains true, and now only the stars are the limit, as the Calder takes its place as one of America's most satisfying -- and most enterprising -- quartets."
–Mark Swed, LA Times