by Kevin Cummings, Messenger Staff Writer

The recent chilly temperatures testify that summer is gone, but Sewanee Summer Music Festival leaders are looking forward to the sunscreen and sonatas of 2019.

Organizers have restructured the administration for next summer’s festival, including adding staff positions.

“Our festival leadership has contributed to some of the new vision and efforts towards hopefully growing the festival,” said Hilary Dow Ward, the event’s managing director. “I think that energy and vision is really an important part to running any business, any festival, any program of our nature.”

One of the changes include Dow Ward’s position change/renaming from assistant director to managing director. John Kilkenny, who took the helm of the festival in 2018 as artistic director, said the change refines leadership duties.

“It’s a reflection of her work with the festival so far and basically it clarifies what the position is and allows for us to all have more understanding of what our roles are,” he said. “Hilary will be managing a lot of day to day operations of the festival during the summer, coordinating community engagement work and outreach in the community, and managing our work study students and the office staff in the summer. My role can then be focused on development and artistic work,” he said.

The administration also tabbed Anna Burklin, a 2018 Sewanee graduate, as office assistant and front of the house manager. Burklin previously performed work-study duties for the festival. Dow Ward said festival leaders are excited to develop the new staff position and potentially partner with the University of the South to give recent graduates an opportunity to learn about the behind-the-scenes work.

“This position focuses a lot on the business of the festival and how the festival is run, the planning, the organizing and some of the budgetary types of things,” Dow Ward said. “So, they’re getting a good introduction into the world of arts management and that is definitely a very dominant field these days for our business, the music industry.”

Dow Ward, an assistant professor in Sewanee’s Department of Music and the School of Theology, said the 2019 event will also boast co-directors of residential life, who will organize the outdoor and other recreation activities when participants aren’t playing music.

“In the more than 60 years of the festival there has not been a focused director of student life,” Dow Ward noted.

Seth Shaffer, an alum of the festival and professional tuba player in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, is one co-director, and Natalia Agredo, a bi-lingual school teacher from New York City, is the other co-director.

Being bi-lingual is an important asset for communicating with international parents and students, Dow Ward said.

This past summer’s festival featured 187 participants selected from approximately 400 students who submitted applications, she said, including participants from Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile, the Czech Republic and Canada.

Both Kilkenny and Dow Ward noted that their first season leading the festival was a great experience.

“I think there was a tremendous amount of energy this summer. We had excellent conductors, a lot of new conductors, new faculty members, and some faculty who returned to the festival that had not been here for a few years,” Dow Ward said. “This new combination of professional musicians really provided a fresh breath of air in the life of the festival and also gave students an opportunity to have some new faculty to study with, which was really energizing for many students.”

Kilkenny, director of percussion studies and an associate professor at George Mason University, said the 2018 festival exceeded expectations and he praised the community and University for their support.

He added that the festival hired a record number of Sewanee students to work for the festival this year.

The community will get an early taste of the music ahead with the Sewanee Summer Music Festival faculty concert on April 26, 2019 at 7:30 p.m. A reception prior to the concert, sponsored by the Friends of Sewanee Summer Music Festival, will welcome SSMF faculty to campus and provide the repertoire list and performance calendar for the 2019 festival, Dow Ward said.