The Next Festival is an immersive two-week experience for early-career artists, combining mentorship, performance, and multidisciplinary collaboration.
During the first week of the festival, String Fellows team up with cutting-edge composers to workshop and bring world premieres to life in upstate New York. In addition to regular workshops, lessons, and coachings, string players have the opportunity to engage with local public schools and to curate their own program for a concert embedded in the community.
During the second week, String Fellows take up residence in New York City, where they are joined by Composer and Choreographer Fellows. Between public-facing performances at locations such as Merkin Hall and Gibney Dance Center, Fellows spend the day improvising and crafting pieces that push the boundaries of music and movement. It's all about multidisciplinary collaboration — in a nurturing environment where artists feel fully empowered to take chances, to explore creative collisions and intersections, and to pursue work that aligns fully with their values.
we’re committed to equity and access for ALL our Fellows through our “pay-what-you-can” policy — enabling every artist to attend at a price they can afford.
In Their Own Words
"Next Fest... has been an amazing process of really beautiful exploration... I really feel like we're taking the best of so many different parts of other experiences that I've wanted and just distilled them into one amazing experience.”
— Michael Ferri, 2023 Performance Fellow
“It’s amazing how meaningfully crafted Next Fest was, as an experience and a statement in a field that can feel tough and impersonal… Thanks for all you do to make this field more human.”
— Julia Weldon, 2022 Performance Fellow
“The Next Festival has re-energized me, reawakened my creativity, and reaffirmed, despite the overwhelming odds against me, why I do what I do.”
— Cellist, Columbia University, Manhattan School of Music
OUR HISTORY
Founded in 2013 by composer and conductor Peter Askim, The Next Festival of Emerging Artists is committed to advancing contemporary music and cross-disciplinary artistic creation through performance, creation, audience engagement, and the nurturing of emerging artists with a passion for 21st-century artistic creation and collaboration.
Initially a one-week intensive, The Next Festival is now a multi-week experience consisting of performances, individual lessons, coaching, masterclasses, collaborations, and more.
Over its history, The Next Festival has featured some of the most prominent figures in new music today: including guest artists Yvette Young, Matt Haimovitz, Jennifer Koh, Nadia Sirota, Richard Thompson, Pamela Z, Curtis Stewart, Seth Parker Woods, and the string quartet ETHEL; as well as choreographers Sidra Bell, Christopher D’Amboise, and S. Ama Wray. The Festival has appeared at venues such as National Sawdust, Roulette, (le) poisson rouge, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and PS21: Center for Contemporary Performance, as well as on WQXR.
At the onset of the pandemic, The Next Festival made a radical pivot to offer 100% of its programming online, free of charge, with an emphasis on diversity, equity, inclusion, and on helping artists in a time of need. The 2020 and 2021 Festivals introduced a groundbreaking series of virtual offerings called Next Fest Connects, with the goal of serving artists and audiences through relevant, timely programming, while also compensating artists for their expertise and artistry.
Through Next Fest Connects, the Festival presented over 75 guest artists including Pulitzer, Grammy and MacArthur honorees, expanded its reach exponentially, and provided a community for those inspired by the power of music during a dark time. Through the integration of technology and community, the Festival brought artists together virtually across nine time zones in a beautiful simultaneous collaboration.
In 2023, The Next Festival of Emerging Artists celebrated its 10th Anniversary with a program of world premieres for string orchestra, including by 2023 Guest Artist and guitarist/composer Yvette Young, 2022 Pulitzer-Finalist Leilehua Lanzilotti, composer/violinist (and 2022 Festival alum) Che Buford, saxophonist/composer Matthew Evan Taylor, and Peter Askim.
The Next Festival was an American Composers Orchestra EarShot Partner Orchestra, supporting emerging composers and the creation of new music and was presented by ACO as part of its 2023 SONiC Festival in New York City.
Peter Askim
Artistic Director
The Next Festival of Emerging Artists
Active as a composer, conductor and collaborative connector, Peter Askim is the Artistic Director of The Next Festival of Emerging Artists and the conductor of the Raleigh Civic Symphony and Chamber Orchestra, as well as Director of Orchestral Activities at North Carolina State University.
As a conductor, Askim has led the American Composers Orchestra, Knoxville symphony and Vermont Symphony, among others, and is known for innovative programming, championing the work of living composers, and his advocacy of underrepresented voices in the concert hall.
He has conducted premieres by composers such as Brett Dean, Aaron Jay Kernis, Allison Loggins-Hull, Jessica Meyer, Nico Muhly, Rufus Reid, Christopher Theofanidis, Jeff Scott, and Aleksandra Vrebalov, and led the American premiere of Florence Price’s Ethiopia’s Shadow in America.
His work was featured on HBO and National Public Radio conducting folk-rock legend Richard Thompson’s soundtrack for The Cold Blue. He has collaborated with such artists as Miranda Cuckson, Matt Haimovitz, Vijay Iyer, Jennifer Koh, Nadia Sirota, Sol Percussion and Jeffrey Zeigler, and the bluegrass band Balsam Range. As a composer, he has been called a “Modern Master” by The Strad and has had commissions and performances from such groups as the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Honolulu Symphony, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Cantus Ansambl Zagreb, and the American Viola Society.