2025 Eastern Music Festival canceled over contract dispute and differing views of the future

Musicians and patrons of the annual summer Eastern Music Festival are reacting with anger and sadness over the cancelation of this year’s event.

Festival organizers say the move is necessary to ensure a sustainable future for the long-running Greensboro tradition.

The nationally recognized classical music festival and summer education program has been part of the region’s cultural fabric for more than 60 years.

The cancellation comes after a year of discussions between the faculty’s Charlotte-based musicians’ union and the festival’s leadership. 

EMF Executive Director Chris Williams says an impasse in the union negotiations was in part due to a differing view of the festival’s mission.

”EMF sees the festival as an educational experience for our young people," he says. "And the union’s approach to this seems to be, we must have a full-time professional orchestra, or a fully professional orchestra.”

Williams says the organization may need to trim the number of faculty to be sustainable. But musicians and a group of big-donor patrons disagree.

“This is something that did not have to happen.” says Barbara Morgenstern, who leads the patron group. Her former husband Sheldon “Shelly” Morgenstern founded EMF, and she’s been involved since the 1970s. 

She says the group offered as much as $360,000 over three years to assist with raises and housing stipends for the faculty. She hoped the donation would give the board time to work on fundraising and other plans to ensure the festival’s future.

The festival’s board declined. Morgenstern says it’s important to keep the faculty at its current staffing level.

“If you change one thing in the model the whole thing’s going to fall apart," she says. "We have a full-time orchestra with enough professional musicians to teach the 260 to 280 students that come every summer to study with them and to perform.”

Williams says the offer was turned down because it came with too many strings attached, including a demand that the board agree to the union’s contract.

Anthony Taylor, a clarinetist and EMF faculty member for a decade, says canceling this year’s festival could make it less attractive to aspiring musicians.

“Just think about the impacts to the students who want to be there and who then, next summer, will consider, ‘Where should I try to do a summer program?’ and not be sure if they should even apply to Eastern Music Festival.” 

Executive Director Williams says he’s confident the Eastern Music Festival will return in 2026.