Joel Braun, bass

Neal Cary, cello

John Shaw, percussion

Hello.  My name is Joel Braun.  I am the Assistant Principal Double Bass of the Eastern Festival Orchestra and have been on the faculty since 2016.  I love coming to Greensboro to perform and teach because, in many ways, when the EMF faculty gather each summer, it always feels like a family reunion.  

The EMF faculty come from all over the country and the world.  Every June my wife and I load up our belongings, my bass, our dog, and our two children into our beat-up Dodge Caravan and drive over 1300 miles to reach Greensboro from Austin, TX.  My colleagues travel from as close as down the street at UNCG to as far away as San Francisco, Winnipeg - Canada, and Stockholm - Sweden.  We show up because we love working with the students and we love making music with each other.  Our children attend the same summer camps and play together for weeks on end.  Our spouses get to know one another and form close friendships.  Like all dynamic families, there are members who have been at these summer reunions for almost as long as anyone can remember (I’m looking at you Neal!) and there are new faces who we welcome into our community each year.  For a community that spans the globe, Greensboro is truly our summer home.

Unfortunately, the management of EMF doesn’t view us as a living community.  The EMF management views us as disposable seasonal workers.  They view us as an inconvenient line item on their already balanced budget.  Yet we know, and the students know, and our audience knows that we are the musical heart and soul of the festival.  In fact, in the many conversations I’ve had with concertgoers over the past several weeks, one recurring comment I’ve heard is that the Festival Orchestra sounds like we love playing together and like we’re enjoying ourselves.  It’s true, we are.  Because we are a community and a musical family.  Not seasonal workers, and not an inconvenience.

For many years now, we have expressed to the management some of our concerns.  We have suggested simple and easy fixes that would allow us to continue the legacy of family and community that Shelly Morgenstern built.  Yet, management has refused to listen to us.  In fact, management refuses to even sit down at the table with us while we are all here, residing in Greensboro for the summer.  We are here tonight to assert that we are a family, a musical family, and that every one of us should be valued by the management as a member of our community and be treated with dignity and respect.  If you would like to ensure that our musical family reunions continue to occur here in Greensboro year after year, please join us and tell the EMF management that as we have been dedicated to EMF, it is time for them to be dedicated to us.

 I’m Neal Cary, Principal Cellist at Eastern Music Festival for 36 years, and member of the cello faculty for 40 years.

 Given our current struggle, I think it is important to understand the history of Eastern Music Festival, and to recognize the extremely difficult work that went into its creation and support over the last 63 years.

 Founded in 1961 by Sheldon Morgenstern, the very first season of Eastern Music Festival began in 1962 with 72 students and 14 faculty. This first season was no walk in the park. Shelly and his half-brother Sam LeBauer did everything they could to get the festival off the ground -- even going door to door to raise money. Through continued hard work by Shelly, his family, and dedicated donors, Shelly’s vision of two student orchestras of equal level, a full professional orchestra, and a ratio of 2 faculty for every 5 students was achieved before I joined the faculty in 1984.

 Shelly’s unique vision was foundational to the success of EMF. He believed having two student orchestras of equal level would minimize competition and foster a nurturing environment where students could help and learn from each other. Today, we still rotate students between these two equal orchestras to make sure that students have opportunities to play and connect with as many of their colleagues as possible. The teacher/student ratio of 2/5 Shelly strived for was important since it provided such a rich teaching resource for students. Shelly wanted to create an environment where teachers could offer a more personalized learning environment rather than one where a few teachers would teach many, many students. He wanted every student to feel important, rather than just being one in a crowd, and to have as much attention and help that they needed.   

 Recognizing that the name of our summer program includes the word “Festival” is also important in understanding our vision. Shelly wanted to highlight the concerts by both student orchestras, but primarily the professional orchestra. While teaching and learning has always been a part of the EMF experience, it has never been the only focus. In fact, after I arrived, EMF added “and School” to their name to highlight the teaching element of the festival, but then dropped it after a few years. Shelly didn’t want the summer program to become academic, and thought that music-making and performing should be fun. Afterall, part of our job as musicians is to “play,” isn’t it?

 When I first arrived on the faculty there were still many stories going around about the difficulty in the early years of the festival. There were a few years where EMF couldn’t pay employees at the end of the summer, and Shelly would need to go and raise additional funds after the festival was over, while also raising money for the following season. There was one story about how Shelly called a meeting of the board, and once everyone was assembled, he locked the door. He didn’t want anyone to leave until the needed funds were raised. The board stepped up because they were dedicated.

 Past Executive Directors like Tom Philion and Stephanie Cordick stand out in my mind for their unwavering dedication to EMF and our unique vision. Tom even ran the festival for one year with no additional employees, doing all of the administrative work by himself. He was so dedicated to EMF, extremely hard-working, and capable. He will forever have my unwavering admiration. Past board chairs, like Jim Newlin, provided both inspiration and leadership when the going got tough.

 It saddens me when I think of all the work, all the money, and all the blood, sweat, and tears that went into the creation and support of EMF over the last 63 years is now something that a few people would toss in the trash with little thought. It is made all the more tragic given that we faculty are such a small part of the budget, and such drastic action seems to be motivated by hate and lack of respect rather than actual need. As faculty and supporters who love EMF, we must remember the importance of EMF to students, faculty, employees, our wonderful audiences, and to the business community in the Triad -- not only in the past, but in the future. We must stick together and do everything we can to save our festival from those who don’t know, don’t understand, don’t care, and who lack the vision, fortitude, courage, work ethic, and skills to lead us into the future.

As you can see, Eastern Music Festival is uniquely wonderful. Over the past 63 years it has been a festival like no other - a combination of learning, teaching, artistically inspirational performances for participants and audiences alike, and collaboration between faculty, fellows, and students.

Our mission is to sustain this. EMF works - we’re trying to preserve it! We want to maintain and grow Eastern Music Festival, and part of that has to include rebutting lies. It’s been implied that the faculty don’t want to perform alongside fellows and students. The truth is, we’ve been doing so for many, many years, and are trying to maintain EMF’s excellence by keeping the faculty to student ratio intact. The fact that we love our collaborations with fellows and students is evident in our close relationships with them. But we MUST be able to maintain a system of modeling and mentoring that we’ve built and implemented for 63 years! The faculty are fighting to preserve the soul of EMF - to imply that our asking to maintain our faculty size means that we don’t love and want to collaborate with our students is reprehensible. Such lies don’t contribute toward growing and caring for this festival.

On a personal level, I can tell you I have loved working with every student I’ve had at this festival over the last 17 years. I keep in contact with all of them, and I congratulate them on their post-EMF professional successes (there have been many!), as well as their personal milestones. I’ve loved every mentoring moment on stage with them, and look forward to those future moments as well.

EMF is uniquely wonderful as it is - we’re trying to preserve it! Our own marketing materials describe us as “North Carolina’s Musical Treasure”. To live up to that heritage, EMF must retain and commit to ALL of it’s world class faculty and maintain it’s artistic excellence. It’s that simple.

Please continue to support us and sign our open letter on our website asking EMF management to steward this festival as they should. This faculty has committed decades of service to EMF - it’s time EMF committed to us!