Long lead times are nothing new in classical music, but they are not always so acutely felt, since there is usually plenty happening in the meantime.
Here, so far, there are only prospects and plans. On Thursday, the festivals creators will announce the seven orchestras selected from 25 applicants for that first outing of May 6 to 14, 2011.
They are the Albany, Atlanta, Dallas, Montreal, Oregon and Toledo Symphony Orchestras and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. The Albany, Toledo and Oregon ensembles will be making their Carnegie debuts.
The administrators will also announce a grant of $1 million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which they say will ensure the first three festivals.
First made public last June, the series is intended to encourage orchestras to program imaginatively, without regard to marketing considerations. The marketing and ticket sales (with most seats priced at $25, a few at $15) will be handled by the festival.
The programs for 2011 will be announced early that year, when tickets go on sale. But in a conversation on Wednesday the organizers David V. Foster, president of the management firm Opus 3 Artists; Thomas W. Morris, a former executive director of the Cleveland Orchestra and the artistic director of the Ojai Festival in California; and Mary Lou Falcone, a public-relations consultant gave two examples to illustrate the criteria involved in the selection process. The main idea is for the orchestras to present programs that have special meaning for them and speak to their individual missions.
