Carmel Bach Festival Announces Appointment of New Executive Director

The Carmel Bach Festival Board of Directors, staff, musicians, and volunteers are proud to welcome Camille Kolles as the newly appointed Executive Director for the Carmel Bach Festival. She will succeed Managing Director and Principal Bassoonist Jesse Read who has held the post since 2004. Camille Kolles has worked in the field of arts administration for 20 years, including appointments at The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, as Executive Director of the Minnesota Chorale for 13 years, and as a private consultant for performing arts organizations. She said, "I am absolutely delighted to have the honor of leading the Carmel Bach Festival. On a national level the Festival is unsurpassed in its combination of artistic excellence, familial atmosphere and breathtaking natural surroundings."

Cyril Yansouni, President of the Board of Directors added, "we are extraordinarily pleased to have been able to attract a person like Camille Kolles as our new Executive Director. Her talents, experience and enthusiasm for the role of music in our society make her ideal to lead our organization and to build and expand on the many strengths of our Festival as we enter our seventy first season. We want to take this opportunity to thank Jesse Read for his willingness to add during the last four years the role of Managing Director to his many artistic responsibilities. Jesse will continue to play a significant role in the artistic development of the Festival."

Camille Kolles is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of The College of St. Catherine, where she earned degrees in piano performance and business administration, and recently completed a Masters in Public Affairs degree with a concentration in human development and social innovation at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. Former member of the Advisory Council of Youth Venture (an organization launched by Ashoka to develop young social entrepreneurs), and a former member of the Board of Directors of Chorus America, she has provided consulting services for arts organizations from New York to Florida as well as the Minneapolis-based think tank Push the Future and a St. Paul area church. She recently completed research for an upcoming PBS documentary exploring Minnesota's passion for singing, slated for broadcast in the Fall of 2008.

Kolles commented, "the Festival is ready for a 21st century vision that defines and communicates an essential role for itself in the culture of our current times while preserving and honoring all that makes it special." Under her leadership, the Minnesota Chorale created and developed the award-winning Bridges outreach series, the InChoir adult education series, and the Emerging Conductor program, and launched a new community partnership model between the Minnesota Chorale and the Minneapolis Public Schools to create the city's first urban-centered youth choir. The organization became the first symphonic chorus in the nation to lead a composer residency under New York-based Meet the Composer's New Residencies program, produced the ground-breaking choral-theater work Adventures of the Black Dot," and grew in stature, image and visibility from a semi-professional community choir into a professional choral organization. She conceived the organization's ambitious strategic restructuring initiative, developing strategies for creating new synergies within the choral culture of the Twin Cities, increasing the organization's capacity for artistic innovation, and pushing traditional boundaries toward a deeper integration of choral music and community life.

Camille has been a music minister and free-lance pianist in Minneapolis-St. Paul since her youth and hopes to continue performing in her new California home. Camille remarked that she will bring her deep love for music and experiences as a performer as well as her passion for the promotion of performing arts to her new position. She noted, "I am very excited about the new possibilities I see for the Festival to connect in fresh ways with our current audience and to make ourselves more accessible, exciting and attractive to new audiences."
About the Festival
The 2008 Carmel Bach Festival runs July 19th through August 9th. Audiences will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the works of J.S. Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, Biber, Distler, Dvorak, Handel, Haydn, Monteverdi, Mozart, Pachelbel, Purcell, Scarlatti, Schmelzer, Schubert, Schütz, Telemann, and many other composers. At the beginning of July, the best early Baroque musicians and singers from around the world will descend on the Monterey Peninsula to spend five weeks preparing and performing selected works of these master composers. This interactive and collaborative atmosphere offers a unique opportunity for patrons to experience virtuosity and pagentry against the backdrop of the incredible architectural and natural landscapes of Carmel-by-the-Sea, Pebble Beach, Hwy 1 and the entire Monterey Peninsula.

The Carmel Bach Festival, a 23-day celebration of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, his contemporaries, and musical heirs, has brought the music of the Baroque to the communities of the Monterey Peninsula since 1935. The Festival offers a compelling array of rich musical experiences featuring national and international solo artists in a variety of settings including full orchestra, choral and vocal concerts, recitals, master classes open to the public, lectures, informal talks, as well as educational, social and family events.

www.bachfestival.org

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