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For immediate release
May 11, 2005

2005 Banff Summer Arts Festival launches with $1 million commitment from RBC Financial Group

As The Banff Centre prepares to raise the curtain on the 2005 Banff Summer Arts Festival, RBC Financial Group (RBC) takes the stage to announce an unprecedented level of funding to support programs and events at the Centre this year and into the future. Between May and August, audiences will experience more than 150 events - dance, music, opera, new media, literary readings, films, and art exhibitions – all backed by a commitment of $1 million over six years from RBC.

“We have a lot to celebrate this year,” says John Murrell, co-ordinating producer / director of the Banff Summer Arts Festival. “This Festival will celebrate Alberta’s centennial, and the richness of the arts in this province. It will also celebrate all the vibrant artists – both established and emerging - who come together in Banff to further their careers, and to create and showcase new work. And very importantly, it will celebrate this exciting new partnership with RBC.”

The Banff Summer Arts Festival features hundreds of young artists, and is made possible in part by the generous support of RBC as presenting sponsor of the Festival. RBC’s six-year commitment to The Banff  Centre will also support the new RBC Youth Excellence Scholarships program, the Banff International String Quartet Competition, and the Centre’s annual Midsummer Ball.

"At RBC we’re passionate about supporting arts and culture because we realize a community’s prosperity depends on more than just economic sustainability. We believe in the power of the arts to enrich our lives and enhance our communities, which is why RBC is proud to support organizations that harness and promote creative talent, such as The Banff Centre,” said Bruce MacKenzie, regional president, Prairies, for RBC Financial Group. "We hope our commitment of $1 million will help The Banff Centre continue to sustain and develop learning opportunities for talented artists and leaders across Canada.“

Among the Festival’s highlights this year are a remounting of the new Canadian opera Filumena, which was originally co-commissioned and co-produced by The Banff Centre and Calgary Opera. The Banff Centre’s production of this opera was staged at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa last month to huge critical and audience acclaim. Audiences will also catch sparkling new works by two of Canada’s top up-and-coming choreographers, Peter Quanz and Sabrina Matthews, along with a restaging of Brian Macdonald’s dance masterwork Aimez-Vous Bach? 

Jazz masters Dave Douglas, Hugh Fraser, Muhal Richard Abrams, Greg Osby, and the Instant Composers Pool will fill the Centre’s stages early on in the Festival. The Walter Phillips Gallery reinvents our ideas of home with the part-kitsch, part-class-conscious exhibition CAMP(sites). And everything wraps up with a gathering of musicians, writers, artists, and speakers from the world’s mountain regions for the Centre’s biannual Banff Mountain Summit, this year called Cultures at Risk.  

As part of the 2005 Banff Summer Arts Festival, The Banff Centre continues its successful Arts Lover program for audiences. Arts Lover Passes are $75 each, and allow the passholder free entry into all Arts Festival events. Purchase passes or individual event tickets by calling the Box Office at 1-800-413-8368 or (403) 762-6301, .

For a complete schedule of 2005 Banff Summer Arts Festival events:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/bsaf/

For downloadable, print-ready photos of Banff Summer Arts Festival events:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/media_room/images/bsaf_2005/