Fall and Winter Music Creative Residencies

Greetings. The Creative Music Residencies in the Fall and Winter at The Banff Centre are unique in the world. The program offers carefully selected composers and performers an opportunity to concentrate on their artistic development. The residencies are self-directed and provide emerging and established artists with a period of focused time to concentrate and work towards a specific project of their own choosing. This is the perfect opportunity for individual musicians or ensembles between concert engagements, finishing post-secondary education, on leave or sabbatical, preparing for performances, auditions, recordings, and competitions, or concentrating on composing.

Residents are given the opportunity to expand their artistic insights through interaction with both the distinguished guest faculty and other international musicians in the residency program. All residents have their own private studio space, which they can access any time they wish. Participants in the residencies receive artistic and career advice from well-established visiting artists and may perform with them in weekly concerts. There are opportunities for up to four performances a week on Banff Centre stages, as well as off campus.

The quite magical results of this seemingly simple “splendid isolation" formula of providing artists with practice space and stimulating their learning process during a minimum period of 2 weeks and a maximum of 20 weeks on campus leads to feedback as described in terms of “breaking through one's glass ceilings", " finding your own voice", and "getting a different perspective on your own creative output".

Sincerely,

Henk Guittart
Director of Fall & Winter Music Programs