The Kiwanis Music Festival of Guelph has received a $250,000 donation from the estate of Rockwood philanthropists and music lovers Klara and Oskar Bookbinder.
Earlier this week the estate gave a separate $250,000 to support music education programs.
The festival says the donation will ensure the long-term sustainability of the festival "and will have a positive impact on the lives of thousands of aspiring musicians."
The Kiwanis Music Festival is the area’s largest youth services program in the arts with nearly 3,500 performers each year.
Oscar Bookbinder was a musicologist and piano teacher who dedicated much of his life to the study of the folk music of his native Hungary. In his honour, the festival will be implementing a brand new composition competition for emerging composers age 25 and under, the festival said in a press release. The winner of this adjudicated competition will receive a $1,000 prize, the Oscar Bookbinder Composition Trophy, as well as a performance of the work and its publication.
Klara Bookbinder was a dedicated piano teacher who sent her prize-winning students to the festival every year for decades. She also self-published several books of piano compositions for young children, as well as two books of her own students’ compositions. To honour Klara, the Festival will implement a new scholarship competition for advanced level performers.
Following the festival each year, two senior level performers from each discipline as selected by the adjudicators will have the opportunity to compete for the coveted Klara Bookbinder Memorial Cup and the $1,000 first prize.
The festival is also implementing a new annual workshop for elementary music teachers will be instituted, bursaries will be made available for busing subsidies to encourage more band and choir participation in the festival, limited bursaries will also be available to assist with student needs such as entry fees, accompanist fees, private lessons, or instrument rentals, and new scholarships will be designated specifically for rural students.
“This funding will ensure the sustainability of the festival for decades to come and will allow the Festival to implement exciting new initiatives that would not have been possible otherwise," said festival director Heather Fleming.