Island Consort is tremendously excited to announce a new annual festival promoting contemporary composition: New Music on the Rock will launch in 2017 on June 18 at Whidbey Institute’s Thomas Berry Hall. This first year’s festival is etitled, Deepening the Silence Within: Music for a New Humanity. It features an afternoon concert beginning at 2 p.m. on the Chinook Lands and leading into the hall, with works by area composers Stuart Dempster, Neil Welch, Huck Hodge, and Kit Mills. There will also be eurythmy performances by Maiko Canard.

Following the afternoon concert will be a composers’ forum (open to the public) in which we will explore the themes of humanity and the creative spark, the role of silence in the process of creation and in listening, the relevance of new music and more. In the evening, we will present a concert of works by Whidbey Composer Jerry Mader, our composer-in-residence for this first New Music festival. That 7 p.m. program features an oboe quintet, a piano quintet, and a set of three vocal motets. Reservations recommended; tickets are $20 for each concert, but $35 to attend both. Composers’ forum included.

To reserve your seat (and pay upon arrival with cas or checks made payable to WIAC) email sweidendorf@whidbey.com or call 360-320-2362. Island Consort is an umbrella partner of Whidbey Island Arts Council, a 501 (c)3, not-for-profit organization. For more information, visit: www.islandconsort.org.