The Eastern Music Festival is back, but this time, as the Eastern Festival of Music. While the organization is brand new, the inner workings—including the music director, most of the musicians, and the model—will stay the same.
After years of negotiations between the administrative staff and the last organization’s board fizzled out earlier this year, Barbara Morgenstern, ex-wife of the Eastern Music Festival’s founder, Shelly Morgenstern, took matters into her own hands. She and others passionate about the 62-year-old summer music festival raised more than $1 million for their own organization. Now, the Eastern Festival of Music will officially return to Guilford College’s campus next summer.
“It seems like everything is just falling into place,” Morgenstern said. “All the musicians want to come back. It seems that karma is on our side.”
Tensions came to a head between the faculty musicians in recent years—most of whom travel to Greensboro each summer to teach hundreds of students—and the former organization’s board and executive director, Chris Williams. Following complaints regarding meager salary increases and discussions about changes to the festival’s model, faculty musicians unionized in 2023. Negotiations stalled earlier this year, and in February, the festival was cancelled for the first time in its history. In response, the union filed an unfair labor practice charge against EMF. That case is pending.
A few weeks ago, EMF filed its own unfair labor practice charge against the union, alleging the union “failed to bargain in good faith” and “improperly conditioned negotiations” related to management practices and EMF’s core purpose and mission.
In early October, the board dissolved the Eastern Music Festival.
But there was hope.
Musicians and Morgenstern’s core funders continued to discuss and strategize behind the scenes. Now, their new organization is official. The organization hired a director of admissions and is working to bring back all of the past musicians, said Morgenstern, who is the board chair of the Eastern Festival of Music. The new three-year contracts include raises and a housing stipend, sticking points during negotiations with the former organization.
“It’s exciting to know that there is still a large number of people who want to keep the traditions and everything that was positive about having a music festival,” said John Shaw, one of the principal musicians and lead negotiators of the union. “To have all of us be on the same page, working in the same direction is great.”
Williams has no affiliation with the new organization and called the new festival “not heirs or inheritors of EMF.”
“I don’t know anything about their plans, motivations, or professional acumen,” Williams said in a statement to The Assembly. “Blank slate.”
“We’re just glad to be able to keep the music-making tradition alive along with the performance aspect of it and the educational aspect of it. They’ve always gone hand in hand.”
John Shaw, musician and faculty member
One of the main points of contention during negotiations between the union and the former organization was EMF’s model. Williams and the board wanted the flexibility to hire fewer musicians, while the union pushed back, arguing that the positions they had were necessary to teach and perform the weekly concerts. In the end, the two sides couldn’t reach an agreement. Under the new organization, there is no need for a change, Shaw said.
“We’re just glad to be able to keep the music-making tradition alive along with the performance aspect of it and the educational aspect of it,” Shaw said. “They’ve always gone hand in hand.”
The new Eastern Festival of Music will have to hire an executive director, a role that was controversial for past musicians. But Shaw is confident the new board, led by Morgenstern, will keep musicians’ opinions in mind when making new hires. They were asked their thoughts on the admissions director, and their input was taken seriously, he said.
“To be honest, the main thing for us was the feeling of being valued, respected,” said Shaw, who works for the Florida Orchestra and can’t wait to return to North Carolina. “And having our voice considered in terms of what the overall direction and preservation of the model of the music festival should be. That’s the main thing.”
The musicians and the new admissions director have already started working on recruiting students for the 2026 festival, scheduled from June 29 to Aug. 1 on Guilford College’s campus.
“We’re just excited to keep this tradition going in Greensboro,” he said. “For all of us, it’s been our summer home for decades.”
