Eastern Music Festival Cancels 2025 Festival Amid Contract Negotiations

Other than during the pandemic, this is the first season cancellation in the festival’s six-decade history 

Due to ongoing labor negotiations, the Eastern Music Festival (EMF) has withdrawn its 2025 season, which was set to run from June 28–August 2, 2025, in Greensboro, North Carolina.

This news comes as the nonprofit’s management has been unable to reach a mutually acceptable collective bargaining agreement (EMF’s first) with the faculty members represented by Local 342 of the American Federation of Musicians.

Among the union’s requests is that EMF faculty must always perform in a fully professional orchestra. 

“EMF is first and foremost an educational institution,” said EMF executive director Chris Williams in the press release. “We strongly believe the best way for EMF to fulfill this core educational mandate is to increase and expand the learning and performance opportunities for our students, while also providing competitive compensation to our remarkable faculty, so that we can work hand in hand to create an unforgettable summer experience. By asking us to set in stone the requirement that we will always maintain a fully professional orchestra, the union is asking EMF to severely limit its ability to innovate and bring these new student opportunities and experiences.”

“EMF’s latest proposal would maintain this critical flexibility and also offer the faculty an increase in pay that exceeds the average pay for orchestra musicians in our region,” Williams added. ”We are disappointed that it was rejected by the faculty.” 

However the festival’s faculty shared on their website and petition that the EMF revealed plans to significantly cut the number of faculty artists for the 2025 season, “which would strip jobs away from many of us who have reliably taught at EMF for years.”

“Students at EMF would suffer the most under these proposed cuts, which would negatively impact the student experience,” they added. “Our students deserve better. We think EMF students deserve the same quality educational experience that they’ve had for the past 60 years, and that cutting the jobs of our hard-working colleagues is unacceptable.”

The EMF stated that they have met almost 30 times with union representatives from January 2024 to discuss a labor contract that “fairly and competitively compensates faculty but also is sustainable for the Festival and upholds the student-centered mission of the organization.”

Since that time, the EMF board has presented numerous proposals with mediation conducted by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.  

The current pause in operations will be used by the EMF to work on plans for bringing the Festival back in 2026. 

Additionally, the nonprofit says it is open to continued negotiations with the union partners to reach an agreement. Prospective students who submitted applications for the 2025 Festival will receive full application fee refunds.

“[We] are shocked and appalled at the board’s decision to cancel this summer’s festival,” said EMF faculty artists in a statement. “The board’s unnecessary, irresponsible, and unilateral decision to cancel the festival now displays a complete failure of leadership … The faculty artists of EMF love this festival, love our students, and love this community. We continue to be willing to sit down together at the same table to come to an agreement that ensures a thriving future for EMF. “

“The EMF board’s unanimous decision to suspend this year’s Festival did not come lightly,” Williams explained. “For more than six decades, [EMF] has made summer in Greensboro a place of beautiful music and memories. We want that tradition to continue and look forward to the time when our shared love of music and support for the rising generation of classical musicians brings us together again, better than ever.”

Open to young musicians aged between 14 to 23 who are exploring potential music careers, the EMF has seen more than 10,000 young musicians from 40 countries participate since its founding in 1962. Among the festival alumni include the GRAMMY Award-winning trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s Concertmaster Stephanie Collins Matsuo, and cello virtuoso Sterling Elliott.