This festival (Festival of New Trumpet Music, or FONT) and its growing organization is dedicated to music: performances first and foremost, but also commissioning new brass music (12 commissions to date), and increasingly, educational events. Our mission is to present and support living brass music regardless of genre.

For 6 years, FONT Music has been putting together engaging programs of brass music around New York. It has been both an enormous challenge and exciting thrill. We have not always been able to do what we wanted, and not all programs have succeeded in every way. But we’ve been able to look back and see the gains from the new music we have helped to facilitate.

At the beginning FONT Music was Roy Campbell and myself, hashing out ideas over the bar at Tonic. The first two years remained at Tonic, but in 2005 we were joined by Jon Nelson who brought a broader vision to how we could work, and guided us forward as an organization. Micah Killion was instrumental in helping us incorporate and organize, all the while lending his vital creativity to the presentation of programs.

In 2007 we made a big step into nonprofit status, forming a board and adding new voices to the mix. Taylor Ho Bynum has emerged as a crucial and hard-working member of our organizational team, as well as a keen curatorial ear. Other curators have now included Jeremy Pelt, John McNeil, Mark Gould, and Frank London. We also have a working group of officers (still all-volunteer, as is everything to date…) in Chris DiMeglio, Richard Johnson, and Erol Tamerman.

We are still a very grassroots organization, as many of you know.

In 2009 we will change the way we work somewhat, presenting a few special events throughout the year and presenting a shorter, more tightly-focused festival in September. We hope you’ll join us — in any case please feel free to send us your thoughts and ideas for how we can make the festival more effective in serving the community. And visit us at Myspace and Facebook.

Fundraising is always a struggle for us, especially in these difficult times. We are grateful for any contribution you can make – any amount is an invaluable support to us. NY Charities makes use of their web site availble to us, making it easy to contribute tax-deductible, safe and secure contributions. You may also send a check made out to FONT Music, PO Box 31, Croton, NY 10520. We hope you’ll agree that supporting new music and independent artists is important and take a moment to help us if you can.

And we will continue to support creative, exciting new brass music as we continue to move forward with the Festival of New Trumpet Music. Thanks for reading and I look forward to hearing from you after the new year.