Brief History of PMMF
PMMF Founder Laura Deming
The Pine Mountain Music Festival (PMMF) was founded in Iron Mountain in Michigan's Upper Peninsula in 1991 by Laura Deming, a cellist and member of the orchestra of Lyric Opera of Chicago. She invited several colleagues from Chicago to present a week-long chamber music series, and the programming expanded to include opera by the second year, and then expanded geographically into other communities, each about 100 miles apart. The series has grown from five or six events in one city to more than 40 performances, workshops and master classes held in various combinations in the areas surrounding Houghton, Marquette, and Iron Mountain, with limited appearances in Escanaba, Munising, Minocqua, WI and Land O' Lakes, WI. The Festival now spans a five-week period in June and July.
Laura Deming served as Artistic Director until retiring in 2001. She was succeeded by Christopher Mattaliano, 2001-03, now General Director of Portland Opera in Oregon. Since 2003 the Artistic Director has been Joshua Major, who is Head of the Opera Workshop Program at the University of Michigan's School of Music and is an internationally sought-after stage director.
Kathy Tompkins served as Executive Director from 1994 to 2005. She was followed by Peter Van Pelt who served from October 2005 to April 2007. Cynthia Hodur was Executive Director April 2007 to January 2008, following which executive leadership was through a Management Committee that ran to March 2009. Since then Peter Van Pelt has again served as Executive Director.
Featured artists include the Bergonzi String Quartet of Miami, FL, which has performed at the Festival since 1995, and orchestra members have come from such prestigious ensembles as Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, Phoenix Symphony, Oregon Symphony, the Naples (FL) Philharmonic, Florida Grand Opera, Grand Rapids Symphony, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and Michigan Opera Theatre.
Other guest artists who have graced PMMF stages have been William Bolcom and Joan Morris, pianists Ralph and Albertine Votapek, Kathryn Goodson and Robert Miller, harpist Liz Cifani, and saxophonist Carrie Koffman to name a few. Among the stars who have sung in PMMF operas are Gwenneth Bean, Gail Dobish, Twyla J Robinson, Kirsten Gunlogson, Morgan Smith, Keith Miller, Kitt Reuter-Foss, Jane Jennings, Gerald Dolter, Emily Lodine, Ricardo Herrera, Joanna Mongiando, Steven Condy, Eugenie Grunewald, and Alicia Berneche. Conductors have included, Paul Nadler, Steven Byess, David Briskin, Hal France and Donald Schleicher.
The Festival was named an organizational winner of the Governor's Awards for Arts and Culture in 1998, won the Great Lakes Community Arts Award from the Michigan Association of Community Arts Agencies in 2003, and earned the first National Endowment for the Arts direct grant ever awarded in the Upper Peninsula for the commissioning of The Children of the Keweenaw (premiered at the Festival in July 2001). It is a professional member of OPERA America and the American Symphony Orchestra League. The PMMF is one of only a handful of summer festivals in the nation producing a season of opera, symphony and chamber music, and may be the only one that tours all such events.
The Detroit Free Press (7/4/04) called the Festival "a miracle of ambition, idiosyncrasy and geography," and indeed it is remarkable that a high-quality classical music festival can be produced in such a beautiful area despite the small population base and the relative absence of large corporations to provide financial support. The Festival is blessed with many donors and a multitude of volunteers.