Niagara summer music festival plan dropped
Project Niagara funding falls flat
CBC News
Ottawa's National Arts Centre and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra are abandoning plans to create a summer music festival similar to Tanglewood on a site near Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
The proposal has been in the works for more than five years, with an estimated cost of $76.5 million, but has failed to get a capital commitment from the federal or provincial government, according to NAC spokeswoman Rosemary Thompson.
She said the economic downturn in 2008-09 changed government priorities, and there seems to be no immediate prospect of the plan going ahead.
The plan had been for a classical music festival similar to the Tanglewood Music Festival, held at a country estate in western Massachusetts that is the summer home of the Boston Symphony.
Project Niagara, as it had been dubbed, was proposed for a one-square-kilometre site along the shore of Lake Ontario, formerly used by the Defence Department and now held by Parks Canada.
The National Arts Centre Orchestra and Toronto Symphony would have performed in an outdoor setting with prominent guest artists.
Parks Canada had approved the plan, which would have included concert venues, parkland, trails and a historic site from the War of 1812.
About one-third of the funding would have come from private donors, Thompson said, but donations could not be raised without a government commitment.
"It was a great idea and it would have been an economic engine for that part of the province," she said.
NAC president Peter Herrndorf said the project had been a "labour of love for everyone involved," and held out hope that another group would take up the idea.
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http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2010/07/13/summer-music-festival.html#ixzz0tfowMlj5
