La Jolla Music Society is making big plans for the future.<\/p>\n
At Saturday night\u2019s closing concert of its annual SummerFest, the nonprofit announced a new five-year contract with SummerFest Music Director Inon Barnatan and the launching of the society\u2019s new $60 million endowment fund, 60 x 60.<\/p>\n
Both announcements came as the four-week festival concluded. It was the most successful iteration ever of its 39-year-old concert series. The 2025 edition drew a record 6,900 attendees and included multiple sellout performances at the society\u2019s Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, also known as The Conrad.<\/p>\n
The four-week chamber-music-and-beyond marathon included 20 concerts at the Conrad\u2019s two performance venues\u00a0 \u2014 The Baker-Baum Concert Hall and The JAI \u2014 and more than 50 free learning and audience engagement events. Barnatan, an internationally acclaimed concert pianist, was a featured performer in at least six of this year\u2019s concerts.<\/p>\n
Speaking by phone Monday from The Conrad, he expressed excitement about his five-year extension with SummerFest. Barnatan made his SummerFest debut as music director in 2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m thrilled! We have gotten to the point where we really can do anything and that is a very exciting place to be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been such a joy working here on this festival. I didn\u2019t know when I started in 2019 how I\u2019d feel being on this side of the planning and curating process, as opposed being just a performer. Balancing both of those roles has been so fun and rewarding. The level of talented people I get to work with here has exceeded all my expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barnatan\u2019s enthusiasm is shared by La Jolla Music Society President and CEO Todd Schultz.<\/p>\n
\u201cInon is the perfect person for this organization,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cHe has such positive energy and is a tremendously skilled musician who is very serious about SummerFest\u2019s programing. But he also likes to have fun and his personality comes out in what he does on stage. His spirit drives SummerFest.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Schultz who announced the society\u2019s $60 million 60 x 60 endowment campaign Saturday night from the Baker-Baum stage. He credited society board member Steve Baum, the former CEO of Sempra Energy, for giving $10 million to anchor the endowment. Other supporters have pledged an additional $20 million, allowing the society to reach 50 percent of its fundraising goal before the campaign was publicly announced.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are relieved!\u201d Schultz said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been working on this for the past 18 months and it\u2019s what we call \u2014 in the fundraising world \u2014 \u2018the quiet phase.\u2019 We had a lot of really good conversations with people who really care about this organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
SummerFest will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year, while the society\u2019s 60th anniversary fall\/winter season will begin in 2028. Extending Barnatan\u2019s contract at the same time as the public launch of the endowment campaign is a synergistic coincidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two are independent of each other, but just happened at the same time,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cBut this kind of stability \u2014 and letting people know what we are doing in the future \u2014 certainly helps give them confidence in what we are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barnatan\u2019s August 2019 debut as SummerFest\u2019s music director came just a few months after that April\u2019s opening of the society\u2019s $82 million Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last six years have been completely transformational for La Jolla Music Society,\u201d Schultz said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Conrad has enabled us to expand our programing and move into areas we didn\u2019t do so much of before, including jazz, dance and children\u2019s concerts. Having The Conrad has changed who we are and what we can be. And the last six years have been a learning curve for us. Now, we have a really good sense of the venue, the market and the interest in our programming.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in the middle of writing a new strategic plan. Our last one was written in 2020, when the world was in upheaval (with the pandemic) and The Conrad was new. Everything in our previous five-year plan was conjecture. We made good guesses, but now we\u2019ve lived it and have seen what works and what doesn\u2019t work. So, we are much better equipped for the next five years, looking at where we are today and what we can be in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: August 25, 2025 at 3:45 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"La Jolla Music Society is making big plans for the future. At Saturday night\u2019s closing concert of its…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":175486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1576,171,3548,1370,5424,3549,3550,7264,1072,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-175485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-classical-music","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-la-jolla","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-music-and-concerts","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-san-diego-county","18":"tag-sandiego","19":"tag-things-to-do","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115091873722511275","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}