Meadow Brook Music Festival records
Scope and Contents note
The Meadow Brook Music Festival (MBMF) records cover all aspects of the history of the festival. The MBMF Executive Committee series includes meeting minutes as well as documents from other committees (area committees, the finance committee, the ticket committee) that describe the management of the festival throughout its life, from 1964 to 1995. The Reports series contains materials that could not be directly associated with the executive committee or any other managing committee of the festival.
The Correspondence series is organized by topic and by sender. The extensive Financial Files series includes budgets, audit reports, ticket sales, and funding raising activities. The Women's Committee series contains the records of this supporting committee, which operated mostly in the 1970s and 1980s to help raise money, advertise the festival, and organize supporting events. The Publicity Files series includes brochures and other publications produced by the festival as well as their newspaper, radio, and television outreach efforts and news coverage of the festival.
The Subject Files series is organized topically and documents varied aspects of the festival. Particularly noteworthy are the files pertaining to successive managers of the festival, including James Hicks, Sandor Kallai, and Wilbur Kent.
The last four series document the performers, composers, and conductors who performed at the Meadow Brook Music Festival, as well the Detroit Symphony Orchestra which used the Baldwin Pavilion as its summer venue. Each series is organized alphabetically by artist, group, or orchestra, and contains correspondence, contracts, promotional materials, and photographs.
Dates
- 1964 - 1996
Access and Use
The Meadow Brook Music Festival records are open for research except for certain records restricted by statute or university policy.
Copyright
Copyright held by Oakland University. The collection includes occasional materials produced by outside parties. Copyright to these items may be held by the original creators.
History
The Meadow Brook Music Festival was conceived by Chancellor Varner and Walter Collins, a music faculty member at Oakland University, to provide the Detroit metropolitan area's public with high quality classical music, on the model of the Tanglewood Festival of the Berkshires. The project was supported by prominent business people such as Semon Knudsen, then a vice-president at General Motors, and his wife Florence. The Knudsens enlisted the financial and personal aid of other prominent people in the auto industry, who helped organize the festival in only a few months in 1964. Concerts were to be held within a newly-engineered pavilion situated near the bottom of a wooded ravine on the Meadow Brook estate, at the suggestion of Festival Committee Honorary Chairman Matilda Wilson, who lent her support to the project. In addition, the Kresge Foundation provided $76,000 to support the construction of the Pavilion, named in memory of Kresge Foundation former trustee and board member Howard C. Baldwin. The pavilion was designed to seat 2,000 and protect them from the elements thanks to a roof overhang. The ground at the rear and sides of the pavilion was graded and cleared to accommodate another 1,000.
In its first six years the festival was managed by James Hicks. It became the summer venue of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sixten Ehrling. The festival included guest performances by musical virtuosos such as cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and conductor Andre Kostelanz. When Sandor Kallai assured the managership (1970-1972) pop and jazz concerts were interwoven with classical music. His successors, W.W. Kent (1972-1974) and Leon Petrus (1974-1978) continued to combine popular and classical music offerings. Stuart Hyke, who served as manager from 1978 to 1994, brought stability and profitability the festival, which flourished in the 1980s.
Over the years, the Festival experienced numerous administrative changes. After 1969 the Meadow Brook Music Festival and the Meadow Brook Theatre were combined under the new Professional Performing Arts Division, led by John De Carlo. But in 1972 the Festival came under the direction of the Office of Cultural Affairs headed by W.W. Kent. It was then transferred to a special assistant to the President.
In 1994 the festival came under the management of Palace Sports and Entertainment. In 2016 the festival concert venue adopted a new name: the Meadow Brook Amphitheatre.
Extent
35 Linear Feet
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Records of the Meadow Brook Music Festival, an outdoor music festival created by Oakland University in 1964 with the support of Matilda Wilson, the Kresge Foundation, and prominent automotive executives in Oakland County. The festival was first the summer venue of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and then diversified to include popular music. After 1994 OU transferred management to third parties.
Processing
Processed by Linda Hildebrand, Shirley Paquette, and Dominique Daniel, June 2018.
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Oakland University Archives and Special Collections Repository
Kresge Library
100 Library Drive
Rochester MI 48309 USA