History
The Deer Valley® Music Festival (DVMF) is Utah Symphony | Utah Opera's (USUO's) summer home in the mountain resort town of Park City, Utah. The 2011 Festival is in its eighth season of providing chamber music, classical, opera, and pops offerings in four venues: the Deer Valley Snow Park Amphitheater, St. Mary's Church, Temple Har Shalom, and salons in private homes in the Park City area.
The goal of the DVMF is to be renowned for consistently delivering a high quality and musically diverse experience in casual settings of unparalleled natural beauty.
Background
The DVMF is an outgrowth of the Utah Symphony's summer weekend classical and pops performances which have been held at the Deer Valley Resort for more than 20 years. The original rationale for the DVMF had a financial basis. The Utah Symphony is a 52 week orchestra, one of only eighteen in the United States. As a result, USUO leadership determined that, with controlled incremental expense, a resort town based summer festival could attract a substantial new audience, add ticket revenue and, most importantly, tap into an expanded donor base.
The concept of DVMF from an artistic perspective has been a success, and from a financial perspective, the rationale has been validated. The DVMF is achieving its short-term goal of bringing in more revenues from a combination of ticket sales and contributions than the marginal expense associated with the Festival. The DVMF generated a profit margin of $1.4 million and $1.9 million in '05 and '06, respectfully.
Key Individuals
The Utah Symphony held its first performance in 1940 and Utah Opera raised the curtain for the first time in 1978. With a continuous performance track record of 95 years between them, the two entities merged to become Utah Symphony | Utah Opera in 2002.
Artists
Utah Symphony became recognized as a leading ensemble largely through the efforts of Maurice Abravanel, its Music Director from 1947 to 1979. In addition to performing more than 70 subscription concerts annually in Abravanel Hall, the Symphony regularly travels throughout the Intermountain West serving communities in Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, and Idaho. In April 2005, the orchestra embarked on its first European Tour in 19 years, and in April 2006, the orchestra released its first CD in over 15 years. With its many subscription, educational, and outreach concerts, and tours, Utah Symphony is one of the most engaged orchestras in the nation.
Utah Opera produces opera with artistic standards of distinction and with a fresh vibrancy – works new to Utah as well as the classics. Commitment to the contemporary vitality of opera has focused Utah Opera's energy into projects which animate the art form for non-traditional audiences and broaden its conventional horizon for dedicated opera-goers. Commissioned world premieres include Dreamkeepers (1996), Illusions/Illusiones (2002) and The Grapes of Wrath (2007).
The continuing artistic distinction of Utah Opera's main stage and educational presentations was secured in the 1995 purchase of the Production Studios. The expansion of this facility in 2002 spurred a further expansion of Utah Opera's already lucrative set and costume rental enterprises, now generating $500,000 in annual revenues. Utah Symphony | Utah Opera serves 200,000 students (K-12) annually and reaches every school in the state on a 3-4 year rotational cycle.
