The Pine Mountain Music Festival

The Pine Mountain Music Festival (PMMF) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that produces and tours professional quality opera, symphony, chamber music and an ever-changing variety of other concerts each June and July, throughout the central and western Upper Peninsula of Michigan and northern Wisconsin. We pride ourselves on providing not only quality entertainment, but also an educational experience for our audiences, our young opera singers, our aspiring musicians who play along-side professionals, and the thousands of school children who benefit from our OPERAtion Imagination program each year.

A Brief History

The Pine Mountain Music Festival 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. PMMF began as a week-long chamber music series. It 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 locations.

Laura Deming served as Artistic Director until retiring in 2001. She was succeeded by Christopher Mattaliano, 2001-03, who is now General Director of Portland Opera in Oregon. Since 2003 the Festival’s 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, a long-time trustee, who served from 2005 to 2007. Cynthia Hodur was Executive Director from April 2007 until the position was eliminated in 2008.

Quick Facts

• The PMMF was named an organizational winner of the coveted Governor’s Awards for Arts and Culture in 1998.

• The PMMF 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 which premiered at the Festival in July 2001.

• The PMMF won the Great Lakes Community Arts Award from the Michigan Association of Community Arts Agencies in 2003.

• In 2006, we calculated our economic impact to the state of Michigan at over $1 million. This estimate is based on surveys completed by our patrons and artists, and our own financial records.

• Our nationally recognized Resident Opera Artist program draws applications from more than 300 singers each year. In 2007, only ten singers were accepted into our program. The ROA program provides important coaching, training, and experience invaluable to singers embarking on their professional journeys.

• OPERAtion Imagination is our free educational outreach program that brings opera to students throughout the U.P. For several years we’ve been touring to schools in the Keweenaw, Marquette, and Iron Mountain/Kingsford areas. We present programs of opera scenes as an introduction to opera as a musical art form.

• The PMMF Orchestra has been graced by musicians from such prestigious orchestras 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, Michigan Opera Theatre, and others.

• 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.