The Ensemble News: The Grand Canyon Music Festival’s Native American Composer Apprentice Project

By Clare Hoffman, Founder and Artistic Director, Grand Canyon Music Festival

In 1983, just a few years out of music conservatory, I embarked with my husband Robert Bonfiglio  on a vacation to the American Southwest. We started our trip at the Grand Canyon, with our instruments in our backpacks, a rim-to-rim-to-rim four-day hike through the canyon. The first evening, with my aching feet soaking in the cold waters of the Colorado River, I took out my flute and played. The following morning, we packed up and headed up the floor of the canyon to Cottonwood campground, where I found a washed-out tree trunk to rest under and again played my flute. A park ranger followed the sound of the flute and, when he found us, invited us to the ranger’s hut that evening to play a concert.

That was the birth of the Grand Canyon Music Festival (GCMF). Today, 37 years later, the GCMF is an award-winning three-week festival of concerts performed at the Shrine of the Ages on Grand Canyon National Park’s South Rim, featuring musicians of national and international acclaim and a commitment to commissions and premieres of new music. Our educational outreach programs reach youth throughout northern Arizona, including schools and communities on the Navajo and Hopi Nations.

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