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OUR MISSION

Wilmington Music Festival is a 501©(3) non-profit arts organization with a mission to promote musical excellence and cultural diversity in the Wilmington community by presenting innovative performances and offering affordable music instruction by world-renowned teaching artists. 

OUR LEADERSHIP

Aza Sydykov
Artistic Director/Co-founder
 
Nikoleta Rallis
President/Co-founder
 
Barry Salwen
Vice President, Director of Education and Academic Affairs
 
Kenneth Smith
Program Manager and PR

OUR GOALS

Wilmington Music Festival celebrates music of a variety of musical genres and styles. This year extraordinarily gifted and skilled emerging musicians will join with teachers and entrepreneurs from around the world to present concerts and to provide educational opportunities to the local public including master classes for local performers and interactive outreach concerts in Wilmington’s public schools. 

The ultimate goal of the Festival is to establish Wilmington not only as a musical capital of the southeastern United States - in every way competitive with the “Festival of Two Worlds” in its sister port city of Charleston, South Carolina - but even more to give Wilmington’s festival the unique distinction of offering young and emerging artists from around the globe opportunities to establish important careers by their participation in the Festival’s various training programs conducted by world-renowned performing artists, teachers and entrepreneurs.

Wilmington’s potential for realizing this ambitious goal is obvious: it is one of the most charming and picturesque cities on the southeastern coast. Its infrastructure and hospitality accommodations are well established to handle large-scale influxes of visitors. The region, with its pristine beaches and world-class restaurants, is already nationally recognized as a preferred center for summer vacations. Enhancing the “Wilmington Appeal” with an annual world-class music festival, while also establishing the city as site of an important career-building step for aspiring professional musicians, would most certainly contribute to the increased popularity and prosperity of the community. 

While developing an internationally recognized musical tradition in our community, WMF will also endeavor to enhance both cultural diversity and the over-all quality of music education in the region by offering low-cost or gratis educational benefits to the area’s public and private schools and to various other community organizations in the region. 

Wilmington Music Festival

Wilmington Music Festival

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