Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival loses $12K grant | Arts And Entertainment

The music won’t stop at the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival, even with the setback of losing a grant.

The SVBF was given a grant of $12K back in January by the National Endowment for the Arts, but the organization was alerted that it was taken away on May 2. 

“Our grant of $12,000 was our first ever promise from the NEA, and it would cover most of our cost for the Friday Night Festival Chamber Music concert,” said Les Helmuth, the festival’s executive director. “On the one hand, it’s a small amount, but every $12,000 means something to a festival musician who relies on summer income to pay their bills.”

The grant would have been used for the Bach Festival in 2026, but was cut alongside the grants that were promised to many other organizations, according to Helmuth. The SVBF appealed to reapply using the NEA’s new guidelines.

“They’ll prioritize projects that elevate the nation’s HBCUs, which are Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” Helmuth said. “We had a pretty strong emphasis on our previous application on addressing some of the issues of diversity, inclusiveness and belonging. [The new guidelines] also talk about that.”

Christine Fairfield is the board chair of the SVBF and has been involved in the organization since 2022. She said that losing the grant wasn’t unexpected, but it was still disappointing. 

“We are hopeful the ticket sales, which are currently on sale for the coming festival in a few weeks, that those are going well right now,” Fairfield said. “And that they’ll pick up even more in the week or so before the festival.”

David Berry, the artistic director for the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival and director of the music program at EMU, has participated in the festival since 2017.

“We were certainly disappointed,” Berry said about the loss of the grant. “The National Endowment for the Arts grant has historically been a marker of excellence and is sort of widely recognized as an important grant to get for your organization.”

Another new guideline stated that the grant must go to organizations that are “empowering houses of worship to serve the community and assist with disaster recovery.” Helmuth said he felt like the festival met those criteria. 

“The uniqueness of the Bach Festival is that Bach was a church musician,” he said. “He focused a lot of his music on the church. He wrote over 200 cantatas for Sunday morning worship. Every year since the Bach Festival has been in existence, we’ve done one of those Bach cantatas on Sunday morning during the festival.” 

“We dispersed [the grant] as needed in different ways,” Berry said. “We’ll have to find other ways, and through support, to make up the income of this year.”

“If you can’t donate, but you’re going to get a ticket, go ahead and choose the highest option, and help us with our ticket revenue,” Fairfield said. “Every little bit makes a difference.”

Local churches have used the festival to bring their communities together, according to Helmuth. 

“We have two letters, one from Asbury United Methodist Church, one from Community Mennonite Church, highlighting how we have intersected with their church over the years,” Helmuth said. “That’s all we can do at this point.”

Fairfield said the festival still seeks sponsors for one of the noon concerts. 

“If there’s a business owner or an individual that wants to make a larger contribution in that way, we would love that,” she said. “The festival is just a fantastic way to bring people into downtown that don’t regularly come. It benefits the whole community.”

“We have appealed to our donors, and simply notified them that not only have we been affected, but there are hundreds of other nonprofits that have been affected, other performing artists,” Helmuth said. “In this community, Staunton Music Festival, the Oratorio Society of Virginia out of Charlottesville, Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival, and the Heifetz Institute in Staunton.”

“The festival continues on, and we’re very hopeful and excited about our direction,” Berry said. “We appreciate our donors’ support, and hopefully people continue to support the festival, so we can keep making great music.”

The Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival will be held from June 9-15.