Concert Artists Guild Adds
Interlochen Public Radio’s Sound Garden Project
to Artist Development Program

Partnership integrates Sound Garden Project residency into Concert Artists Guild’s
prize package offerings for selected roster artists

Concert Artists Guild (CAG) has entered into a new partnership with Interlochen Public Radio’s Sound Garden Project. As part of its 75th anniversary season in 2026, CAG will now include the Sound Garden Project as part of its prize package offerings, providing young professionals with hands-on experience connecting  audiences in innovative, community-centered settings.    

“The Sound Garden Project’s unique programming gives our artists an unparalleled experience in exploring innovative and authentic ways to connect new audiences to classical music,” said Tim Mar, Chief Operating Officer and Director of Artist Strategy at Concert Artists Guild.  

In its 6th season, The Sound Garden Project plants music in unexpected places, but it is the personal and authentic joy in the exchange between musician and audience that sets SGP apart as a way of the future. 

Matthew Schlomer, Sound Garden’s founder and Artistic Director explains, “The power of classical music is no less now than it has been throughout history. Audiences, however, have a very different landscape for entertainment options and lifestyle than when much of classical music was written. The Sound Garden Project reimagines the exchange of music and gives artists powerful new tools to bring their art into new spaces with unique ways of connecting with people.” 

In their first year, Sound Garden Fellows experience a rigorous and innovative week of intense exploration and experimentation before meeting people up close and on the audience’s terms; giving “sound samples” to people in hardware stores, skate shops, and gas stations. 

“We will go anywhere people have free time or are having an aesthetic experience to introduce people to how much music can impact their lives, even if they don’t previously know anything about it. We have regularly witnessed listeners in tears after a 60-second sound sample. When they have the opportunity to interact with the artists and the music in such a personal way, powerful feelings are bound to emerge,” says Schlomer.

Second-year SGP Fellows are artists-in-residence that embody the title, taking up residence in communities for up to 3 weeks and making music right there among them where they reside. Past residencies with the Glen Arbor Arts Center and Cheboygan Opera House have included concerts on a pontoon boat, in a new fire station, and Sound Garden musicians even crashed a neighborhood barbeque.

“We have no intention of taking away the concert hall, there is nothing like hearing music in a pristine acoustic space,” says IPR executive director Peter Payette, “we just want to give people opportunities along the way to see if classical music is something they enjoy.” 

About Interlochen Public Radio

Interlochen Public Radio's mission is to connect people in northern Michigan to the world and the world to life in northern Michigan. A listener-supported broadcast service of Interlochen Center for the Arts, Interlochen Public Radio is home to two distinct radio stations serving northwest lower Michigan with music, news and culture from the region and the world – every day, 24 hours a day.

About Concert Artists Guild

Concert Artists Guild empowers musicians and launches careers that are sustainable, unique, and relevant. Through performances and mentorship opportunities, we identify and develop young artists who will make an impact in the world through music. CAG enables artists to manifest a new definition of a professional musician: resilient citizen artists who engage with, respond to, and impact the world around them through music and service, galvanizing the fabric of society through the power of culture.