The Crested Butte Music Festival (CBMF) was incorporated in 1997 following a series of informal winter concerts beginning in 1995 as a way to enrich the Gunnison Valley community. Formerly known as the Crested Butte Chamber Music Series and the Western Slope Music Festival, the early seasons encompassed one to three weeks of primarily classical music. Crested Butte Music Festival's mission is to present an annual festival of diverse music, opera and dance performed by outstanding artists, to inspire a greater appreciation of these art forms, and to help develop the performers of tomorrow.

We envision an intimate, artistically diverse festival that receives significant recognition from in

Goal One: Goal #1 - Continue to expand our Community Enrichment Program by pursuing more initiatives to reach the underserved of our community of all ages and backgrounds.

Goal Two: Goal #2 - Expand our programming throughout Gunnison Valley to become more inclusive.

Goal Three: Goal #3 -Increase human capital. The growing diversity of our programing in terms scope, location, and type of events, resulted in under-resourced operational functions.

Annually we identify and participate in professional development opportunities that are in line with both organizational and individual needs. The Board works with staff members to create plans for their own professional growth. The Board works to establish mechanisms to ensure follow-through on those plans, including linking progress on development goals to performance evaluations.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, our primary goal was to be a change agent, to quickly evaluate what we could do as a nonprofit knowing that the goal should always be focused on providing services to our community. Being a small and nimble organization allowed us to easily adapt. We really wanted to motivate and inspire people through this difficult time so we shifted our focus to a weekly newsletter that delivered musical performances and resources to your inbox. Our resource list also lives on our website to provide options and opportunities for anyone in need or interested in finding, or providing funding for those in need. We also held Facebook live events featuring our artists and educators both performing and lecturing. Although our 2020 schedule was released early March, and we continue to see Festival’s and events of all sizes cancel, we decided to stay the course. Yes, it was a bit scary, but also an opportunity to provide vitality and community connection to the valley this summer. We have re-designed our 2020 Festival keeping in mind that first and foremost, our priority is to keep our staff, artists, and participants safe and healthy by closely following the Health Department’s guidelines. Thi methodology listed above continued to guide our 2021 season of programming.