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ARTICLE: La Jolla Music Society renews Inon Barnatan’s contract and launches $60 million endowment campaign

George Varga
San Diego Union-Tribune

August 25, 2025

 

La Jolla Music Society is making big plans for the future.

At Saturday night’s closing concert of its annual SummerFest, the nonprofit announced a new five-year contract with SummerFest Music Director Inon Barnatan and the launching of the society’s new $60 million endowment fund, 60 x 60.

Both announcements came as the four-week festival concluded. It was the most successful iteration ever of its 39-year-old concert series. The 2025 edition drew a record 6,900 attendees and included multiple sellout performances at the society’s Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, also known as The Conrad.

The four-week chamber-music-and-beyond marathon included 20 concerts at the Conrad’s two performance venues  — The Baker-Baum Concert Hall and The JAI — and more than 50 free learning and audience engagement events. Barnatan, an internationally acclaimed concert pianist, was a featured performer in at least six of this year’s concerts.

Speaking by phone Monday from The Conrad, he expressed excitement about his five-year extension with SummerFest. Barnatan made his SummerFest debut as music director in 2019.

“I’m thrilled! We have gotten to the point where we really can do anything and that is a very exciting place to be,” he said.

“It’s been such a joy working here on this festival. I didn’t know when I started in 2019 how I’d feel being on this side of the planning and curating process, as opposed being just a performer. Balancing both of those roles has been so fun and rewarding. The level of talented people I get to work with here has exceeded all my expectations.”

Barnatan’s enthusiasm is shared by La Jolla Music Society President and CEO Todd Schultz.

“Inon is the perfect person for this organization,” Schultz said. “He has such positive energy and is a tremendously skilled musician who is very serious about SummerFest’s programing. But he also likes to have fun and his personality comes out in what he does on stage. His spirit drives SummerFest.”

It was Schultz who announced the society’s $60 million 60 x 60 endowment campaign Saturday night from the Baker-Baum stage. He credited society board member Steve Baum, the former CEO of Sempra Energy, for giving $10 million to anchor the endowment. Other supporters have pledged an additional $20 million, allowing the society to reach 50 percent of its fundraising goal before the campaign was publicly announced.

“We are relieved!” Schultz said. “We’ve been working on this for the past 18 months and it’s what we call — in the fundraising world — ‘the quiet phase.’ We had a lot of really good conversations with people who really care about this organization.”

SummerFest will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year, while the society’s 60th anniversary fall/winter season will begin in 2028. Extending Barnatan’s contract at the same time as the public launch of the endowment campaign is a synergistic coincidence.

“The two are independent of each other, but just happened at the same time,” Schultz said. “But this kind of stability — and letting people know what we are doing in the future — certainly helps give them confidence in what we are doing.”

Barnatan’s August 2019 debut as SummerFest’s music director came just a few months after that April’s opening of the society’s $82 million Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center.

“The last six years have been completely transformational for La Jolla Music Society,” Schultz said.

“The Conrad has enabled us to expand our programing and move into areas we didn’t do so much of before, including jazz, dance and children’s concerts. Having The Conrad has changed who we are and what we can be. And the last six years have been a learning curve for us. Now, we have a really good sense of the venue, the market and the interest in our programming.

“We are in the middle of writing a new strategic plan. Our last one was written in 2020, when the world was in upheaval (with the pandemic) and The Conrad was new. Everything in our previous five-year plan was conjecture. We made good guesses, but now we’ve lived it and have seen what works and what doesn’t work. So, we are much better equipped for the next five years, looking at where we are today and what we can be in the future.”