The name Sundance will put most people in mind of the Institute’s glamourous independent film festival – and make them wonder why Gramophone, the "venerable" classical music title, has strayed onto the red carpet.
But it is, in fact, the Sundance that’s not evident at festival premières that the Institute enlisted Gramophone to expose. The Sundance Institute is active year-round in artists’ labs and offsite programmes from Africa to the Middle East, and not only in film but also in music, theatre and the visual arts.
“The Institute really wanted people to realise that they are about more than that one week in January,” said Gramophone editor James Inverne.
So Inverne, who has been behind a string of Gramophone publications celebrating the Aspen Music Festival and Carnegie Hall’s music festivals, proposed a similar idea to the Institute and an enthusiastic Redford.
The 116-page magazine – which was distributed during this year’s Festival throughout its Utah home, and at Sundance events across the US and beyond – goes behind the scenes to explore how the Institute nurtures multiple artforms, and to interview the programmers, composers and volunteers who you’d never hear from otherwise.
However, film still pervades the magazine. It collects the stories of stellar Sundance alumni such as Shine director Scott Hicks and the self-taught cult filmmaker Richard Linklater, and speaks to more recent star turns, including writer Nick Hornby, whose acclaimed film An Education was launched at Sundance 2009.
