The Open Music Society Foundation, a multifaceted arts organization dedicated to fostering musical excellence, was established in Los Angeles this month, Asbarez reports.

Following two years of preparation, the foundation was launched with a “strong community-engagement approach to the creation and performance of classical, jazz, folk, and world music in an entirely novel context,” said artistic director and conductor Aram Gharabekian, one of the founders of the OMSF.

“The goal is not only to involve local communities in terms of training talented youths, commissioning new works, and presenting public performances, but engaging larger, global, communities of artists and audiences, through collaborative projects that will lead to groundbreaking concerts and multidisciplinary arts events,” Gharabekian explained.

Forthcoming performances planned by the foundation include an international, multi-day music festival which will take place at a major venue in Los Angeles, sometime in 2012.

While classical music is at the heart of the OMSF, its founders have stated their commitment to promoting a diversity of musical genres, including various fusions.

According to an OMSF representative, much of the impetus for creating the foundation came from Open Music Fest, an international music festival that debuted in Yerevan, Armenia, in 2009. A critical and popular success, the two-month long, 23-concert festival quickly distinguished itself by a series of bold classical renditions as well as a number of genre-bending concerts. Conceived and led by Gharabekian, the festival also stood out by featuring numerous international guest artists who collaborated closely on the event’s programming and performances.

An OMSF source said that Open Music Fest paved the way for the launch of an international foundation dedicated to nurturing musical stewardship and innovation on a genuinely global scale.

“What we witnessed throughout Open Music Fest, among performers and audiences alike, was an unfettered enthusiasm for pushing the envelope, for opening up classical and modern music to the most daring of possibilities,” Gharabekian recalled. “It is no accident that we decided to weave the name of our new endeavor around the term ‘open music.’ It is a key principal in everything we’re trying to accomplish.”

OMSF projects include the commissioning of new compositions; musical mentorship and instruction for youths; a new installment of Open Music Fest; collaborative projects comprising music, theater, and dance; and concerts across the world.