Kresge is a covered pavilion with 3,929 seating capacity.
The open-sided amphitheater was built in the 1940s as an orchestra shell on the shores of Green Lake. The facility is used almost exclusively in the summer and is host to some of the biggest names of the Interlochen Arts Festival.
Technical Specifications for Kresge.
Kresge Auditorium Dedication
"Dedicated to the Promotion of World Friendship through the Universal Language of the Arts."From the Interlochen archives at the Bentley library in Ann Arbor---
Although [Interlochen Center for the Arts founded Joseph] Maddy sought to end European dominance of American classical music, his success inevitably led him into international involvement. Early in 1940, he participated in the selection of a National Youth Administration orchestra to tour Latin America. Shortly thereafter, his old friend, Will Earhart, appointed him to the new State Department advisory committee on Inter-American Music. In his acceptance remarks, Maddy emphasized that music afforded the best means to overcome the language barrier. During the war, he encouraged Latin American music leaders to visit Interlochen and solicited support for their students as Campers. At the end of the conflict, he urged funding for a good will tour of Mexico by a high school orchestra. Like his friend Vandenberg, the war convinced Maddy of the need for international cooperation, and he became a supporter of the United Nations. In 1946, under his direction, the student council at Camp adopted a "Charter for Youth," which set forth principles of world unity. Two years later, he dedicated Kresge Auditorium, the Camp's new performance center, "to the promotion of World Friendship through the Universal Language of the Arts."
When a mid-fifties thaw in the Cold War created opportunities for cultural exchange, Maddy lobbied the federal government for a Camp orchestra tour of Eastern Europe. Government, he argued, should aid groups of young amateurs, the world's future leaders, as it did the professionals. Having failed to secure federal assistance, he devoted the Camp's own resources to attracting foreign educators and students. Eventually, in 1964, he started the International (later World) Youth Symphony, composed of Campers from many nations, and two years later, arranged for the Camp to host the first meeting in America of the International Society of Music Educators.
