Issue #43
Last Update December 24, 2005
Commentary It’s getting to be summer festival time again. Tanglewood, Chautuaqua, Blossom, Saratoga and other summer homes of America’s symphony orchestras and dance companies are all getting themselves and their lawns ready for the summer influx of music and dance lovers. Central Park is readying this year’s Shakespeare offering (Henry V). Farms and campgrounds are preparing to host bluegrass and folk festivals. While the regular concert and theater venues go dim for the summer, culture and the folk arts march on disguised as festivals.
Summer festivals are where you get to meet weird people like yourself. Summer festivals are where you can have a great picnic surrounded by great music, or fall asleep under the stars (weather permitting), or see fireworks at the end of the 1812 Overture. Summer festivals are where musicians and dancers go to pretend they are on vacation, while working harder than ever. Summer festivals are where students learn that being a musician or dancer is harder than they like, or more inspiring and exciting than they ever dreamed. Summer festivals are where the formal arts get to wear casual clothes.
Every town in the Northern Hemisphere seems to host a summer festival of one kind or another. It’s unlikely that you will find yourself more than one hour away from some festival no matter where you are. A brief check of Google shows websites devoted to listing Christian summer festivals, Celtic, Cajun and classical festivals, art and antique festivals, festivals devoted to the banjo, the guitar, the balalaika, the accordion or the bagpipe. If more than ten people are interested in it, there is a festival for it.
Some places seem more prone to festivals than others. The Berkshires, the mountain South and California all seem to have more than their share. (California has an annual Garlic festival in Gilroy. Nobody to my knowledge hosts a snail butter festival.) It’s not only rural areas. New York City hosts a number of nearly simultaneous festivals, from Mostly Mozart to rock to blues to film. The only requirements for having a festival seem to be a theme, performers willing to work cheap, and plenty of hotel space (or parking lots big enough for RV’s). Indoor festivals have the advantage of air conditioning; outdoor festivals bring you closer to nature (hot, humid and with mosquitos). It’s festivals that keep the folding chair industry going.
It’s a comfort to realize that when the festival season finally ends, the major concert and theater seasons begin. Have a happy summer.
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