Festival gets global flavor

By Erin McGrath
Media General News Service

Published: June 5, 2008

This year’s Wintergreen Summer Music Festival explores the cultures of Europe and the Americas.

“Old Word, New World - Spain, France, Italy and the Americas - A Journey of Discovery” — four weeks of music concerts, cooking classes, seminars, children’s activities, a 5K run, a 25-hour piano marathon and more — will begin July 7.

“This will be our most ambitious Summer Music Festival yet,” said Larry Alan Smith, Artistic and Executive Director of Wintergreen Performing Arts.

In 2007, roughly 4,000 people attended the festival’s 75 events, up from 37 events in 2006. This year’s will offer 170 events.

“We are well on our way to becoming a destination festival that will draw people to Nelson County and Wintergreen mountain,” said Don Burland, Treasurer of Wintergreen Performing Arts.

Each week, the festival will feature a different country. The week of July 7 will be Spain; July 14 will be France; July 21 will be Italy; and July 28 will be the Americas.

For Spain Week, Ambassador Inocencio F. Arias, the former Spanish Ambassador to the United Nations, will open the festival on July 7 at 9:30 a.m. with a seminar at Wintergreen Nature Foundation.

France Week begins on Bastille Day, with a 25-hour piano marathon starting July 13 at DelFosse Vineyards and Winery in Faber.

Italy Week will feature an Italian Pops Concert on July 23 at 7:30 p.m. at the John D. Evans Center.

Americas Week will have three concerts featuring jazz pianist and composer Kirk Nurock.

For more information, visit http://www.wintergreenperformingarts.org or call 866-WTG-MUSIC.

McGrath, who writes for the Nelson County Times, can be reached at .