Caramoor Summer Festival is Back – Pleasantville Music Festival is Not

Caramoor Summer Festival is Back – Pleasantville Music Festival is Not: Caramoor recently announced their lineup for the 2021 Summer Festival which will kick off with an Opening Night Gala featuring Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. The festival will feature twenty-nine performances and will include world premieres of new Caramoor commissions, U.S. and New York premieres of important new works, two experiential, and site-specific works (by John Luther Adams and Donald Nally),

There will be solo recitals by pianists Richard Goode and Conrad Tao, and guitarist JiJi, and a special 91st birthday celebration for Stephen Sondheim. The summer will also feature the return of the annual Jazz Festival (7/31) as well as the American Roots Music Festival (7/24), and of course their annual Pops & Patriots Concert to celebrate Independence Day.

More artists and ensembles who will perform this summer include Alarm Will Sound, Apollo’s Fire, Chanticleer, Leonidas Kavakos, Amjad Ali Khan & Sharon Isbin, Pekka Kuusisto, Joan Osborne, The Watkins Family Hour, Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Cha’s, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, PUBLIQuartet, So Percussion, The Crossing, The Knights, Verona Quartet with David Fung, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Caramoor’s orchestra in residence for the past 42 summers.

The post-festival season will feature three “Concerts on the Lawn” with the Mariachi group Flor de Toloache (Aug 13), bluegrass group Della Rae (Aug 20), and jazz vocalist Shenel Johns (Aug 27)  as well as three “Beginner’s Ear” programs returning on Sundays in late summer (Aug 15 and 29, Sep 12). Each “Beginner’s Ear” program is moderated by New York Times writer Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim and is designed to bring mindfulness to the concert experience via a guided meditation followed by musical performances, set in nature.

Please note that Caramoor’s 2021 festival has been designed in accordance with all the latest state and federal safety guidelines. Concerts will all be between 60 and 90 minutes in duration with no intermission, held outdoors, and with reduced capacity.

In addition to attending concerts visitors are also welcome to come to Caramoor to explore over 80 acres of woodlands, newly renovated grounds and gardens for socially distant walks and picnics in nature, as well as discover the site-specific sound art installations of Sonic Innovations (Fridays – Sundays, June 11 – Oct 10, free admission). More here

Pleasantville Music Festival Cancelled for 2021

Sadly, the Pleasantville Music Festival is not one of the iconic local events that will be returning this year. Bruce Figler, the festival’s executive director, announced this week that the decision was made due to New York state health and safety restrictions in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic. He left the door open to a 2021 festival later in the year, contingent on the state lifting restrictions on outdoor crowds.

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