Festival Napa Valley is a nonprofit music, arts, wine, and cultural organization based in Napa Valley, California.[2] It presents an annual summer festival and year-round educational and community programs. Each year, the Festival presents performances and events in Napa Valley and other locations
Napa Valley Festival Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, governs and produces the Festival. The board includes vintners, arts patrons, and local community leaders, including Robin Baggett, Steven Stull, Darioush Khaledi, and Kathryn Hall. The organization’s programming includes free and low-cost concerts, year-round educational initiatives, and community outreach.[3][4]
The Festival is funded through ticket revenue, fundraising events, sponsorships, grants, and donor support. A major fundraising component is the Arts for All Gala, which features dining, live performance, and auction items. According to Haute Living, the Arts for All Gala has raised more than $33 million since its inception.[5]
Events
Taste of Napa, part of the festival, showcases wine and culinary delicacies from approximately 80 local wineries, restaurants, and food artisans.[6] Many of the wineries that participate are rarely open to the public.[7]
The festival's wellness events include conversations led by health practitioners and a 5K/10K Sun Run with proceeds supporting the Napa County Alliance for Arts Education.[8]
The Arts for All Gala takes place the first Sunday of the festival's summer season every July. The evening features an alfresco dinner, live performances, and surprise guests, and culminates in a charity wine auction featuring one-of-a-kind lifestyle experiences. The 2017 Arts for All Gala, held at HALL Napa Valley, raised a record $2.5 million,[9] placing it among the most successful charity wine auctions in the United States.[9] Proceeds from the event provide free and affordable access to festival performances and support public school arts education programs in Napa County, scholarships for emerging musicians, and the festival's tuition-free Blackburn Music Academy.[9]
In 2016, the festival presented a tribute to Margrit Mondavi, also at Far Niente. Jazz musician Dave Koz and vocalist Monica Mancini performed. Notable guests included Sophia Loren and Lidia Bastianich. Among those celebrating Ms. Mondavi in person or by video were Beth Nickel, Maria Manetti Shrem, Francis Ford Coppola, Thomas Keller, Jacques Pepin, Boz Scaggs, Piero Antinori, and Lamberto Frescobaldi. The tribute was one of Margrit Mondavi's last public appearances and she died less than six weeks later.[11]
In 2018, the festival feted its Founding Chair Darioush Khaledi and his wife Shahpar, culminating in a private concert and dinner featuring Sarah Chang and Aldo Lopez-Gavilan, hosted by Jeff and Valerie Gargiulo at Gargiulo Vineyards.[12]
In 2021, the festival returned to live programming with a full schedule running from July 16–25, 2021.[13]
Summer Season
Festival Napa Valley’s Summer Season, held annually in July, is a multidisciplinary music, art, and culinary festival. The festival features performances across classical and jazz, opera, dance, and contemporary music genres, held in venues across Napa Valley, including Charles Krug, CIA at Copia, Bouchaine Vineyards, Nickel & Nickel, HALL St. Helena, and Castello di Amorosa.[14] Artists who performed in 2025 festival include Renée Fleming, Joshua Bell, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Tessa Lark, Angel Blue, Tiler Peck, Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra, LMR Jazz Orchestra, and others. USA Today ranked Festival Napa Valley among the top 10 music festivals in the United States.[15]
Programs
Festival Napa Valley has awarded more than $1 million to support Napa County public school visual and performing arts programs.[16] The festival has fulfilled teacher "Wish Lists" for classroom resources and materials, has underwritten the creation of Napa County's first-ever arts education master plan in partnership with Arts Council Napa Valley and the Napa Valley Unified School District, and has taken a lead role in ensuring access to quality arts education for all K-12 students.[17] Festival grants have provided funding for a district-wide Visual and Performing Arts Coordinator; a music teacher to serve Napa's three largest middle schools; and the creation of a professional development program to encourage arts integration into all classrooms. Festival Napa Valley has also partnered with the Napa County Office of Education to ensure arts education for the county's most disenfranchised students at Camille Creek Community School, through funding a weekly arts education class, establishing a creative room on campus, and initiating an annual Concert on the Green on the Camille Creek campus. On April 5, 2018, We McDonald, a finalist from NBC's "The Voice," inaugurated the Concert on the Green with a performance and question and answer session with the students.[18]
Young artist series and concert
The festival's Bouchaine Young Artists Series is an admission-free concert series featuring performances by emerging stars.[19]
Summer camps
In 2018, Festival Napa Valley funded two tuition-free summer camps for the Boys & Girls Clubs' Napa and American Canyon clubhouses, each serving 250 students ages 6–18.[20] The program features a robust arts curriculum designed to encourage students to create, explore and discover, a daily interactive music experience, and attendance at the festival's Concert for Kids featuring a headlining artist.
Music academy
Festival Napa Valley's Blackburn Music Academy offers a tuition-free immersive training and performance experience for 80 emerging pre-professional musicians from around the world.[21] In 2017, the academy's inaugural year, applications were submitted by hundreds of students from 119 schools and conservatories, from 45 states and seven countries.[22]
Vocal arts series
With support from Festival Napa Valley benefactors Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem, the festival presents leading vocalists and emerging talent in concert halls and intimate settings throughout Napa Valley, including Lincoln Theater, Napa Valley Opera House, Meadowood, Jarvis Conservatory, and Castello di Amorosa.[23]
Dance series
San Francisco philanthropist Dede Wilsey underwrites the festival's dance series, which has featured dancers from American Ballet Theatre, Bandaloop, Bolshoi Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, National Ballet of Canada, New York City Ballet, Royal Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, StaatsBallett Berlin and Stuttgart Ballet, among others.[24] The Napa Regional Dance Company and other programs for young dancers are also presented through the series.
Festival Napa Valley was founded in 2006 by San Francisco Bay Area attorney and arts manager Richard Walker and IMG Artists Chairman Barrett Wissman, along with Executive Producer Charles Letourneau. The festival was launched with financial support from Ann and Gordon Getty, Tatiana and Gerret Copeland, Maria Manetti and Jan Shrem, Athena and Timothy Blackburn, Diane Wilsey, John Traina, and Robert and Margrit Mondavi, among other noted philanthropists. Founding Partner Wineries included PlumpJack, Darioush, Far Niente, Bouchaine Vineyards, HALL Napa Valley, Peju Winery, Quintessa, Blackbird Vineyards, Castello di Amorosa, Gargiulo Vineyards, and Robert Mondavi Winery. The founders sought to create a festival that would define Napa Valley as a cultural destination.[3]
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