Festivals
The first Glastonbury Festivals were a series of cultural events held in summer, from 1914 to 1926 in Glastonbury. The festivals were founded by English socialist composer Rutland Boughton and his librettist Lawrence Buckley. Apart from the founding of a national theatre, they envisaged a summer school and music festival based on utopian principles.
The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or Glasto, is the largest green field open-air music and performing arts festival in the world. Organiser Michael Eavis stated that he decided to host the first festival, then called Pilton Festival, after seeing an open air Led Zeppelin concert at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music 1970 at the nearby Bath and West Showground in 1970. The Big Green Gathering (BGG) was a festival with an environmental focus which happened during most summers between 1994 and 2007. It was held at various locations in Somerset and Wiltshire. The event grew from the Green Fields area of the Glastonbury Festival.
The Bath International Music Festival, also known as the Bath Music Fest, is held each summer in Bath. Inaugurated in 1948, the festival includes many genres such as orchestral, contemporary jazz, folk and electronica.
There are also small festivals with a music focus within the county such as the Farm festival, Frome Festival, Sunrise Celebration, Trowbridge Village Pump Festival and the Two Moors Festival.
Read more about this topic: Music Of Somerset
Famous quotes containing the word festivals:
“This is certainly not the place for a discourse about what festivals are for. Discussions on this theme were plentiful during that phase of preparation and on the whole were fruitless. My experience is that discussion is fruitless. What sets forth and demonstrates is the sight of events in action, is living through these events and understanding them.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“Why wont they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, cant they use birth control on time? I want an interregnum. The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stopping—rising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Year’s and Easter and Christmas—But, goodness, why need they do it?”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)