Celebration of the Arts Festival

The Celebration of the Arts festival, or COTA for short, is an annual event in September located in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania. COTA is presented in cooperation with the Borough of Delaware Water Gap, Castle Hill Development, Inc., and the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission.

Phil Woods, Rick Chamberlain and Ed Joubert founded the organization Celebration of the Arts in 1978 late one night in the bar at the Deer Head Inn in Delaware Water Gap. The organization would eventually become the Delaware Water Gap Celebration of the Arts. Their initial goal was to help foster an appreciation of jazz and its relationship to other artistic disciplines.

The first festival was staged later that year, on a shoe-string budget. The sponsors for the event included the Delaware Water Gap Chamber of Commerce, the Lions Club, and the Antoine Dutot Museum. Participating musicians, artists, and vendors were all drawn from the northeastern Pennsylvania area, thus establishing a festival precedent - in addition to showcasing the many nationally-known musicians and artists residing in the Pocono area, the annual festival is also designed to provide an opportunity for many talented, though lesser-known, musicians to be heard.

Festival one raised $300 for the Borough of Delaware Water Gap and, at a $1.00 cost of admission, is a great bargain for jazz and art fans alike. Bands play on a makeshift stage in the street, where there is theatre as well. More than thirty years later, admission is $28.00 per day (a two-day ticket is $40.00) for 8 hours of music per day.

Throughout the years, many things have changed to make the festival what it is today, including:

A non-denominational mass that blends music and spirituality, the Jazz Mass is a very large draw for the COTA festival weekend and is performed on Sunday morning. The first Jazz Mass was said and sung at the Presbyterian Church of the Mountain in Delaware Water Gap. The Music is performed by the Delaware Water Gap COTA Festival Orchestra. The Jazz Mass was first made available on CD in 1995. A remastered edition was released in 2014 and sold by COTA at a booth during the festival and online.

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