Newport Music Festival
| Newport Music Festival | |
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| Genre | Classical music |
| Location(s) | Newport, Rhode Island |
| Years active | 1953-54, 1969-present |
Newport Music Festival is a classical music festival that takes place in Newport, Rhode Island. Founded in 1953 by the late Romanian-Canadian Music Director and Conductor Remus Tzincoca.
The Newport Music Festival (Rhode Island Arts Foundation at Newport, Inc.) has played a significant cultural role in Rhode Island since its launch in 1953. In the years since, it has produced over 2,100 concerts in a host of the Preservation Society of Newport County’s renowned Newport Mansions, and in other venues throughout Newport and surrounding communities. More than 1,000 artists have graced its stages, with some 130 of them making their American debuts. As the Festival celebrates its 46th anniversary season, it seems appropriate to remember those who contributed to the Festival’s founding and generously supported it through the years.
The tradition of presenting classical music to the Newport community goes back at least to the 1920s when a coterie of culture lovers established the Newport Music Club to produce monthly concerts. The group, led by President Winifred V. Honnen, eventually sponsored two “Newport Music Festival” summer festivals in August 1953 and again in 1954 with members of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, led by Music Director and Conductor Remus Tzincoca.
The first Newport Music Festival took place on the campus of Salve Regina College from August 7-9, 1953. The Newport Music Festival Orchestra was composed of 60 members of the New York Philharmonic, and featured soloists Erica Mornin (violin), Robert Merrill (baritone) and Claudio Arrau (piano). The Second Outdoor Newport Music Festival was even more ambitious, presenting three outdoor concerts at the Newport Casino from August 20-22, 1954. Featured soloists included pianist Madeleine Lipatti (widow of famed Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti), cellist Leonard Rose, and violinist John Corigliano, concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. The opera buffa “Il Matrimonio Segreto” by Domenico Cimarosa was produced featuring soloists from The Metropolitan Opera.
Determined that cultural events like this become a Newport tradition, several of the original Newport Music Festival patrons worked to establish the non-profit Rhode Island Arts Foundation at Newport, Inc., which was incorporated in 1966. Three years later, in 1969, the resurrected Newport Music Festival as it is known today, launched its inaugural season. The early Festival utilized many members of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and was a forerunner of the Romantic revival, so popular now worldwide. The Festival’s partnership with the Preservation Society of Newport County realized the possibility of performing chamber music in the historic Newport Mansions, the kind of grand rooms for which that music had originally been written.
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