Woodstock Festival....

With the fortieth anniversary of the Woodstock Music & Arts Festival and the upcoming movie Taking Woodstockby director Ang Lee, media outlets have been congested with coverage of the historic event. With such an occasion, let’s look into the importance of Woodstock and the history of the music festival prior to Woodstock. A music festival by definition is a social event that includes music while incorporating other social pursuits and community oriented events. The first music festival can be traced back to around 4500 B.C. when the Ancient Egyptians held music festivals that featured religious ceremonies and rites. In Europe during the Middle Ages, music festivals were used for competitive feats and other political tasks. By the late nineteenth century, the concept had reached Ireland with the creation of the Irish Music Festival in 1897.

In 1924, the establishment of the Ole Time Fiddlers and Bluegrass Festival in North Carolina took the concept of an annual music festival to North America. The festival was instituted as a means to stage competitions, workshops and performances featuring bluegrass instruments. In 1954, jazz producer George Wein established the Newport Jazz Festival, giving jazz its own annual festival that has continued to be an event showcasing the past and future of jazz. In 1959, Wein lent his talents to the Newport Folk Festival, which introduced several notable names to the popular music lexicon including Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.

The modern template for the American music festival was the Monterey International Pop Music Festival. The three-day event was held from June 16 until June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The festival was the first major festival to receive heavy promotion in the United States. The concert was attended by an estimated two hundred thousand people and gained fame for introducing American audiences to The Who and The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

From August 15 until August 18, Woodstock managed to change the history of rock and roll and helped to define a generation. In 1994, festival promoters decided to resurrect the Woodstock name and stage a second version of the concert. With its success, a third concert was established in 1999, though it sullied the Woodstock name with reports of violence and other anti-social behavior. Whatever the aftermath may be in the eyes of the public, forty years ago this month a group of people went to a field in upstate New York and left with a defining moment they would never forget.
http://www.examiner.com/x-18832-Manhattan-Performing-Arts-Examiner~y2009m8d18-Woodstock-and-a-Brief-History-of-the-Music-Festival