Festival Napa Valley

The tradition & historical record

Festival Napa Valley is a nonprofit music, arts, wine, and cultural organization based in Napa Valley, California. It presents an annual summer festival and year-round educational and community programs. 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. 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 $40 million since its inception. ¹

Each year, Festival Napa Valley presents over 100 performances and events in Napa Valley and other locations. In 2014, the festival presented a tribute to Sophia Loren at Far Niente. Loren's son, Carlo Ponti, debuted the Los Angeles Virtuosi Orchestra, an ensemble devoted to the advocacy and support of music education. Whoopi Goldberg emceed the tribute for 400 guests, which included Robert Redford, Francis Ford Coppola and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Robert De Niro and Former President Bill Clinton sent in tributes via video. 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. 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. In 2021, the festival returned to live programming with a full schedule running from July 16–25, 2021. In 2026, the festival celebrated its 20th anniversary with a Summer Season featuring performances by artists including Renée Fleming, Wynton Marsalis, Time for Three, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Ray Chen, as well as a tribute to tenor Luciano Pavarotti and the world premiere of the opera The Judgment of Paris by Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer. ¹

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. Artists who performed at the festival include Renée Fleming, Joshua Bell, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Tessa Lark, Angel Blue, Tiler Peck, Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra, LMR Jazz Orchestra, and others. ¹

This annual fundraising gala is held at Nickel & Nickel and features a reception, dinner, auction, and a headline concert performance. The 2026 Gala reached a fundraising milestone of $6.5 million. Headlining performers have included Wynton Marsalis, Jon Batiste, Lionel Richie, Carrie Underwood, Trisha Yearwood, Jennifer Hudson, SEAL, Kristin Chenoweth, and Bill Murray, among others. ¹

Each summer, the Festival presents Taste of Napa at The Meritage Resort & Spa, its signature food and wine celebration showcasing over 100 local wineries, restaurants, and culinary artisans. ¹

The Festival emphasizes education through programs including the Frost School at Festival Napa Valley, Blackburn Music Academy, and Manetti Shrem Opera Program, offering tuition-free training and professional development for more than 90 college and early career professional artists each year. Additional education programs include Novack Concerts for Kids, Bouchaine Young Artist Series, and How I See Music. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Festival Napa Valley”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Festival Napa Valley is food, wine and music festival in Napa Valley, California, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 3 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²