The Britt Festivals has been presenting concerts for 44 years. That makes it the Northwest's oldest outdoor summer music and performing arts festival. The coming 45th season will present more than 40 shows from June 8 through Sept. 9 in the outdoor Jacksonville venue.

Artists at Britt come from jazz, blues, pop, dance, folk, country and classical music. Returning to the Britt stage will be the Neville Brothers, Moody Blues, Greg Brown, John Hammond, Hootie and the Blowfish, the Doobie Brothers, Herbie Hancock, Robert Earl Keen, The Temptations, The Four Tops, the Cowboy Junkies, Joan Osborne, David Sanborn, Tower of Power, Riders In The Sky, Chris Botti and Chicago.

Performing on the Britt stage for the first time will be Los Lonely Boys, Madeleine Peyroux, Gregg Allman, The Wreckers, Josh Turner, Norman Krieger, Joan Armatrading, Amos Lee, Amy Grant and TOTO.

Several concerts will feature two or three performers on the same bill. Among these pairings will be Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby, Mary Wilson of the Supremes with the Funk Brothers, David Bromberg with Angel Band, Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas, Lyle Lovett and His Large Band and k.d. lang, and Vince Gill featuring Amy Grant and The Del McCoury Band.

Dance has become a part of the Britt summer. This year there will be a performance by the Bellydance Superstars. Highlighting the dance portion of the season will be The Martha Graham Dance Company performing for two nights. A national dance treasure, the Martha Graham Dance Company was founded in 1926 by dancer and choreographer Martha Graham. It is the oldest and most celebrated contemporary dance company in America.

Advertisement

The Britt Festivals was founded with the commitment to present a program of classical music every summer as a part of its summer season.

Britt's Classical Festival runs for three weeks, August 3-19, and features the 100-piece Britt Festival Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Peter Bay. Bay is returning for his 15th season as music director and conductor. The orchestra is made up of musicians recruited from across the country.

The opening night concert of the Classical Festival will feature young violinist Nicola Benedetti in a performance of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. The orchestra will play Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. The next concert showcases the work of a great composer as interpreted or re-worked by another great musical mind. The centerpiece of the evening is Rachmaninoff's Romantic piano work "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini."

The middle classical weekend hosts Jeffrey Kahane performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4. The concert opens with Griffes' orchestral work "The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan" and closes with Dvorak's "New World Symphony." The next concert night will be dedicated to opera and musical theater arias, songs and duets with Frederica von Stade and Samuel Ramey.

The Classical Festival will continue with "the circle of Brahms" which includes Brahms' Double Concerto for violin and cello along with works by two of his closest friends, Joseph Joachim and Robert Schumann. For the family concert, Platypus Theatre will bring actors, masks and puppets to the stage to help the orchestra tell a musical story.

The classical season will close with a performance by violinist Sarah Chang playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto. The orchestra will conclude the concert and the classical season with a waltz piece by Maurice Ravel.

Tickets for Britt's 2007 season go on sale Monday, April 2, to Britt members and May 15 to the general public. The Britt box office is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, at 216 West Main St. in Medford. See brittfest.org or call 773-6077 or 1-800-882-7488