Mayor thomas m. menino - city of boston                                                 boston arts festival

A Visual and Performing

Arts Fest

Formed in 2003 as a one-day event by Mayor Thomas M. Menino, the festival started with the mission of launching the Boston Open Studios and performing arts seasons. Under incredible clear blue skies, the festival drew huge crowds to the newly re-designed Christopher Columbus Park on Boston’s Waterfront. Highlights of the event included lively performances from Boston Lyric Opera performing Italian arias, La Pinata presenting folkloric dance, the Mayor’s Mural Crew offering interactive mural painting and watercolor exercises and reports from some visual artists of record breaking sales.

2004 saw the festival being expanded to 2 days in the same venue with highlight performances from Boston Ballet and Jazz Hip Hop Orchestra, and huge crowd attendance.

To celebrate Boston’s 375th Birthday, the 2005 event moved some of its performances to downtown and Faneuil Hall. The main focus remained Christopher Columbus Park. Again, Boston Ballet proved hugely popular alongside Chu Ling Dance and Haitian singer, Gi Frants.

In 2006, the festival continued on its hot streak of fine weather and played host to, for the first time, Diablo Glass who gave glass blowing demonstrations on the park.

Firmly established the festival drew record crowds in 2007 where juried artists exhibited and sold their artwork in a specially built artists’ village.  Opera Boston made their festival debut to great acclaim as did up and coming harpist Maeve Gilchrist on the new Garden Stage to complement the Waterfront Stage. Boston Pops Ensemble and the very popular Boston Gay Men’s Chorus also made their debut.

Building on the success of 2007, the 2008 event expanded to become a 3-day event. Visual artists were now able to exhibit and sell on Friday while special guests Blue Man Group and Buffalo Tom entertained audiences from the Waterfront Stage.  Despite the wettest day in the festival’s short history, large crowds turned out as the festival opened to great energy.

2009 opened to rain but the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus pushed the clouds out to sea on the Friday night with an uplifting performance. Saturday did fall to rain but Sunday burned it up with popular festival debutant and jazz sensation, Grace Kelly. Classical music with a twist came from Jamaica Plain’s A Far Cry and visual artists were greeted with a strong stream of traffic through their exhibition areas.