Holiday Music Festival Memories

Focus: HOPE is pleased to announce “Focus: HOPE Holiday Music Festival Memories,” a DVD collection of Music Festival performances that stretch back over decades.

For fifty years the Focus: HOPE Holiday Music Festival has entertained and inspired us. It has been the longest continuous event in Focus: HOPE’s history. This year, because of the pandemic, our show cannot go on live. Though this is a disappointment, the DVD can safely bring the entertainers into your home. It is a gift that can keep on giving, long after a single holiday season.

It all began as a Christmas Folk Festival in 1970 and evolved into a show with diverse music that included jazz and blues and most anything else you can think of. The Music Festival has sold out every year and many have counted on our volunteer singers to launch the holiday season. This compilation of past performances is an opportunity for regular attendees to sweetly remember, and for others, this is a chance to discover a rich history of homegrown inspired music given from the heart.

It is also an opportunity to revisit past performers who are no longer with us. Charlie Latimer, Steve Fava, Ortheia Barnes, Michael Smith with Barbara Barrow, Lyman Woodard, Rich and Maureen DelGrosso are here. Father Bill Cunningham and Eleanor Josaitis speak to us again.

For every volunteer involved in the Focus: HOPE Holiday Music Festivals, it has been an opportunity to share some holiday love as we reboot for a new year. This December end to a difficult year is made more hopeful with the help of these memories.

Audience members, ticket takers, kitchen workers, seaters, planners and performers, we intend to see you live and in full voice next year.

Special thanks to Ann Ruzzin who has produced the Music Festival for most of its history and to John Hammond for producing this DVD.

The Focus: HOPE Holiday Music Festival Memories DVD is available to reserve here with a minimum donation of $35.00 is requested. All proceeds go to Focus: HOPE.