Summer 2026
Welcome to Festival Napa Valley 2026
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In 1976, a group of Napa Valley winemakers took part in a blind tasting in Paris that few expected them to win. They did – and the wine world was forever changed. It marked a new chapter in a story that is still being written.
Twenty years ago, we held a similar kind of belief: that a valley known for its vineyards could become one of the world's great stages. That world-class artists would return here again and again. That a community would gather each summer and be transformed by what they heard, tasted, and felt together. Two decades on, we find ourselves not unlike those winemakers – honored, inspired, and deeply grateful.
This summer, Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer bring that defining 1976 moment to life in The Judgment of Paris, a world premiere opera that feels, in this anniversary year, like exactly the right story to tell. Wynton Marsalis, a towering force in jazz and lifelong champion of young artists, headlines our Arts for All Gala. Renée Fleming, one of the most celebrated sopranos of our time, joins us to explore music’s power to heal, a theme both urgent and timeless. And The Wizard of Oz, performed with live orchestra, brings a landmark of American cinema to life, its magic renewed through shared experience.
Because extraordinary music, in an extraordinary place, becomes something more. Among golden hills and starlit vines, people come from everywhere and, for a few hours, feel exactly where they are meant to be.
But the reason we do this — the belief that carries us beyond any single season or milestone — lies in what comes next: the young musicians stepping onto the stage for the first time, not yet knowing what their voice will become; the new audiences discovering that live performance can transform them; the artists we have yet to meet, waiting for their moment.
Like those winemakers in 1976, we know what can happen when belief meets possibility.
Thank you for being part of that story – and for helping us write the next chapter.
Richard Walker
President and CEO
Steven Stull
Chairman