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Best Summer Festival in Wine Country: Festival Napa Valley
Wine and music blend again this summer as our favorite summer fest showcases stars like Lionel Richie, Pretty Yende, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Ray Chen, Time for Three, and over 100 others.

Music and the arts have an unparalleled, transcendent power, and one of the best places to experience this magic is Festival Napa Valley. Whether you're a seasoned patron or new to the world of performing arts, guests may expect nothing less than exceptional performances that will inspire and uplift their spirits.

This year, festivals around the world have pulled out all the stops to offer a wonderful range of repertoire, from the crowd-pleasing to the obscure, featuring an even more dazzling line-up of artists. Below, we have the USA and Canada's very best classical music festivals for 2024.

Festival Napa Valley’s signature celebration of exceptional food, wine, and music is set to take place on Saturday, July 13 from 12 pm to 3 pm on The Meritage Resort’s Grand Reserve lawn. The event features offerings from more than 70 wineries, breweries, restaurants, and culinary artisans, plus live music, games, activities, and the chance to explore wines of the world through a special international showcase of wines from Great Britain and Italy.

Featuring innovative classical, jazz, contemporary, opera, and dance productions paired with Napa Valley’s unparalleled food, wine, and hospitality, Festival Napa Valley's 2024 Summer Season is best experienced with a Patron Pass. The Pass provides access to the festival’s Vintner’s Luncheons, Patron Dinners, fashion shows, and other special events including premium seating and access to the popular Patron’s Lounge at concerts, as well as valet parking.

For 16 minutes last Thursday, a classroom full of St. Helena Elementary School kids did what some parents might find inconceivable: They listened and didn’t make a sound. It helped that they were listening to George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and using its jazzy rhythms to paint whatever came into their heads, be that a Christmas tree, blocky geometric shapes, or swirls and speckles of color. The workshop in teacher Hannah Waters’ third-grade classroom was part of Festival Napa Valley’s “How I See Music” program. 

Wine drinkers fit into two categories: those who casually enjoy the beverage and those who become fully immersed in everything about it. If you fit into the latter group, attending a wine festival is one of the best ways to join other enthusiastic oenophiles. These events unite vintners, producers, sommeliers, and everyday wine lovers, often in beautiful settings where the wine flows.

The 2024 Manetti Shrem Opera Prizewinners have been announced, revealing soprano Pretty Yende and tenor Jonathan Tetelman as the 2024 recipients. The prize is awarded annually to two extraordinary rising stars in the opera world and was created through a generous gift from Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem as part of the multifaceted Manetti Shrem Opera Program at Festival Napa Valley.

For a whole season of long, tipsy summer days, the Napa Valley region outside of San Francisco offers sunshine and foodie-approved meals. If you can make it in July, sip your way through Festival Napa Valley, which highlights a range of wineries offering their best blends.