Festival Thirteen, in 1990, marks the tenth anniversary of the COTA Cats, who play this year before a festival crowd of well over 4,000. The Cats have continued to send their alumni (and alumnae) to such institutions as Indiana University, the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and the Eastman School of Music in Rochester.

Guest soloists this year are Rick Chamberlain and Phil Woods. The festival budget has increased this year to $30,000. Friday night's events are moved to the Presbyterian Church of the Mountain, and other surrounding performance areas are utilized as well, when the expanding festival presents performances at the Deer Head Inn and the Antoine Dutot Museum. The first real COTA booth appears this year, morphosed from its picnic table chrysalis. Ralph Hughes Jazz Reunion plays, as well as Grandma's Soup, Dave Liebman's Quintet has Caris Visentin on oboe, plus Vic Juris on guitar. Phil Woods' Quartet has Jim McNeely on piano, while Eric Doney features Joe LaBarbera on drums. Bob Dorough presents Multiplication Rock, performing in the children's area festival, and a tribute to Harry Leahey closes this year's festival.

Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of him that walked the waves.