Death is the mother of beauty, Stevens said, and he was talking about time. He was talking about musicians standing on a stage, a big flashy new one or some boards propped in the street, making beauty out of the time with the sounds they place inside it, something nearly permanent outstripping the brief sun. Andrew Marvell, legendary pre-bopper, addressing the mistress he found too coy, wishing, perhaps, to persuade her to the dance, as well as into his warm bed, said...
Though we cannot make our sun stand still
Yet we will make him run.
Yet we will make him run.
Every September for twenty years, Festival Twenty this September '97, in the Delaware Water Gap just after Labor Day, that busy old fool's been made to run for his money.
Rick Madigan
Assistant Professor of English, East Stroudsburg University
Thus concludes the words of Rick Madigan, Assistant Professor of English at East Stroudsburg University; words - with conviction and affection, offering a glimpse into the world of COTA through the years.
In 1997, Festival Twenty celebrates a landmark anniversary. A unique program, abundant in pages of reflection of COTA's past, is published, whereas Rick Madigan shares year by year, the progress of COTA, displaying how the community of Delaware Water Gap and the Celebration of the Arts have grown far-far-far beyond their tax-lines, with horns blowing so hard, mallards drop from the sky - into the community of the world. On January 21 & 22, Phil Woods rounds up the Festival Orchestra, along with his quintet, into Red Rock Studios to record what becomes entitled Celebration! What follows are nine - sometimes loud and sometimes soft, but always powerful - tunes, bringing the explosive excitement and enthusiasm that is felt each year at COTA. From track one (Reet's Neet), your attention is arrested all the way until the proverbial finale How's Your Mama?, swinging hard and strong at each beat and taking no prisoners.Festival Eighteen in 1995 must have been a great year for the Festival Orchestra, in that Celebration's CD selection is not unlike the Festival Orchestra's line-up of that year, virtually in the same sequence.
Asparagus Sunshine reunite this year to perform for the first time since Festival Ten in 1987, as the Cartwright/Oppenheim Quintet perform "Cohn's Tones and Flora's Stories" - the music of Al and Flo Cohn, and Jim McNeely composes a three movement work entitled 3 x 5 + 12 in honor of COTA's twentieth anniversary, which is performed by none other than the COTA Cats. The DWG COTA Festival Orchestra performs once again whilst the impending CD is mastered for release later this year, unbeknown at the time that Celebration! will be nominated for a Grammy in less than a year.
In 1997, Festival Twenty celebrates a landmark anniversary. A unique program, abundant in pages of reflection of COTA's past, is published, whereas Rick Madigan shares year by year, the progress of COTA, displaying how the community of Delaware Water Gap and the Celebration of the Arts have grown far-far-far beyond their tax-lines, with horns blowing so hard, mallards drop from the sky - into the community of the world. On January 21 & 22, Phil Woods rounds up the Festival Orchestra, along with his quintet, into Red Rock Studios to record what becomes entitled Celebration! What follows are nine - sometimes loud and sometimes soft, but always powerful - tunes, bringing the explosive excitement and enthusiasm that is felt each year at COTA. From track one (Reet's Neet), your attention is arrested all the way until the proverbial finale How's Your Mama?, swinging hard and strong at each beat and taking no prisoners.Festival Eighteen in 1995 must have been a great year for the Festival Orchestra, in that Celebration's CD selection is not unlike the Festival Orchestra's line-up of that year, virtually in the same sequence.
Asparagus Sunshine reunite this year to perform for the first time since Festival Ten in 1987, as the Cartwright/Oppenheim Quintet perform "Cohn's Tones and Flora's Stories" - the music of Al and Flo Cohn, and Jim McNeely composes a three movement work entitled 3 x 5 + 12 in honor of COTA's twentieth anniversary, which is performed by none other than the COTA Cats. The DWG COTA Festival Orchestra performs once again whilst the impending CD is mastered for release later this year, unbeknown at the time that Celebration! will be nominated for a Grammy in less than a year.
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