Mendocino Music Festival

The Mendocino Music Festival (MMF) is a concert series held in late July. Started in 1987 by Allan Pollack, Susan Waterfall and Walter Green, the festival is a blend of established music groups invited for nightly performances in the town of Mendocino, California. Concerts feature the Festival Orchestra, the Big Band, Opera, guest singers, chamber music ensembles, dance, blues, jazz, world, folk, and popular contemporary music. Days include lecture/recitals at the Piano Series, performances from young emerging artists, and chamber concerts at venues throughout Mendocino and Fort Bragg, California.

The Festival symphony orchestra is composed of professional musicians from the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera orchestra, San Francisco Ballet orchestra, the Symphony of the Redwoods, and other Bay Area orchestras.

Every year after the 4th of July, the Mendocino Music Festival erects a 16,000-square-foot (1,500 m²) tent containing a concert hall at a site overlooking the Pacific Ocean at the Mendocino Headlands State Park. This Symphony-sized tent, seating more than 840, is adjacent to Ford House Museum Visitor Center and across Main Street from the Kelley House Museum. The MMF office is in the Old Bank Building on the corner of Main and Kasten Streets. MMF has developed a large volunteer network of over 200 people that help out at the festival and at year-round events. MMF is a member of the Mendocino Coast Chamber of Commerce, Mendocino Arts Showcase, and Arts Council of Mendocino County. MMF is a charter member in the Mendocino Coast Performance Art Production Alliance (PAPA) where MMF shares storage space, set pieces, costumes, tools, and technical expertise with other local performing arts non-profit organizations including Mendocino Theater Company, Gloriana Musical Theater, and the Symphony of the Redwoods.

The 2013 season runs from July 13 through July 27. It includes works by Verdi, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Rossini, Sheng, Takemitsu, Rodrigo, Debussy, Bruch, Bernstein, Mozart, Beethoven, Barber, Schubert and performances by the Calder Quartet, Gloria Cheng, James D'Leon, Robert Schwartz, Jacqueline Schwab, the Alison Brown Band, Jorma Kaukonen, The House Jacks, the Julian Pollack Trio, Kim Nalley, the Thelonius Monk Jazz Sextet High School Concert, the Thelonius Monk Jazz Sextet, Kathleen Grace, Shin-Ichi Fukuda, Karl Young, GONNA, Dror Sinai Trio, Cherish the Ladies and the Pedtrito Martinez Group.