The Stern Grove Festival is a Lawn Party Not to be Missed
By Carolyne ZinkoBy Carolyne Zinko|June 19, 2019|Lifestyle, Story, Culture, Music,
San Francisco’s Barrio Manouche is an acoustic septet with shades of Louis Armstrong, Django Reinhardt, flamenco, gypsy soul music and jazz, and appears at Stern Grove on Aug. 11.
Now 82 years old, San Francisco’s Stern Grove Festival is the longest-running free music festival in the nation—yet young at heart—thanks to efforts by the Goldman family, whose forebears created a nonprofit in 1938 that has run the festival ever since. Toots and the Maytals, Digable Planets and others perform Sundays this summer in a spot that, in the 1800s, held sand dunes planted over to create a city park. Atherton’s Doug Goldman, heading his 24th and final season as festival association chairman, is proud of the $15 million renovation of the Rhoda Goldman Concert Meadow under his tenure and of “the significant diversification of musical genres presented to appeal to an ever-larger cross-section of our diverse Bay Area community.” If blankets and picnics aren’t your style, the closing date’s Big Picnic offers a party in a tent, reserved seating and valet parking (tickets from $250 per person, table of 20 for $20,000). June 16-Aug.18, 19th Avenue at Sloat Boulevard
Originally published in the June issue of Silicon Valley
