The Great Waters Music Festival (GWMF) is an annual summer music festival held in

Wolfeboro, New Hampshire Wolfeboro is a town in Carroll County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 6,416 at the 2020 census. A resort area situated beside Lake Winnipesaukee, Wolfeboro includes the village of Wolfeboro Falls. History The town was granted ...

, United States, two hours north of

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. The festival was founded in 1995 to promote live musical performances of outstanding amateur and professional musicians. It consists of a wide range of musical performances including

choral A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which ...

symphonic A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning com ...

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Folk Plus or Fol ...

, pops,

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

, and

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

. Since the first festival, which attracted 325 attendees, it has grown to an audience of over 7,000 over its eight-week concert schedule. While originally concerts were held in a large white tent, the venue moved in 2011 to the newly built Kingswood Arts Center, an air-conditioned facility which seats nearly 1,000.

Celebrity performers

The GWMF attracts artists from around the world. The following is a partial list of artists who have performed at the festival. *

Lucie Arnaz Lucie Désirée Arnaz (born July 17, 1951) is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of actors Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Early life Arnaz was born at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of acto ...

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy Big Bad Voodoo Daddy is a contemporary swing revival band from Southern California. Their notable singles include "Go Daddy-O", "You & Me & the Bottle Makes 3 Tonight (Baby)", and "Mr. Pinstripe Suit". The band played at the Super Bowl XXXIII h ...

Dave Brubeck David Warren Brubeck (; December 6, 1920 – December 5, 2012) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Often regarded as a foremost exponent of cool jazz, Brubeck's work is characterized by unusual time signatures and superimposing contrasti ...

Betty Buckley Betty Lynn Buckley (born July 3, 1947) is an American actress and singer. Buckley is the winner of a Tony Award, and was nominated for two Daytime Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and an Olivier Award. In 2012, she was inducted into the American T ...

Canadian Brass The Canadian Brass is a Canadian brass quintet formed in 1970 in Toronto, Ontario, by Charles Daellenbach (tuba) and Gene Watts (trombone), with horn player Graeme Page and trumpeters Stuart Laughton and Bill Phillips completing the quintet. , ...

Judy Collins Judith Marjorie Collins (born May 1, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter and musician with a career spanning seven decades. An Academy Award-nominated documentary director and a Grammy Award-winning recording artist, she is known for her ec ...

Sandy Duncan Sandra Kay Duncan (born February 20, 1946) is an American actress, comedian, dancer and singer. She is known for her performances in the Broadway revival of ''Peter Pan'' and in the sitcom ''The Hogan Family''. Duncan has been nominated for thr ...

Nanci Griffith Nanci Caroline Griffith (July 6, 1953 – August 13, 2021) was an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter. She appeared many times on the PBS music program ''Austin City Limits'' starting in 1985 (season 10). In 1994 she won a Grammy Award fo ...

Arlo Guthrie Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10, 1947) is an American folk singer-songwriter. He is known for singing songs of protest against social injustice, and storytelling while performing songs, following the tradition of his father, Woody Guthrie. Gut ...

Richie Havens Richard Pierce Havens (January 21, 1941 – April 22, 2013) was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. His music encompassed elements of folk, soul (both of which he frequently covered), and rhythm and blues. He had a rhythmic guitar style ...

Natalie MacMaster Natalie MacMaster (born June 13, 1972) is a Canadian fiddler from Troy, Inverness County, Nova Scotia who plays Cape Breton fiddle music. MacMaster has toured with the Chieftains, Faith Hill, Carlos Santana, and Alison Krauss, and has recorded ...

Chuck Mangione Charles Frank Mangione ( ; born November 29, 1940) is an American flugelhorn player, voice actor, trumpeter and composer. He came to prominence as a member of Art Blakey's band in the 1960s, and later co-led the Jazz Brothers with his brother, ...

Wynton Marsalis Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is an American trumpeter, composer, teacher, and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has promoted classical and jazz music, often to young audiences. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Awar ...

Glenn Miller Orchestra Glenn Miller and His Orchestra was an American swing dance band formed by Glenn Miller in 1938. Arranged around a clarinet and tenor saxophone playing melody, and three other saxophones playing harmony, the band became the most popular and com ...

Peter Nero Peter Nero (born Bernard Nierow, May 22, 1934) is an American pianist and pops conductor. He directed the Philly Pops from 1979 to 2013, and has earned two Grammy Awards. Early life Born in Brooklyn, New York, as Bernard Nierow, he started h ...

Gretchen Peters Gretchen Peters (born November 14, 1957) is an American singer and songwriter. She was born in New York, where she wrote her first song with her sister at the age of 5. In 1970, her parents broke up, and Peters moved with her mother to Boulder, ...

Rockapella Rockapella is an American a cappella musical group formed in 1986 in New York City. The group's name is an amalgam of "rock" and "a cappella". Rockapella sings original vocal music and a cappella covers of pop and rock songs; and over time, their ...

Veronica Swift Veronica Swift (born May 14, 1994) is an American jazz and bebop singer. Early life Swift was raised in Charlottesville, Virginia, as part of a family of musicians. Her parents are late jazz pianist Hod O'Brien and singer Stephanie Nakasian. ...

Ronan Tynan Ronan Tynan (born 14 May 1960) is an Irish tenor singer and former Paralympic athlete. He was a member of The Irish Tenors re-joining in 2011 while continuing to pursue his solo career since May 2004. In the United States, audiences know him f ...

References

External links

* {{coord, 43.5885, -71.2173, type:event_globe:earth_region:US-NH, display=title Music festivals in New Hampshire Summer festivals Tourist attractions in Carroll County, New Hampshire Wolfeboro, New Hampshire