Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival

The Festival was founded in April of 1980 by Jo Ryman Scott and Edward Madden, originally as the one-week Jazz Festival ’80, and was funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (proposal written by Scott, Theodore DeCorso, and Jean Mackin) and a guarantorship from the Kiwanis Club of Fairbanks. In response to requests from classical musicians interested in participating in the Festival, Scott and Madden went on to produce the two-week Jazz to Classics in August of 1981 – the first ever summer arts festival to be held in Interior Alaska. In 1982, other fine art genres began to be incorporated, including dance, theatre and visual arts, and the name was officially changed to Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. Since then, the Festival has expanded to even more disciplines based on requests from registrants.

GRANT AWARDED – OPERATIONAL SUPPORT

Fall 2024