NEA ARTS: The Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice

Phoenicia, New York, is a small town (population 388) nestled in the Catskill Mountains. Breathtakingly beautiful if economically hurting, this hamlet is the proud home of the Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice. Now in its second year, the festival began as a single concert organized by three of the town's residents who just happen to be internationally acclaimed opera singers: Kerry Henderson, Louis Otey, and Maria Todaro. As the concert morphed into a yearly four-day festival, all three agreed they wanted to create an event that would celebrate the whole spectrum of the voice, presenting world class performances of opera, song, baroque and choral music, and the vocal arts of traditional cultures.