Sundance Festival of the Chamber Arts

The Sundance Festival of the Chamber Arts was a cultural summer festival that took place for several years during the 1960s in Upper Black Eddy in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It was the brainchild of the noted harpsichord builder/entrepreneur Wolfgang Zuckermann.

Zuckermann's successful career as a seller of build-it-yourself harpsichord kits had been facilitated by a surge of public interest in music of the Baroque and classical periods. The festival was founded in 1963 by Zuckermann together with his colleague Eric Britton in response to this surge, as well as to rising interest in chamber music and related art forms.

The two built a charming open-air amphitheater, seating 425 people. The amphitheater was designed by Zuckermann himself and was equipped with a canvas roof for rainy weather. It was located on a 55 acre estate in the rural town of Upper Black Eddy, Northern Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a bit more than one hour from New York City (where Zuckermann ran his business in Greenwich Village) and rather less from Philadelphia. The rural surroundings added to the appeal of the enterprise, as Michael Townsend Smith (who succeeded Britton as director in 1966) later wrote:

It was extremely charming, and we presented a wondrous range of artists over the next three summers. Farther up the drive beyond the theatre, there were two houses, a barn, a tennis court, a big concrete swimming down in the woods, and a screened-in summer house. ... The performers often came for the weekend and enjoyed the facilities.

Zuckermann served as Managing Director, Eric Britton as Associate Director (1963-1965, followed by Smith). The festival featured chamber music, other musical artists (including, not surprisingly, various eminent harpsichordists), and some off-the-beaten path offering such as marionette opera.

The festival took place in the months of July and August. There were two performances weekly, Friday and Saturday nights, solely dedicated to chamber music, modern dance, drama, poetry readings, and film. Admission was $2.00 per concert.

The chamber music events were entirely devoted to classical music and featured some of the most appreciated groups of the time (Galimir String Quartet, the Kroll Quartet, the Claremont Quartet, Krainis Baroque Trio), harpsichordists (including Fernando Valenti, Sylvia Marlowe, Pamela Cook, Robert Conant), and distinguished musicians and singers (Helen Boatwright, Sanford Allen, Peter Serkin, Michael Tree, Rey de la Torre, Daniel Weisman, Suzanne Bloch among them).

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