PREVIEW: SummerFest forging ahead, with livestreamed concerts and unabated musical passion, despite pandemic
George Varga
August 16, 2020
Embracing the transformational power of great art has long been the essence of SummerFest, the La Jolla Music Society’s 35-year-old chamber-music celebration. Now, SummerFest is set to embrace the power of music anew at the same time that the coronavirus pandemic has dramatically transformed the annual event itself.
How dramatically? Let us count the ways.
The 2020 edition of SummerFest has been reconfigured three times since being announced in March as a marathon event spanning 22 days and 18 concerts. It was postponed for a year in May, then revived in June as a “reimagined” six-concert festival that opens Friday at the La Jolla Music Society’s year-old, $82 million Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center.