Live Entertainment in Newport

Newport Folk Festival is the most historically significant music festival in America — the 1959-founded Rhode Island summer event where Bob Dylan went electric in 1965 (the most controversial moment in rock history), where Joan Baez and Pete Seeger launched the American folk revival, and where the greatest acoustic musicians continue to gather each July at Fort Adams. The festival's extraordinary historical significance, its waterfront setting, and its continued ability to attract the most important folk, roots, and singer-songwriter artists in the world make it the most culturally resonant music festival in the United States.

The Newport Folk Festival at Fort Adams State Park is one of the most historically significant music festivals in America — founded in 1959 as the birthplace of American folk revival, the site where Bob Dylan controversially went electric in 1965. Now a beloved annual summer event drawing 10,000 fans to the 18th-century fort grounds overlooking Narragansett Bay, Newport Folk remains a uniquely powerful experience combining musical history with one of New England's most spectacular natural settings.

Newport Jazz Festival is the world's oldest and most historically significant jazz festival — a 1954-founded Rhode Island summer event where Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, and every jazz giant since has performed in the first major outdoor jazz festival in American history. The festival's role in creating the modern jazz festival format, its extraordinary Gilded Age setting at Fort Adams, and its continued presentation of jazz's greatest artists make it the most historically significant outdoor music festival in the world.

Newport Music Festival presents classical music in the most opulent setting in America — chamber concerts performed inside the Newport Mansions (the Vanderbilt, Belmont, and Astor cottages) where extraordinary music sounds in the most magnificent rooms ever built in America. The Newport Music Festival's extraordinary combination of world-class classical music performance and the stunning Gilded Age mansion settings creates a performing arts experience of singular American cultural heritage significance.