William Boughton, former music director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, founded Guilford Performing Arts Festival in January 2017 to produce a diverse, multi-day festival celebrating depth and breadth in American arts and culture. We put on our first festival later that year, presenting 44 live shows and workshops in 17 venues over four days in mid-October. We received nonprofit certification from the Internal Revenue Service in July 2018.

 

Since that first year, we’ve commissioned eleven new works in music, dance and drama; put on 125 live shows; sponsored 42 workshops and master classes for more than 700 students of all ages; drawn some 12,000 people downtown and had an estimated $1.4 million positive impact on the local economy.