New Venue Decided for Annual World Music Festival:Event Set for Saturday at High Rock Park

The committee organizing this weekend’s 10 annual World Music Festival in Lynn is bringing it to a new venue

Event founder David Gass said the event, set for this Saturday, Sept. 15, from 1 to 7 p.m., is being dedicated to Aretha Franklin and the Hutchinson Family Singers, who were “voices of the civil rights movement.”

The event is free of charge.

Gass, director of the event sponsor, Highlands Coalition, founded the festival 10 years ago. He said the goal of the festival is to bring people together from different cultures to celebrate and appreciate “the commonness of music.”

“Music is a very common, international language,” said Gass, who plays the guitar and fiddle. “The festival brings together the music that has inspired families for hundreds of years.”

There will also be art workshops, leaf painting, and face painting stations.

Committee member Wendy Joseph will kick off the event with a spoken-word performance. Lois Lane and the Daily Planets and the Squeezebox Stompers will perform songs.

“We’ll have French, Cape Cod African Drum, Arabic, Jewish, Caribbean, and Indian music and dance performances,” said Gass, a former machinist and real estate developer who attended Antioch College in Ohio. He founded the Highlands Coalition at the Ford School in 2006.

Doreen Murray, artistic director at Bridges Through Music, will pay tribute to the legendary singer, the late Aretha Franklin, with a selection of her songs.

Guests attending the festival are encouraged to bring a chair or blanket.

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