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Every year in June, New Haven sparkles as the International Festival of Arts & Ideas displays a rare collection of gems: stunning music and dance, brilliant theater, bright and emergent thinkers gathered from around the world. From the New Haven Green to the courtyards of Yale University, New Haven becomes a Festival city with something for everyone, featuring world-class culture, award-winning dining and eclectic shopping, delighting guests from near and far.

Now entering its fifteenth year, the Festival is firmly established as one of the world's most significant arts festivals. It has the distinction of fusing arts and ideas programs to present a broad array of offerings within and across genres. The Festival showcases hundreds of international events each summer, from over 75 countries, with an impressive scale and scope unmatched in the Northeast.

The International Festival of Arts & Ideas was established in 1996 by Anne Calabresi, Jean Handley and Roslyn Meyer. The founders envisioned an annual celebration in New Haven - a small city rich with diversity and steeped in strong cultural and educational traditions - distinguished from established arts festivals by its fusion of ideas events. Their aim was to gather world-class artists and pre-eminent thinkers from around the globe, showcasing the city and the state as a major arts destination.

The Festival offers hundreds of events each June, over 80% of them free. The Festival has presented dozens of U.S. premieres, unforgettable evenings of opera on the New Haven Green, performances as traditional as Shakespeare and as edgy as inner-city slam poets. Internationally recognized names - Savion Glover, Little Richard, Michael Feinstein, Salman Rushdie - and dynamic new artists from all corners of the Earth are invited to share their unique talents and world views, reflective of the Festival's signature inclination for brilliance, controversy, social cohesion, and fun.

At the 15-year mark, the Festival continues to attract a diverse audience of thousands, and the best performers, speakers and leaders from around the world, to a city that revels in welcoming them. The dramatic growth of the Festival in size, duration and range of offerings parallels its growth in reputation as a major cultural event in America and a premiere international artistic enterprise.