50.0°,
Overcast Music festival returns to Morgan Park
F
or nearly 60 years, summers in Glen Cove have meant the Summer Music Festival in Morgan Park, where music lovers enjoy their evenings on the backdrop of the Long Island Sound. The park will see festival goers lay out blankets, sit on camping chairs and lean on trees around the park to watch the night’s events while enjoying a cool summer breeze.
The 2023 season will appeal to all ages and all musical tastes ranging from the sounds of Paul McCartney, Johnny Cash, and Billy Joel to The Allman Brothers, Broadway, Big Band, and more. Festival goers can enjoy the familiar faces of crowd favorites, like local acclaimed musician, and record producer, Richie Cannata, who always delivers a dynamite performance. Other familiar faces include Marvin Floyd, who plays with D’Votion on July 30, and Dave Losee, and Dan Roth with the Allmost Brothers Band on Aug. 13.
The Morgan Park Summer Music Festival is an all-volunteer nonprofit organization. The professional concerts offered each summer are free to the public and are completely funded through generous donations from businesses and individuals. This year’s festival is sponsored with a $1 million donation by the Terian family and Rallye Motor Company.
At its beginning, the Morgan Park Summer Music Festival was just one show, but it expanded over the years into performances each weekend in July and August. Eventually the festival outgrew the original gazebo, and volunteers raised money for a new stage, a semicircle bandstand with a set of classic pillars. The stage, like the concerts, was funded entirely through private donations.
The rich history of the festival, a Glen Cove tradition for many families, makes it not only entertaining, but also meaningful in its historic significance. In 1932, the financier J.P. Morgan donated Morgan Park to the people of Glen Cove in memory of his wife.
The property for Morgan Memorial Park, a 40-acre space overlooking the Long Island Sound, was leased to the city for 999 years for $1.
In 1959, then-Mayor Joseph Suozzi suggested that there be free concerts in the park and reached out to prominent locals to organize what would ultimately become the Summer Music Festival.
