Bear Valley, CA—The 33rd annual Bear Valley Music Festival begins this Friday (7/17/26) and runs for three weeks, spanning music from classic rock to a symphony orchestra, all in celebration of America 250.
Inside the big white tent, kicking off the festival in Bear Valley off Highway 4 in Alpine County will be Space Oddity: The David Bowie Tribute Experience. On Saturday (7/18/2026), Mustache Harbor takes the stage playing music from the 1970s and 80s. Then on Sunday (7/19/26), tribute band Petty Theft will perform music from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Festival music and artistic director Alexander Mickelthwate, who is the music director of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and artist-in-residence at the University of Central Oklahoma, says there is a lot of collaboration, like local dancers, throughout the festival, stating, “The last concert features the Italian concert with Respighi’s Pines of Rome. This amazing thing about nature, and here we have musicians from Columbia College joining us. Also, we have the Columbia Community College Choir joining us.”
Beginning Monday (7/20/26), orchestra music takes center stage. Mickelthwate is most excited about how the music intertwines with the 250th birthday of America, sharing, “We start our journey in America 250 to celebrate from different perspectives. So, each concert has a little storyline, and then we end up again in America with the same film composer, Ennio Morricone, ‘Once Upon A Time In The West’ with ‘The Harmonica Man’ song, so it’s kind of this whole coming full circle, different aspects of America.”
