Summer music festivals, especially the al fresco, outdoor, concerts bring families together at events which are moderately if at all expensive, often are free. Many have benefitted greatly from all the institutions that have brought NYC a cultural gem of LIVE performnces of world class. I miss the Lewissohn Stadium, now torn down many years ago, where top performers, pop, folk, and opera singers and instrumentalists pop to classical, had vociferous elated audiences. Same for the Goldman Band concerts at the Band Shell. But world-wide on every continent the summer music festivals are a real treat. Nonetheless nowadays, there are many who disdain providing finances for the arts. When a country considers its culture as too expensive to support, that country reveals its lack of humanity, conscience, and practicality. Culture gives enthusiasm to development and to reaching higher in expectations and in actual achievement. Cultural activities bring in revenue wherever they prosper. I am a Wagnerian romantischer heldentenor and the director of the Richard Wagner Music Drama Institute, where professional actors are trained for the Shakespeare roles and big-voiced singers are coached in the Wagner roles, voice production and dramaturgy techniques. I have sung in four concerts, three of them three hours-long solo concerts and one concert, a Joint Recital with the dramatic soprano Norma Jean Erdmann, in the main hall of Carnegie Hall, the Isaac Stern Auditorium. My next concert in New York will be on Saturday, June 9th at the YOGA EXPO at the New Yorker Hotel . The title of the concert is 'BRING HIM HOME, with that song from the musical LES MISERABLES, encouraging the return of our armed forces and inspiring hope and love of country with This Land is Your Land, The House I Live In, Climb Every Mountain, You'll Never Walk Alone, The Impossible Dream, Granada, Wien, Wien, nur du allein, When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again, Billy Bigelow's Soliiloquy from Carousel,The Impossible Dream [The Quest], Kum Ba Ya, Earth Anthem and 11 other selections.

SAVING THE LAWN is a commendable objective. Having the two concerts in july only a few days apart is a good idea. It should benefit the lawn.

What New York City needs is a large paved public square--perhaps not as large as Tiananmen Square, but something that could accommodate a very large crowd. The obvious problem is where such a thing would placed. It is unfortunate that the early city planners did not consider a large square for Midtown when it would have been possible to build it.