Ontario summer festivals a musical way of life.

THE WORD "festival", as applied to musical performances, apparently came into use at the end of the 17th century, the first of the species (according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary Of Music) being the Festival of the Sons of the Clergy. Ah, but the word has undergone considerable secularization since those heady Restoration days, to the point where it can now be found identifying just about anything from the annual Easter rites at Salzburg to blue-grass fiddling in the wilds of Ontario. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]