Croatian Children’s and Youth Festival is the largest cultural project within Croatian community in the USA. The Festival’s rich tradition was founded on the idea that was born by a group of Croatian musical artists from New York. The artists decided to pass onto children their life-long professional experience with music, singing, composing and performing in various festivals as well as their intense love for art. Besides their willingness to work with musically talented children and youth, the artists had a much broader vision regarding preservation of Croatian language and culture.

The first Croatian Children’s Festival was held in 2000 to the delight of the Croatian Community from Astoria, the Croatian Catholic Mission in Astoria and numerous friends of the Festival who originated from Croatia. From the very beginning until the present, there has been a successful cooperation between the Festival’s Committee and the Croatian composers.

In 2003, the Committee decided to divide the Festival into two separate segments: the Children’s Festival for children younger than 12 years of age, and the Youth Festival for ages 12 to 18. This decision was made because of the large interest of those children who reached their teen years and were still interested in performing in the Croatian Festival. The seventh Croatian Children’s and Youth Festival will be held in 2010. In the previous six years of the Festival’s history, more than two hundred songs have been composed for young competitors. The majority of the songs were written by composers, lyricists and arrangers from Croatia, but many songs were also written by Croatian composers from New York. In addition to the songs, many original dance choreographies were presented at our Festival, which included over five hundred dancers in total.

The first mascot of the Festival was the dove, but later on a happy vocal marten became and remained the official mascot of the Festival. Hosts of previous Festivals were Robert Ferlin and Barbara Kolar, and special guests were famous Croatian singers Matko Jelavic, Djani Marsan, and Dino Jelusic.

Since the Festival is organized in accordance with professional standards and pays for professionals in bringing about this event, many sponsors have helped financially. In addition to the contributions of such sponsors, members of the Committee as well as dozens of volunteers have contributed their time and talents every year to make this event a success. The event was held in the Queens Community College auditorium for several years, but this year a better and more attractive venue has been chosen. This year the Festival will be held at the newly built auditorium at the Frank Sinatra School of Arts in Astoria. Every year a team of professional cameramen films the Festival and the recordings are broadcasted on HTV in Croatia. Since last year, the program also aired on Croatian satellite TV network.

With much excitement and enthusiasm, we look forward to continuing the tradition of the Festival on April 24th and 25th of this year.