On March 18th, 2016, a festival was born. The Palm Springs Life Festival opened with its inaugural concert featuring no less than the intrepid Plácido Domingo and Renée Fleming performing with the LA Opera Orchestra conducted by its music director, James Conlon. The concert was an amalgamation of operatic favorites performed alongside Broadway tunes and popular songs.

The concert itself was a grand success. Aside from the fact that two of the greatest living operatic voices of our time were headlining the evening, the program was a traditional gala program. What was out of the ordinary was the choice of venue, the Show. The Show is the resident concert venue at the Agua Caliente Casino Resort in Rancho Mirage. In fact, it was the first operatic concert at the casino owned and operated by the Agua Caliente Indian tribe.

The Coachella Valley is in the midst of a renaissance. It is now home to several iconic events including the Coachella Music Festival, the Palm Springs Film Festival and Modernism Week., Canada and points beyond.

The Festival also offered a myriad of activities including concerts in the park performed by such preeminent artists as violinists Midori and Sarah Chang, cellist Nina Kotova, pianist Jean Yves Thibaudet, and guitarist Angel Romero.

There was a rich program of food and wine events at the Festival including Palm Desert Food and Wine and In Vino Veritas, which brought vintners, chefs, and culinary exhibitors to the Coachella Valley from all over the globe. In Vino Veritas featured the best of Italy including its foremost wineries and winemakers, who came all the way from Italy to the Coachella Valley to share their craft.

The Palm Springs Life Festival also featured Fashion Week El Paseo, the most extensive fashion week on the West Coast with multiple fashion shows featuring the best of both developing and well-established designers. Fashion Week included shows from Monique Lhuillier, Zandra Rhodes, the stars of Project Runway, Marc Bouwer, Michael Costello and many others. Fashion Week El Paseo took place in a stunningly-constructed series of elegant tented structures in the El Paseo district of Palm Desert.

In its entirety, the Festival was a month-long extravaganza of art, music, culinary and fashion events. Bringing all of this together was a bold enterprise and a challenging task. Only time will tell if it will all come together and face the test of time as one successful multi-discipline lifestyle event. The odds are good, as it certainly got off to an auspicious start.

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