History of ArtsQuest
Founded in 1984, ArtsQuest is a community-focused nonprofit arts organization dedicated to celebrating arts and culture in the Lehigh Valley and beyond. The organization was established in 1984 as the Bethlehem Musikfest Association and presented its first community event, Musikfest ’84, in August of that year.
As it was being developed, Musikfest was envisioned as an event that would instill pride in the community, draw the city of Bethlehem together and help boost the local economy by attracting people to the city’s downtown shopping district. In 1984, nearly 182,000 people attended the first festival, which featured 295 performances on six stages. Today, more than one million people annually visit Bethlehem to experience the 10-day Musikfest, which now showcases more than 500 performances on 13 indoor and outdoor stages.
In 1993, ArtsQuest presented its first Christkindlmarkt Bethlehem, a holiday-themed arts and crafts market modeled after the open-air markets held in Europe during the holiday season. The event was established to attract people to The Christmas City during the holidays and offer consumers a unique destination for shopping for handmade gifts.
Over the years, Christkindlmarkt has grown in scope and size, attracting people from throughout the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic Regions of the United States. In 2006, Travel and Leisure magazine named it one of the top holiday markets in the world, and in 2007 the event expanded from 15 days to 40 days, spanning the entire holiday season.
ArtsQuest’s Banana Factory community art center opened its doors in 1998 as a place where emerging and established artists could work side by side and the public could visit to experience art and enjoy quality gallery shows.
Today, the Banana Factory features 29 resident studio artists working in a variety of mediums, two award-winning galleries, five art classrooms and the GlassWorks hot glass studio. It also presents numerous classes, workshops and special events for children, teens and adults and is involved in a variety of community outreach and arts in education efforts throughout the region. Each year, the art center partners with more 60 different schools and community groups and impacts more than 20,000 young people through the arts.
From its humble beginning in 1984, ArtsQuest has grown into a major component of the Lehigh Valley arts scene thanks to the support of 2,000 dedicated volunteers, more than 160 local and regional businesses, corporate and private donors and a hardworking staff dedicated to enriching the world through the arts. As a result of the many people working together, the organization is able to reach out to more than 1.2 million people annually, touching their lives – at least in some, small way - through the arts.
