Free Strauss Festival
ELK GROVE, CALIF. — There’s nothing like it in all of California! The annual Strauss Festival in Elk Grove Regional Park July 24-27, 2014 is really something special. Even in Elk Grove where Rachel Steele and Road 88 band performs at Hot Summer Nights concerts that feature rock, reggae and party music, Beethoven’s gotta’ move over for the Waltz King, Johann Strauss II. It’s an annual tradition in which the public is invited to listen and see graceful dancers glide across the stage to famous waltzes and polkas written by one of the most prolific composers of the 19th century. Responsible for creating over 400 compositions–many of them the type of music that people could dance to–Strauss was a rebel in his time. His musician father, Johann Strauss I, told the boy that he wasn’t allowed to play music, and whipped him when he caught the youngster practicing on a violin. It was only when his father abandon the family for a mistress that the son could openly focus on a career as a composer.
