Fifteen years ago Anita Broady attended the Montreal Jazz Festival. At the time she knew little about the music she would grow to love but walking amongst the various stages and hearing a wide range of artists perform she was immediately struck by the global nature of the genre and the way it so obviously brought people together. She vowed to one day bring a jazz festival to her own neighborhood and from that point everything changed. Fast forward to 2012 where now ardent jazz fan Broady has used her considerable business experience in event management to make the Chester County Jazz Festival a reality. It all gets started on the evening of June 29 when smooth jazz superstar Peter White opens up with a performance at the Asplundh Concert Hall on the campus of West Chester University.
When recently I talked with Anita from her home in the lovely town of West Chester, just thirty-four miles west of Philadelphia and nestled in the Brandywine Valley, I asked her more about her motivation to make the festival happen.
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