Robert W. Cross is the visionary founder and artistic director of the Virginia Arts Festival, transforming it into a world-class cultural destination through acclaimed performances, innovative commissions, and impactful arts education initiatives.

Robert W. Cross founded the Virginia Arts Festival in 1997 and has served as its only executive director and artistic director. During his tenure, the Festival has blossomed into one of the major arts events on the East Coast, transforming the cultural life of Virginia’s Hampton Roads region and making the area a cultural destination for travelers from around the world. The combination of stellar performances and easy access to some of America’s finest historical sites and beaches has proved irresistible. 

The Washington Post has called the Virginia Arts Festival the “Tidewater Tanglewood.” From a two-week festival in its first year, it has tripled in size and attendance. During its 2023/2024 season, the Festival presented 71 ticketed performances throughout the region from mid-March through June, with patrons traveling from 45 states and 7 countries. 

Cross conceived the Virginia Arts Festival as a unique public-private partnership that receives support from area governments as well as corporations, foundations, and individuals. The Festival has also become a provider of arts education throughout the communities of southeastern Virginia. The Festival reaches more than 30,000 area young people each year through special performances for students, master classes, and workshops. 

As the Festival’s Perry Artistic Director, Mr. Cross has drawn on his decades of experience as a manager, programmer, and performer to build relationships with such distinguished dance companies as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Mark Morris Dance Group, Dance Theatre of Harlem and England’s Birmingham Royal Ballet. The Festival has brought world-class theater to Virginia, including performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre of Scotland’s critically acclaimed drama Black Watch. The Festival has welcomed such prominent musicians as Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Lang Lang, Midori, Herbie Hancock, Van Cliburn, Renée Fleming, Steve Reich, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, and the Tokyo, Guarneri, Emerson and Kronos string quartets. The Festival has presented renowned Americana, folk, blues, and pop artists such as Kristin Chenoweth, Renée Goldsberry, Rosanne Cash, Jason Isbell, Martina McBride, and Laufey. 

In addition to bringing top artists from around the world, Mr. Cross has made it the Festival’s mission to create and sustain new art from both international performers and area companies. Among the commissioning projects Mr. Cross has shepherded are: Ricky Ian Gordon’s and Mark Campbell’s Civil War opera Rappahannock County; a new staging of the Maxwell Anderson/Kurt Weill musical Lost in the Stars; a new staging of Romeo and Juliet by choreographer Mark Morris, set to the never-performed original Prokofiev score; and Dance Theater of Harlem’s 2019 world premiere of Passage. Virginia Arts Festival recordings for Naxos include Rappahannock County, Stravinsky’s Les Noces and The Soldier’s Tale, and the Schoenberg transcriptions of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and Songs of a Wayfarer. Additional Festival recordings include Peter and the Wolf: A Special Report for NPR Classics, and the debut recording of the DiGiallonardo Sisters, who are frequent guests on A Prairie Home Companion, which has broadcast from the Festival multiple times. 

Cross graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied percussion with Vic Firth of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As a performer, he has worked with such conductors as Klaus Tennstedt, Colin Davis, Leonard Bernstein, Joseph Silverstein, Lukas Foss, and JoAnn Falletta. He has recorded for Naxos, Northeastern Records, NPR Classics, Albany, and New Albion. 

Cross has also enjoyed a long association with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. He joined the orchestra in 1981, and six years later was made principal percussionist, a position he still holds. He has performed at the Leonard Bernstein Festival of American Music, the Skaneateles Festival, Brevard, Eastern Music Festival, and the American Repertory Theater. In the pit with some of the world’s most prestigious ballet companies, Cross has accompanied the Bolshoi Ballet, Kirov Ballet, New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Boston Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, and the Martha Graham Dance Company.