Passing the Baton : After 2-year break, summer music festival returns with new director.

After a two-year hiatus, the California Traditional Music Society’s Summer Solstice Festival returns this weekend to Soka University in Calabasas with a new director.

The Summer Solstice Festival carried on for 16 consecutive years despite recessions, rap music and the L.A. riots.

It was not a lack of interest, attendance or support that prompted the cancellation of the folk music, dance and storytelling event. Rather, the festival lay dormant for two summers as its founders and chief organizers, Clark and Elaine Weissman, searched for successors.

After 16 years of producing the mammoth, three-day festival, the Weissmans were exhausted and wanted to hand over leadership to a new generation. Their search came to an end in December.

Janet Stern, the former cultural arts director for the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles, was selected to run the show with extensive offstage help from the Weissmans, who remain on the festival’s board of directors.

“We went through some other people who were great, but they didn’t work out,” said Elaine Weissman. “Janet is going to be terrific, but it’s a hard job.”

Through the years, the festival has moved around the Los Angeles area, from Beverly Hills to Cal State Northridge and finally to Calabasas seven years ago.

The Weissmans say they started the festival because there was nothing else like it in Los Angeles.

“There’s nothing to go by but our own rules,” said Elaine Weissman. “It takes two years to put this festival together.”

Although it will feature more than 100 performances by world-class folk artists, the Summer Solstice Festival is primarily a teaching event.

There are more than 300 hourlong workshops scheduled over three days covering such interests as Cajun accordion, hammered dulcimer, panpipe, Andean folk songs, Celtic harp, storytelling, Scandinavian dancing and Scottish fiddle.

They even loan instruments to novices in some classes.

Stern brings an extensive background in arts education to the job with advanced degrees in dance education and dance therapy. She was formerly a professor of dance at the University of Delaware and Denison University in Ohio.

“It’s not an accident that I’m here today,” Stern said. “It was a natural course of events. It’s very important to me. We’re keeping traditions alive.”

A new element this year is the “Children’s Festival Within the Festival,” featuring workshops on making rain forest instruments, telling stories using audience participation and singing silly songs.

“It’s important to pass on these music and arts traditions,” Stern said. “And the way to pass them on is through education.”

BE THERE

The Summer Solstice Folk Music, Dance and Storytelling Festival, Soka University, 26800 W. Mulholland Highway, Calabasas. Tonight at 7:30, Saturday-Sunday 9 a.m.-8 p.m. $25. Children 12 and younger free when accompanied by an adult. (818) 342-7664.