57 Years After Woodstock, Dr. Harvey Manes Gives $500,000 to Bring Arts Education to Bethel Woods

BETHEL, NY – The Manes Peace Prize Foundation has donated $500,000 to help establish and fund The Manes Conservatory at Bethel Woods, creating new opportunities for young students to study music and the arts at the site of the historic 1969 Woodstock festival.

For Dr. Harvey Manes, founder of the Manes Peace Prize Foundation and a longtime Long Island orthopedic surgeon, the contribution represents a deeply personal connection to a place and an idea that have remained with him for more than half a century. Manes began practicing orthopedic surgery in Lindenhurst in 1976 and spent more than four decades teaching orthopedic surgery at Nassau County University Hospital.

Manes attended the original Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969, where the festival’s message of peace, love, music and cultural unity left a lasting impression on him. That experience would later help shape the philosophy behind the Manes Peace Prize Foundation, which was created in part to promote peace and positive change through music, the arts and philanthropy.

More than five decades later, Manes is helping bring that mission back to the place where the inspiration began. The $500,000 contribution supports The Manes Conservatory, an arts education program at Bethel Woods designed to provide young students with opportunities to learn and develop their abilities in music and the arts.

Bethel Woods occupies the historic grounds of the 1969 Woodstock festival in Bethel, New York. Today, the property serves not only as a place dedicated to preserving the history and cultural legacy of Woodstock, but also as a center for music, education and the arts.

The shared mission between Bethel Woods and the Manes Peace Prize Foundation made the partnership a natural fit.

For Manes, the goal is not simply to commemorate what happened at Woodstock in 1969, but to help extend some of its most enduring ideals to a new generation.

“The concept behind Woodstock was peace and love, and that became permanently embedded in my mind,” Manes said. “I created the Manes Peace Prize Foundation with the idea of helping make the world a better place by promoting peace and love through the arts and music.”

Through The Manes Conservatory, students will have the opportunity to explore music and artistic expression on the same historic property where hundreds of thousands of people gathered for Woodstock nearly six decades ago.

The project also creates a full-circle connection for Manes, who first experienced the site as an attendee of Woodstock and is now helping support its future as a place where young people can learn, create and develop an appreciation for the arts.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony for The Manes Conservatory was held July 15, 2026, at Bethel Woods.

The ceremony marked the establishment of the new program and celebrated the partnership between Bethel Woods and the Manes Peace Prize Foundation.

The contribution reflects the foundation’s broader mission of supporting initiatives connected to peace, education, music and the arts.

For Manes, however, the Bethel Woods project carries a particularly personal meaning.

Fifty-seven years after attending Woodstock, he is helping ensure that the property continues to inspire people, this time by giving young students the opportunity to discover music and art for themselves.