SO MUCH GOOD STUFF, UPPER VALLEY!
Friday
The Five-Colleges Book Sale returns. The sale’s been an off-again, on-again thing the last few years: cancelled for three years due to the pandemic, back in 2023-24, cancelled last year because of it couldn’t find space. Now it’s back Friday through Sunday with many thousands of books, rare books, jigsaw puzzles, various media, and more. At Lebanon High School, 9-5 Friday and Saturday, 9-3 Sunday.
A behind-the-scenes tour of Advance Transit. You’ll learn about their electric buses, how they harvest rainwater to wash buses sustainably and recycle motor oil into a heat source for their facility, and plenty more. Tours at 10 am and 2 pm.
Save the Last Dance for Me at the Hop. Italian creative artist Alessandro Sciarroni revives the Polka Chinata—”a nearly extinct courtship dance performed exclusively by men in villages near Bologna beginning in the early 20th century.” With dancers Gianmaria Borzillo and Giovanfrancesco Giannini, conversation afterward with Sciarroni. In the Morris Recital Hall, 2 pm and 5 pm Friday, 2 pm Saturday.
Unbound vol. XIV opens at Artistree’s gallery in S. Pomfret. The annual exhibit features Artist's Books (“objects with visual narratives and complex constructions that are one-of a kind artworks”), as well as artwork made from books and about books. Opening reception runs 5:30 to 7:30. Runs through May 23.
Bloodroot literary mag launch at Left Bank Books in Hanover. The magazine features the poems, stories, and dramatic writing of Upper Valley writers as well as writers who once lived here. The newest issue debuts at Friday’s launch with contributor readings, an open mic, and snacks. 5:30 pm.
Staged readings of The Age of Mary, part of Northern Stage’s New Works Now. NYC playwright Avery Deutsch’s play, winner of the 2025 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Playwriting, follows Mary, an actress in her 70s cast to play a teenager in a big-budget motion-capture film. As she and her co-actors navigate the set, they also have to confront the parts of themselves they’re hiding. 7:30 pm Friday in Filene Auditorium, 2 pm Sunday at Northern Stage.
The Anonymous Coffeehouse. It’s the season’s next-to-last show, with Philadelphia guitarist and songwriter Alex Radus starting things off at 7:30 pm playing Americana, gypsy jazz, blues, and more. At 8, it’s blues artist Bill Ellis playing songs from his new album, Whistlin' Past the Graveyard. And at 9 pm, fiddler Betsy Greene and her trio, The Bottom Dollars, with old timey, country, and bluegrass songs. At the First Congregational Church of Lebanon.
Saturday
VINS Owl Festival. They’ll be everywhere: Owls in art, owl games, owl research, talks on what makes an owl and owls & hawks and owls in myth and legend, plus much more. Runs 9 am to 5 pm.
It’s Indie Bookstore Day. Five bookstores (Yankee, Norwich, Still North, Left Bank, Cover to COVER) host a bookstore crawl: visit and collect signatures at all five and be entered to win a grand prize featuring gift cards and merch from all five shops—plus you get a coupon good for 20 percent off a purchase at the store of your choosing and can join the hunt for a Libro.fm “golden ticket” for a year’s worth of free audiobooks. The bookstore links above take you to a page about what each offers on Saturday.
Baby Farm Animal Celebration at Billings Farm. It’s your chance to “meet Billings Farm’s newest arrivals—calves, piglets, and goat kids—along with special guest baby animals visiting from local farms.” Wagon rides, cheese tasting, and more. 10-5 both Saturday and Sunday.
“Walk As One”: a community walk uniting Hanover and Lebanon to raise awareness for mental health. Organized by students from Hanover and Lebanon high schools along with Positive Tracks, it aims “to break stigma and bring people together for an important cause affecting many teens and young adults.” onations to The JED Foundation and Noah Kahan’s Busyhead Project encouraged. 11 am starting at Sachem Fields and ending at the Richmond Middle School—park ahead of time at RMS and a shuttle will take you to the start.
At Sunapee’s Abbott Library: “Medical Aid in Dying: What it Is - and What it is Not”. Rebecca Brown from the NH Alliance for End-of-Life Options will talk about end-of-life options in NH, as well as about medical aid in dying and where it stands these days in the state legislative process. 1:30 pm.
Upper Valley Health Closet open house. Now a non-profit, the organization that collects and distributes post-op medical gear like wheelchairs, walkers, and more is showing off its storage room at 2 Mascoma Street in Lebanon. 2-4 pm.
Upper Valley Baroque presents Italian madrigals. Filippo Ciabatti conducts five singers and a musician on theorbo and lute in madrigals composed by Luca Marenzio (1553-1599), Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa (1566-1613), and Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643). Friday’s Hanover performance is sold out, but Saturday’s 2 pm concert at Woodstock’s North Chapel still has tickets.
At the Hopkins Center, jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater and pianist Bill Charlap. A night of “intimate, electrifying music-making” with three-time Grammy winner and NEA Jazz Master Bridgewater (and her “theatrical flair and fearless spirit”) and Charlap, “one of the most sensitive and swinging pianists of his generation, celebrated for his deep knowledge of the Great American Songbook.” 7:30 pm in Spaulding.
BOStyx at the Claremont Opera House. It’s “the ultimate tribute band honoring the iconic sounds of Boston & Styx,” COH writes. “Experience the soaring harmonies and powerful anthems that defined a rock era, from ‘More Than a Feeling’ to ‘Renegade.’” 7:30 pm.
Sunday
Cameo Baroque with “Music of 18th Century France”. Leslie Stroud (traverso), Beth Hilgartner (recorders and voice), Laurie Rabut (violin and viola da gamba), and Ernie Drown (harpsichord) give a concert of works by Couperin, Leclair, Boismortier, and others. It’s a benefit for southeastern VT-based Community Asylum Seekers Project. 2 pm First Congregational Church of Lebanon.
Trio Eris at Woodstock’s North Chapel. In this first concert of the UU congregation’s annual chamber music series, the trio—the New England Conservatory’s Professional Trio in Residence—will perform Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2 and Schubert’s Piano Trio No. 1. 2 pm, scroll down at the link.
Pianist Matthew Odell at Artistree. The classical pianist will give a solo recital in the Hayloft of works by Haydn, Rogerson, Benjamin, and Brahms. 3 pm.
Upper Valley Symphony Orchestra at Mascoma Valley Regional High School. With Mark Nelson conducting, the orchestra performs Carl Maria von Weber’s Overture to Der Freischütz, Carl Nielsen’s Saga-Dream, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, and the premiere of two movements from Dartmouth music prof Pablo Santiago Chin’s Upper Valley Seasons. 3 pm.
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