SO MUCH GOOD STUFF, UPPER VALLEY!
Friday
Well, for starters, it’s First Friday in WRJ. Restaurants, shops, and galleries will all be welcoming visitors. The Upper Valley Welcome Wagon is holding a “community mixer” at the Main Street Museum—and Jakob Breitbach and Route 5 Jive are hosting a First Friday Jazz Invitational there from 6-8 pm. Meanwhile, over on S. Main, JAM is hosting an ”open mike” karaoke with Mike “Mike Daddy” Cannon at the helm, open to all ages. Putnam’s is throwing a May Day party from 4-10 pm with live music, and just around the corner, Dan Weintraub will be laying down Dead tunes at River Roost. Wander around: You’re sure to find something.
At AVA Gallery, an opening reception for “Gathering Constellations”. As they write, “each year, AVA presents an exhibition dedicated to National Mental Health Awareness Month in May, with titles and themes that emphasize hope, connection, and renewal. Our exhibitions often draw inspiration from nature and community—sources of grounding and resilience.” With a host of local artists. 5-7 pm.
The 8th annual Cohase Chamber of Commerce 48-Hour Film Slam gets under way. Starting at 5:30 Friday, teams (there’s still time to sign up) get until 5:30 pm Sunday to put together a seven-minute film after being given a choice of two movie genres, a line of dialogue, a prop to use, a product to be shown, and a particular location. Sunday at 6:30 pm it’s the grand unveiling. Start and finish in the Bradford (VT) Academy auditorium.
Hop Film screens Touki Bouki. Djibril Diop Mambéty’s 1973 film captures the spirit of post-independence Senegal as “disaffected young lovers Anta and Mory, fed up with Dakar, long to escape to the glamour and comforts they imagine France has to offer, but their plan is confounded by obstacles both practical and mystical.” 7 pm in the Loew.
Woodstock Union’s Yoh Theatre Players debut Pride and Prejudice. Kate Hamill’s adaptation of the Jane Austen classic, one reviewer wrote, “give[s] Austen’s novel a deliciously antic sensibility…This Pride and Prejudice has comedy at its heart, but regarding the treatment of women, it shows us enough unsettling similarities between the 18th century and now to make us pause thoughtfully between laughs.” 7 pm Friday and Saturday, 2 pm Sunday.
Haus of Monsters at the Claremont Opera House. It’s “the ultimate Lady Gaga tribute experience – an electrifying celebration of one of the most iconic pop stars of our time. Based in New York City, the birthplace of Gaga herself, the band is made up of some of the city’s top session musicians and lifelong Little Monsters who live and breathe her music.” 7:30 pm.
Contra dance in the Thetford Academy gym. Kevin Donohue does the calling, Blind Squirrel (Erin Smith and Steve Hoffman on fiddle, Suzanne Long on fiddle and cello, and Eric Faro on guitar) bring the tunes. All donations raised go to the operation and maintenance of the Thetford Hill Church. 7:30-9:30 pm, no experience needed.
Saturday
It’s Green Up Day in Vermont, and in pretty much every town you can volunteer to get the winter’s accumulated litter off the roadways and trailsides and make everything sparkle again. Town-by-town details at the link.
You know it’s spring because the Norwich Farmers Market is back outdoors. Still in its usual location on Route 5 with vegetables, meat, dairy, prepared foods, crafts, music, and a seriously local vibe—plus a few new vendors. 9 am to 1 pm, whatever the weather. Meanwhile, Lebanon starts up Thursday, May 14; Canaan starts up Sunday, May 17; Chelsea on Friday, May 22; Hartland on Friday, May 29. Here’s Vital Communities’ page on farmers markets, with links to info.
Hop Film hosts the New York International Children's Film Festival. It’s the audience favorite and award-winning films from this year’s festival, with animated, live action, and documentary shorts geared toward kids 5 and up: “a chance to explore new frontiers from around the world, across the street, and the ever-expanding boundaries of our own perspectives.” 11 am in the Loew Auditorium, runs 45 minutes.
The 52nd annual Bridgewater Raft Race plunges into the Ottauquechee at noon. It starts off near the Long Trail Brewery in Bridgewater Corners and winds up three miles later at the Bridgewater Mill with no holds barred on craft other than that they have to be homemade and self-propelled. Lots of people cheering from the banks, all in honor of two locals who braved the river’s chilly waters in April, 1974 to pay homage to “the phantom duck of the rivers” inspired by Mojave folklore. Registration at 11.
A labyrinthine “Walk for Peace” on World Labyrinth Day at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Fairlee. "Walk as One at 1" will be led by labyrinth designer Dale Sparlin in the church’s Memorial Garden. From 10 am to 12:15, Sparlin will lead a meditative retreat in the church's Undercroft, using several examples of different style labyrinths. Everyone is welcome. No link.
It’s Derby Day at Whaleback. Or as they put it, “Talk Derby To Me.” Hat decorating, games, prizes, food, drink, the Kentucky Derby itself, and Brooks Hubbard. It all starts at 2 pm, Hubbard’s on at 3 pm.
Kite Day at Balch Hill. It’s due to be partly sunny, cool, and just a little breezy on Saturday, pretty much perfect to launch your kite at the Balch Hill meadow in this annual event sponsored by the Hanover Conservancy. 2-4 pm, parking at the Grasse Road and Hemlock Road trailheads.
“Shell: scenes from a new dance” at Artistree. “Shell” is a nationwide work-in-progress led by Lebanon’s Ellen Smith Ahern and in collaboration with, among others, the Myrna Loy Theater in Helena, MT and the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. On Saturday at 3 pm, Smith Ahern and dancers Kate Elias and Jessie Owens will showcase some of the evolving work in the Grange Theatre. Here’s plenty more on what they’re up to by Tom Ayres in the VT Standard.
The Vermont Philharmonic at the Chandler in Randolph. Conducted by longtime music director Lou Kosma, the program opens with Mozart’s overture to Der Schauspieldirektor (“The Impresario”), followed by Smetana’s The Moldau, a sweeping tone poem that traces the journey of a river through the Czech countryside. It all leads up to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D with violinist Arturo Delmoni, concertmaster of the New York City Ballet. 4 pm.
Roller Derby in our back yard. Twin State Derby takes on Maine Roller Derby at the Wendell A. Barwood Arena in WRJ. Doors at 3:30 pm, competition starts up at 4.
Weathersfield Center contra dance. It’s back after its winter hiatus, with Andy Davis calling and teaching and an open band led by Naomi Morse on fiddle, Mary Cay Brass on piano, and Emmet McGowan on drums. All dances taught. You’re welcome, they say, “to dance, listen, sit or chat and enjoy that cold [or, given the weather, hot] beverage you brought along.” 6-10 pm in the Weathersfield Center Church and Meeting House, 2579 Weathersfield Center Road, Perkinsville.
Star Radio Hour’s Animal Tales at Seven Stars Arts. Things get going at 7 pm with music from High Drive with Beth Telford and Justin Park performing Cape Breton fiddle music, then swing into the radio show with Jim Rooney emceeing, music from Play It Forward (Chris Rua, Bruce Sklar, Ted Mortimer, Glendon Ingalls, Thal Aylward), songs from singers Becky Bailey, Bethany Nafziger, and Anne Mapplebeck, stories from Robyn and Richard Noble, and poems read by Jim Schley.
Sam Lewis at Artistree. The Nashville-based singer-songwriter got his start in that city working at Walmart and gigging in small venues on the side, eventually cementing himself in the scene there and collaborating with a host of Nashville mainstays. 7 pm in the Hayloft.
The Handel Society and the Dartmouth Glee Club at the Hop. The two choruses join forces under the baton of Filippo Ciabatti for Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah, first performed in 1846. With Chancelor Barbaree, baritone (Elijah); Meredith Lustig, soprano (Widow, Youth, Angel II); Christina English, mezzo-soprano (Queen, Angel I); and Patrick Bessenbacher, tenor (Obadiah, Ahab). 7:30 pm in Spaulding.
Sunday
The Herricks Cove Wildlife Festival. Presented by the Ascutney Mountain Audubon Society, Vermont Fish and Wildlife, Great River Hydro, and Great Falls Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Bellows Falls festival features exhibitors from around the region, including VINS with Raptors Up Close, Jim Andrews with herps, Mike Clough with live animals, Lindsey with her puppet pals, Troy Wunderle’s Big Top Adventures, plus lots and lots of activities, exhibits, craft, and food vendors. Starts up at 9:30 am.
Hop Film with the Met Opera in HD production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Baritone Igor Golovatenko and soprano Asmik Grigorian in the operatic adaptation of Pushkin’s great work about an aloof aristocrat who rejects Tatiana’s love, kills a friend in a pointless duel, drifts into a life of regret—and then, years later, runs into Tatiana at a ball. Four hours of passion, intrigue, and foibles. 1 pm in Spaulding.
Artistree does 5/4 a day early. Monday (May the 4th) is a big Star Wars day, naturally. On Sunday, Artistree screens Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith at 3 pm. Your chance to (re)see how Anakin Skywalker wound up on the dark side.
Randolph Singers spring concert at the Chandler. “Songs of Nature and Nurture” with pieces by Christopher McWilliams, Brahms, Britten, and others. 4 pm.
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