PLENTY OF GOOD STUFF, UPPER VALLEY!
Friday
The Howe hosts Music in the Library: The Tri-M Music Honor Society (Hanover High School's string quartet) followed by the Hanover High School Jazz Combo. 3:30 pm in the New Books Area.
It’s First Friday in WRJ. In addition to all the shops, galleries, studios, and restaurants you’ll find open, the Upper Valley Food Co-op on N. Main St. is hosting a front-porch acoustic jam in front of its building from 4-6 pm; JAM is hosting its annual Pride Prom (no limit on age) with live music and an ‘80s prom theme, starting up at 6 pm; Putnam’s has jazz guitarist Tom Horton Davis starting at 6:30, and you’ll find more if you just wander around.
A tour of AVA Gallery’s 2026 Juried Exhibition—with the juror. Jamie Franklin, director of collections and exhibitions at the Bennington Museum, chose 54 artists and 62 works for this biennial exhibition. “Together, the exhibition reflects a world in which human experience remains deeply entangled within larger systems of nature, culture, and technology—often operating just beyond immediate perception,” he writes. He’ll be leading a tour from 4 to 5 pm, with an opening reception starting right after.
Opening reception for “Out of the Box” at Two Rivers Printmaking Studio. While you’re wandering First Friday, it’s also a chance to check out the group exhibition at the studio in the Tip Top Building. And the big reveal, when artists learn who created the particular box of objects—shells, toy spiders, pine cones, a cupcake liner—they used as prompts for their new prints. In the VN, Marion Umpleby describes the show and how it came about.
Triton at West Newbury Hall. Veteran traditional musicians—Jeremiah McLane on accordion, piper Timothy Cummings, and cellist McKinley James—deliver a night of tunes, songs, and dancing, with first a concert and then a balfolk dance taught and led by caller Mary Wesley. Molly Sharp of Bakestere will be providing the snacks. Proceeds benefit Music Helps, the nonprofit that promotes music education. 7 pm.
Rigel Harris’s Body of Work at the Briggs Opera House in WRJ. The Lebanon native’s play (with Hanover native Lulu Fairclough-Stewart directing) follows the dilemmas faced by an NYU doctoral student who does cancer research, works as an escort to pay the rent, and discovers it’s the sex work where she feels like “she can truly connect with people,” as Marion Umpleby wrote in the VN. 7 pm Friday and Saturday.
The Breakers at Lebanon Opera House. The tribute band works hard to “capture the electricity of the live Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers experience. When asked why they didn’t take the standard ‘impersonation and props’ approach, founder Tom Smith said ‘we wanted to approach the tribute genre as a true live band.’” 7:30 pm.
Court Street Arts presents Rachel Sumner and Traveling Light. The Boston-based acoustic string band blends folk, bluegrass, and lyric-forward songwriting, with singer-songwriter Rachel Sumner, Kat Wallace (fiddle/vocals) and Mike Siegel (upright bass/vocals). Here’s a taste of Sumner’s songwriting chops from their Tiny Desk submission last year.
Saturday
The annual Pride of Woodstock High Heel Race. As they write, “You can run, but can you run in heels?” It’s a sprint down Elm Street “for anyone fierce enough to don pumps, platforms, wedges, stilettos or slingbacks.” There’s also a dance party Friday night, then on Saturday a craft fair, the Funny With Pride Comedy Night at the Town Hall Theater, and more. Race is at 10:30 am. All at the link.
The Hanover High School Footlighters at Lyman Point Park in WRJ with “The New Play Project.” It’s the world premiere of six Upper-Valley-student-written, -directed, -acted, -scored, and -designed ten-minute plays. “This weekend, you will follow them from location to location as their minds and words come to life in front of you. It will be funny, thought-provoking, and full of creative energy and collaboration.” Saturday at 2 and 4 pm, Sunday at 2 pm.
Opening reception for Janet Van Fleet at the Tunbridge General Store. The founder of Studio Place Arts in Barre is a mixed-media artist who makes three-dimensional objects with found and manipulated materials. Her show runs through July 13. Reception on Saturday from 3-5 pm.
Cantabile’s “Silver Songs” 25th anniversary concert. The women’s chorus celebrates with works by favorites like J.S. Bach, Delibes, and Mendelssohn as well as Gwyneth Walker, Philip E. Silvey, and Sarah Quartel. With guest violinist Judy Wild. Saturday at 4 pm at the Norwich Congregational Church, same time Sunday at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon.
At the Hopkins Center, Nona Hendryx with Cyboracle in the Nonaverse. As the Hop writes, “From her early years as a founding member of Labelle, Hendryx has been stretching the limits of musical genre, audience engagement and Black thought. Now, following a premiere at Lincoln Center, she and her marvelous team of creative and technical collaborators bring us two paired experiences that transport us into the Nonaverse.” Saturday at 4 pm, 6 pm, and 8 pm and Monday at 4 pm, all in the Daryl Roth Studio Theater.
Pizza Night at Crossmolina Farm in West Corinth. With music this week from Timbermash, a progressive acoustic quartet “rooted but not limited to bluegrass and old time music.” Food at 5, music at 6, you’ll need to make reservations.
First Taco Night of the season at Flying Dog Farm in Tunbridge. They’ll run on first Saturdays into October, with street tacos and, this week, music by Rose Hip Jam, the trio of Kerry Rosenthal, Steve Glazer, and Eric Bronstein with everything from 1930s classics to modern tunes across folk, country, blues, rock, and jazz. 5-8 pm.
Floydian Trip at the Chandler in Randolph. “This one-night-only concert” by the CT-based band, they write, “spans the full arc of Pink Floyd’s career—starting in the raw, psychedelic edge of their earliest recordings, cutting through the seismic albums that redefined rock in the 1970s, and arriving in the lush, emotional space of their final work.” 7 pm, not many tix left.
Sunday
It’s the Covered Bridges Half Marathon in and around Woodstock. Runners start off at Saskadena Six in S. Pomfret at 8:15 am and finish up at Dewey Mills Field in Quechee. Various roads will be closed; Route 4 will remain open, but motorists should expect delays between the hours of 5:00 and 7:30 am and 10 am to noon.
At the Root District Schoolhouse in Norwich, Sabrina and the Jazzcats. Upper Valley jazz legends, with vocalist Sabrina Brown, Fred Haas on sax and piano, Billy Rosen on guitar, David Westphalen on bass. With music of James Taylor, Bill Withers, Norah Jones, Neil Sedaka, Roberta Flack, George Gershwin, Peggy Lee, Jerome Kern and more. 4 pm, 987 Union Village Road.
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