RIVERFOLK
RIVERFOLK may be just what the Upper Valley needs—a summer festival of live music performed outdoors at Northern Stage’s Courtyard Theater in White River Junction, Vermont. Its creator, Here In the Valley, a Wilder-based self-described “arts connector and incubator,” promises a line-up of some of the best musical artists from Vermont and New Hampshire on Monday, July 11 at 6:30 p.m.
Hosted by Jakob Breitbach and Tommy Crawford, thé festival features performances by fiddler Ida Mae Specker (photo, top), The Western Terrestrials, Beecharmer (photo directly below), Jes Raymond, Jakob Breitbach, Tommy Crawford, Ben Kogan, Alex Kelley, Marcus Copening, and more, plus a house band dubbed Route 5 Revival with music direction by Ed Eastridge. Wicked Awesome BBQ will be on site with barbecue and beer. With free tickets for kids under 13, parents are encouraged to bring their families, and the event offers flexible seating arrangements that allow for sit-down, picnicking, and come-and-go.
The Courtyard Theater is Northern Stage’s innovative response to the COVID years and its shutdown of indoor performances. It transformed a narrow concrete area that previously had housed a loading dock and garbage bins into a cozy al fresco 270-seat theater. Northern Stage has presented recent musical productions there, including Million Dollar Quartet and Side by Side by Sondheim (currently through July 10) .Breitbach loves the ability to have snagged this venue saying “RIVERFOLK is the junction of theatre and music . . . and pivots our community forward to a place that embraces its homegrown and recently-transplanted talent.”
Breitbach as both organizer and performer notes that “[F]estivals bring out the best of what we all love about community, live music and good food.” In his response when asked what his hopes are for RIVERFOLK, he looks ahead to the future as bigger if not better: “We really hope to sell out the event, so that we can line up a full weekend three-day event in the summer of 2023.”
The details again: RIVERFOLK (the name is catchy as it describes both the festival itself and us, the audience of Upper Valley dwellers.) Monday, July 11th, 6:30 p.m. Northern Stage’s Courtyard Theater, 74 Gates St., White River Junction, VT. Tickets at (click on the underlined hyperlink that follows) hereinthevalley.org/riverfolk .$25 14+ / 13 and under attend free.
(Photos courtesy of Here In the Valley and Jakob Breitbach)
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Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.