Marvelous Music Outdoors

Now that the weather is a little bit cooler (by a few degrees, at least), and better in the evening, it might be worth heading outside for some wonderful music playing in our area this week and weekend – most of it free!

The Philadelphia Folk Festival starts today, Thursday, August 18th, and continues day and night through Sunday, August 21st – day passes as well as weekend passes may be bought at the gate in Schwenksville at the Old Poole Farm, 1323 Salford Station Road. Wonderful artisan crafts, foods, and instruments are also for sale at the event.

Each year, we transform an 80-acre working farm located a mere 35 miles outside of Philadelphia into a magical, musical sound park. For 4 days, we present superstars and rising stars on 8 stages and invite you, our musical family, to join us. We are so proud to be the longest continuously running outdoor musical festival in North America. No other event has captivated the hearts of their volunteers, where three and four generations work side by side to create what is arguably the best summer festival ever! Here, you will never meet a stranger and our hearts are always open.

Check out the four day schedule on their recently redesigned website (the new timeline looks pretty cool, too). Tickets can be bought at the gate or online.

The High and Mighty Brass Band takes the stage at the outdoor Levitt Pavilion SteelStacks, 645 E. First Street, Bethlehem, PA. The free concert begins at 7:30 p.m., Thursday night, August 18, 2016. Air Traffic Controller (indie pop duo) plays at the Levitt Pavilion on Friday night, and the Paul Thorn Band (“roots music – bluesy, rocking and thoroughly southern”) takes over on Saturday night – all concerts are free (as is parking) and begin at 7:30 p.m. Refreshments are available for sale, or you can bring your own. There is some seating but you might also consider bringing a lawn chair.

There will be plenty of music, along with peaches and ice cream, at the annual Pennsburg UCC Peach Festival this Saturday, August 20, 2016, from 2 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. Gene Galligan’s Musical Puppet Show will perform from 2 p.m. – 3 p.m., followed by Patrick McGovern playing from 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., with The Red Hill Band closing out the night from 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. All outside on the lawn next to the Pennsburg UCC, 775 Main Street, Pennsburg, PA.

Sunday night, August 21st, Philly Rock and Soul plays Motown, oldies and R&B at Green Lane Park Amphitheater, 2298 Green Lane Road (off of Route 29) beginning at 7 p.m. Bring a lawn chair or blanket, and some goodies to eat and drink, and enjoy this free concert under the setting sun and stars.

 

Coventry Summer Con (think mini “Comic Con”)

Enjoy air conditioning , cosplay, comics, sci fi, games, and more at the Coventry Summer Con over at Coventry Mall (351 W. Schuylkill Road, just off Route 100) in Pottstown, PA on Saturday, August 13, 2016, from 1 p.m. – 8 p.m. This family event will also be hosting artists, vendors, special guests, and “all things pop culture.” Tickets are $10 online and $15 at the door.

Allentown’s Shakespeare in the Park

Allentown Shakespeare in the Park is performing Hamlet, starting tonight, Thursday, August 11th, and continuing through Saturday, August 13, 2016. Admission is free, for the ninth row in a year, to see the professionally staged show at Daddona Park, Union and St. Elmo Street (in west Allentown). The lawn is terraced, and the audience is welcome to bring lawn chairs and/or blankets, as well as a picnic lunch or dinner.

According to today’s Morning Call newspaper;

(Founder, and producer, Sarah Steele) Steele says the production is set in contemporary “upper-crust WASP society” in New England. The production also shows the wedding of Claudius and Gertrude, which happened two months before the play starts.

…She says the plays starts with a lavish outdoor wedding with tents and candles.

She says the characters are members of “a privileged group of people who wear seersucker and boat shoes.” Costumes are by Elizabeth Barrett Groth.

She says the play also features a lot of music. Ophelia, played by Lenne Klingamen, sings nearly her entire mad scene. The music was written by composer John Glover, who collaborated with Pearson on “Lucy,” a world premiere opera about early man.

Steele says Shakespeare’s longest play has been trimmed (honing in on the relationships) to 100 minutes so it can be done without an intermission.

EXCERPT FROM Shakespeare in the Park’s ‘Hamlet,’ by Kathy Lauer-Williams of The Morning Call

I’ve attended several Allentown Shakespeare in Park productions over the years and, despite the heat and occasional mosquitoes, have always had a wonderful time and enjoyed a high quality show. And this year sounds like another winner to me.

The show is held rain or shine at 8 p.m. on Thursday night and Friday night, and at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Saturday. Live music is performed for an hour in the park, before the curtain rises.

Yarn Bombing!

I forgot to mention that there is Yarn Bombing at Musikfest in Bethlehem! Over at Handwerkplatz, the same area where the Sculpture Garden and artisan craft fair is set up, below Main Street on the north side of Bethlehem; “The Knitter’s Edge staff and community are back to yarn bomb Musikfest again. Stroll through Handwerkplatz and check out their colorful creations.” There is no admission fee to walk around, look at the artwork, crafts, and yarn creations, while listening to the music drifting over from the stages a few yards away.

As defined by The Knitter’s Edge;

Yarn Bombing is the act of covering an area or objects with knit and/or crochet pieces.

Why Yarn Bombing?

Why not?! We love YARN, and why not show off your work?! We, The Knitter’s Edge staff and community, are Yarn Bombing Musikfest because we can (and the fact that it’s a lot of fun)! After Musikfest, we will be sewing the pieces together into afghans, which will then be donated to a local charity.

Alas, I haven’t made it to Bethlehem this week, yet, so no photos of this year’s yarn bombing. But if you have no clue what I’m writing about (and don’t feel like googling ) here are some photos I took outside of a restaurant in Minnesota last summer, where some trees had been yarn bombed.

 

Art on Exhibit this Summer

If you are heading over to Bethlehem for Musikfest, this year you can also take a look at an interactive Sculpture Garden, set up for the first time for this week only as part of Musikfest. The eight sculptures will be on display through August 14th outside at the Handwerkplatz (near Luckenbach Mill, north Bethlehem). The Handwerkplatz features 50 artisans and their stands with their work for sale, along with glass blowing demonstrations. Food stands and music stages are nearby.

The Allentown Art Museum, 31 North Fifth Street, is once more offering free admission for the entire summer (through September 5, 2016).  Three new exhibits are on display during the summer months; Our Strength Is Our People: The Humanist Photographs of Lewis Hine (through Oct. 2, 2016), Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art (through Oct, 2, 2016), and Hiroshige: Views of Japan (through Oct. 23, 2016).

Photographer Lewis Hine (1874–1940) saw his work as both art and a tool for social change. Beginning in 1905 he photographed immigrants at Ellis Island, hoping his sympathetic images would combat xenophobia. His interest in the lives of working class Americans led him to photograph immigrant steel workers and subsequently join the crusade against child labor. He smuggled his camera into textile mills and glassworks, capturing sobering images of kids at work that eventually led to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. In the 1920s and 1930s, Hine turned his lens to the positive experiences of laborers, producing photographs that depicted skilled workers collaborating with modern machines. This determination to reveal the strength and dignity of people that many Americans viewed with scorn would characterize his photographic career.

The exhibit Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art;

  …presents works in all media by seventy-one leading modern and contemporary artists. Artists featured reflect the diversity of Latino communities in the United States, showcasing artists of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican descent, as well as other Latin American groups with deep roots here. Our America is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Hiroshige: Views of Japan contains  woodblock prints from Andō Hiroshige’s (1797–1858) series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road, along with impressions from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji and One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.

At the Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center, 105 Seminary Street, Pennsburg, admission is always free. Exhibits on display this summer include Upper Hanover Township: Celebrating 275 Years
(through October 2, 2016), Under the Spreading Boughs: Artists’ Views of Trees (a show and sale, through October 30, 2016), and Within and Withour: The Art of the Book
(through September 30, 2016);

Books take us to different times and places with the stories held within their pages through beautiful prose and inspiring ideas. The books themselves, as well, can be things of great beauty that can be appreciated as objects as well as their content. Visit the Heritage Center this summer for a glimpse of some of the extraordinary holdings in our library collection — from the exquisite gems of fraktur bookplates to carefully tooled book bindings and meticulously engraved illustrations, and much more. It will be a feast for the eyes of every bibliophile!

Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA does charge admission, but their current exhibits make it well worth the price. Two exhibits, Lloyd Ney: Local Color , which showcase “his paintings documenting life along the Delaware River, New Hope’s inhabitants, and ambitious, detailed plans for his ultimately never-realized legacy: a museum devoted to Ney’s own art in his home town” and Conversations in Photography celebrating “over 25 years of photographic programming at the Michener and simultaneously takes a look at a new generation of contemporary regional photographers” both close on September 11, 2016. Other exhbits at the museum this summer run into the fall months; Oh Panama! Jonas Lie Paints the Panama Canal (through Oct. 9, 2016) and the photography exhibit Unguarded, Untold, Iconic: Afghanistan Through the Lens of Steve McCurry (through Oct. 23, 2016).

Drum Corp, Chamber Music, Open Mic, and Musikfest!

I’ll start with what is billed as the largest free music festival in the country, that just happens to be held right next store to us – Bethlehem Musikfest! Starting Friday, August 5 and running ten days through Sunday, August 14, 2016, featuring over 300 musical performances, nearly all free, nearly all types of music, on sixteen stages on both sides of the river (you can catch a shuttle bus if you don’t want to walk across the bridge). One can also find all sorts of food and drink, and crafts and artwork by talented artisans, for sale. You might even see a few familiar faces on stage; some of the musicians who play at Make Music Upper Perk in June have been known to play at Musikfest in August.

And if you are worried about missing the Olympics, the folks at Musikfest have thought of that as well:

From Aug. 5-14, fans can ‘fest and cheer on the U.S., courtesy of a large outdoor LED television screen at Familienplatz (formerly Kinderplatz). From noon-11 p.m. each day (5-11 p.m. only on Aug. 5), the festival will show the coverage from Rio de Janiero, including popular sports like basketball, gymnastics, soccer and swimming. Adding to the fun family vibe are Summer Games-themed crafts, a new line of Musikfest USA merchandise for sale and family-focused experiences presented by several festival partners.

The Drum Corp International (DCI) Eastern Classic is happening in Allentown, PA at J Birney Crum Stadium on Friday night, August 5, 2016;   and Saturday night, August 6, 2016; gates open at 5 p.m. and the marching bands begin to take the field at 6:40 p.m. Tickets will be for sale at the gate, J. Birney Crum Stadium, 2001-2025 W Linden St, Allentown, PA.

If you prefer something with fewer drums (and inside with air conditioning), The Tim Wolfe, Jr Trio will be playing original works and jazz standards as part of the Summer Chamber Music series in Harleysville at the Church of the Holy Spirit (2871 Barndt Road, Harleysville, PA). The free concert begins at 7 p.m. on Saturday, August 6, 2016.

Open Mic Night hosted by Phil Stahl is also on Saturday, August 6th, at the Wing Man Bar and Grill (622 Gravel Pike East Greenville, PA 18041 in The Shoppes at Upper Hanover), beginning at 8:30 p.m. (sign up that night; first come, first on stage).