Vermont Public Community Calendar

The Montpelier Contra Dance happens every 1st, 3rd, and 5th Saturday at the Capital City Grange Hall. We dance to live music with contra dance bands and callers from around New England and beyond. Beginners, singles, and all ages are welcome; all dances are taught. We use gender neutral role terms. There's a newcomers lesson at 7:45 pm and dancing 8-11pm. Some months on 3rd Saturdays there is a Waltzing Session 7-7:45. Check the website or Facebook page. Please bring clean soft-soled shoes. More info at www.montpeliercontradance.org. $12 adults, $5 kids/low-income, $20 dance supporters. Cash preferred. Venmo or CC accepted. Questions? 802-225-8921 or cdu.tim@gmail.com.

When Curb Records recording artist Lee Brice isn’t selling out arenas, writing and recording songs, or building new brands like Dulce Vida Tequila and Loud Lemon, you’ll find the family man with his wife Sara, two young boys, and daughter. Meanwhile, with over 10 billion career streams, Brice continues to enjoy massive success at country radio, digital streaming services, and on the road. He has reached the #1 spot at Country Radio with Platinum-selling “Memory I Don’t Mess With,” which consecutively follows three prior #1s: ASCAP’s 2021 Country Song of the Year and 3x Platinum track “One of Them Girls,” “I Hope You’re Happy Now” with Carly Pearce, and the 4x Platinum hit “Rumor,” which was nominated in the category Single of The Year at the 55th Annual ACM Awards.

Laurie will perform many fan favorites that encourage kids and grownups alike to get up, sing along and move, including “Victor Vito,” “We Are The Dinosaurs,” “Pig On Her Head,” “Waiting for the Elevator,” and “Chipmunk at the Gas Pump,” plus some new hits!

Bring a stuffed animal (for your head) and your dancing shoes!

Returning to Randolph on their 20th anniversary tour, The Garifuna Collective is a multi-generational ensemble that brings the history and spirit of Garifuna culture to life through music. Known for their role in the award-winning album Wátina, they create vibrant performances that honor tradition and connect generations.

Join us beforehand for a community mixer with free dinner, catered by Stockbridge Community Meals, and a bar by Fable Farm Winery. Registration required.

A member of the piano jazz pantheon, Fred Hersch has been an influential creative force for more than three decades as an improviser, composer, educator, bandleader, collaborator, and recording artist. He has been proclaimed “the most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade” by Vanity Fair and “a living legend” by The New Yorker.

A seventeen-time Grammy nominee, Hersch has garnered jazz’s most prestigious awards, including a Doris Duke Artist (2016) and the Jazz Magazine (France) International Artist of the Year (2021).

The Montpelier Contra Dance happens every 1st, 3rd, and 5th Saturday at the Capital City Grange Hall. We dance to live music with contra dance bands and callers from around New England and beyond. Beginners, singles, and all ages are welcome; all dances are taught. We use gender neutral role terms. There's a newcomers lesson at 7:45 pm and dancing 8-11pm. Please bring clean soft-soled shoes. More info at www.montpeliercontradance.org $12 adults, $5 kids/low-income, $20 dance supporters. Cash preferred. Venmo or CC accepted. Questions? 802-225-8921 or cdu.tim@gmail.com.

The KCP Presents Performing Arts Series welcomes Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Great American Crooners to Greensboro’s Highland Center for the Arts, on April 9th, at 7:00. Featuring an exciting program of timeless hits sung by the greatest contemporary voices in jazz, Great American Crooners is the final show of the 2025-26 KCP Presents season.

Great American Crooners focuses on quintessential crooners such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Bobby Darin, whose velvety voices and sentimental serenades made them superstars on stage and screen. Featuring Robbie Lee and Shenel Johns, with Downbeat Magazine’s #1 Rising Star Male Vocalist, Benny Benack III, backed by the renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center band.

Relive classics like “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “Misty,” “I Only Have Eyes for You,” and “Moon River,” and enjoy incredible true stories about these legends. It’s a stylish evening of timeless tunes and world-class talent.

For more than three decades, Jazz at Lincoln Center has been a leading advocate for jazz, culture, and arts education globally. Under Wynton Marsalis, they’ve brought jazz from New York City to nearly 450 cities in over 40 countries.

“Benny Benack III’s bright tone recalls Clifford Brown,” raves Downbeat. “On his new album, he sings and plays in equal measure.”

Bringing big city talent to Vermont’s small towns, the KCP Presents Performing Arts Series presented 11 professional touring acts this season, including dance, circus, comedy, and music from around the world. To buy tickets for the final show, Great American Crooners, at Highland Center for the Arts, or learn more about the series and additional arts programming in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, visit www.catamountarts.org or www.kcppresents.org. Alternatively, call 802-748-2600 or visit the Catamount Arts box office at 115 Eastern Avenue, St. Johnsbury.

The KCP Presents Series is produced by Catamount Arts working in association with Kingdom County Productions and supported by generous local sponsors including The Autosaver Group, Community National Bank, Lyndon Institute, Northern Counties Healthcare, EastRise Credit Union, NVRH, Passumpsic Bank, St. Johnsbury Academy, Seven Days, The Point, NHPR, WYKR/Yankee Broadcasting, Green Mountain Broadcasters, Vermont Public, and Seven Days, with grant funding from the Vermont Arts Council.

The early-music icon leads 30 musicians from three continents in a dialogue with the music of Africa, America and the Caribbean.

Renowned Spanish ethnomusicologist Jordi Savall returns to the Hop with a bold departure from his traditional focus on early Western music. "A Sea of Music" honors the more than 25 million victims who were deported and enslaved by European nations over nearly four centuries, from 1492 to 1888 (the year slavery was abolished in Brazil). The origins of the program's repertoire lie in their songs and traditions, revealing how African and American heritage intertwined with elements imported from the European Renaissance and Baroque periods.

The viola da gamba virtuoso joins forces with his usual ensembles—La Capella Reial de Catalunya and Hespèrion XXI—and with musicians from Canada, Guadeloupe, Guinea, Mali, Mexico, Colombia (with the Tembembe Ensamble Continuo), Brazil, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela. More than 30 musicians from three continents—Africa, America, Europe—come together on a single stage to recall this human tragedy through the universal language of music. The program unearths works by Gaspar Fernandes, Diego Duron, Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla, Felip Olivelles, Santiago de Murcia and others.

For nearly six decades, the three-time GRAMMY® Award-winning Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has entertained audiences with their top-shelf musicianship and timeless hits. Now the time has come for the band who has carried a torch for American country and roots music to say so long to the highways and byways they’ve crossed an unimaginable number of times throughout their career.

On March 21, 2024, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band kicked off the first of its last traditionally scheduled gigs, All the Good Times: The Farewell Tour, which has received critical acclaim. This isn’t goodbye forever, but it will be the last fans see of multi-city runs and long bus rides. As 2026 approaches, so does the band’s remarkable 60th Anniversary, and to celebrate, NGDB’s All the Good Times: The Farewell Tour — 60 Years of Dirt will showcase a special slate of performances and appearances set for 2026, including a 60th anniversary celebration of the band’s formation (to the day) on May 13, 2026 at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tennessee. These exceptional shows celebrate the music created by the legendary, yet ever-evolving NGDB.

Music meets storytelling in a blend of Punjabi rhythms, American jazz and collective celebration. A moving call to compassion and connection.

Sunny Jain draws on his South Asian heritage and experience as a second-generation immigrant in America to dive into the concept of "love force"—satyāgraha—embracing your oppressor with compassion. Jain, founder of Red Baraat, brings his signature talent for creating immediate community to theater, blurring the lines between performers and audience. Each element of "Love Force" is carefully crafted for frequencies, rhythm, and vibrations unleashing a powerful gathering through song and story. "Love Force" explores the universal nature of music, and how through compassion and love we can break down barriers created by religion, cultural traditions, racism and time. Jain invites us to feel the past in the present and to imagine healing through love.

Dirty Deeds – The AC/DC Experience celebrates the thunderous energy of the Bon Scott and Brian Johnson era delivering a power-packed performance that takes the audience on a journey through the story that is AC/DC. Reminiscent of the legendary Australian rockers, Dirty Deeds, captures the essence of the band that defined a genre.

Roomful of Teeth and Gabriel Kahane present Kahane’s composition, Elevator Songs, a radio play/song cycle set in an interdimensional hotel. As the listeners are transported through the hotel via the titular elevator, they encounter a wide array of stories: a woman on her honeymoon in Utah during pandemic lockdown, a man writing a eulogy for a young AIDS victim, and more.

The piece is a celebration of the individual voices of Roomful of Teeth—usually heard as a collective—and a showcase for Kahane's artistry as a songwriter and storyteller. Also on the program, Caroline Shaw’s “The Isle”, based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

The Montpelier Contra Dance happens every 1st, 3rd, and 5th Saturday at the Capital City Grange Hall. We dance to live music with contra dance bands and callers from around New England and beyond. Beginners, singles, and all ages are welcome; all dances are taught. We use gender neutral role terms. There's a newcomers lesson at 7:45 pm and dancing 8-11pm. Some months on 3rd Saturdays there is a Waltzing Session 7-7:45. Check the website or Facebook page. Please bring clean soft-soled shoes. More info at www.montpeliercontradance.org. $12 adults, $5 kids/low-income, $20 dance supporters. Cash preferred. Venmo or CC accepted. Questions? 802-225-8921 or cdu.tim@gmail.com.

Flow through a range of styles and moods with original jazz works, stunning improvisations and new takes on the American Songbook.

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, percussionist and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey is one of the most visionary artists of his generation—known for a practice that defies category and a sound that reshapes the possibilities of improvisation.

Joined by longtime collaborators Aaron Diehl on the piano and Harish Raghavan on bass, Sorey blends rigorous structure with boundless spontaneity, drawing on everything from 20th-century classical to post-bop, minimalism to free jazz.

Performances:
Sun, Apr 19 at 4 & 7:30 p.m.

Two jazz legends. One unforgettable evening.

Vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater and pianist Bill Charlap—each a towering figure in American jazz—join forces for a night of intimate, electrifying music-making.

A three-time Grammy winner and NEA Jazz Master, Bridgewater brings her unmistakable voice, theatrical flair and fearless spirit to every note. Charlap, one of the most sensitive and swinging pianists of his generation, is celebrated for his deep knowledge of the Great American Songbook.

The duo will interpret classics by iconic composers such as Ellington, Porter, Sondheim and more—reimagining each song with warmth, wit, and soul.

The Montpelier Contra Dance happens every 1st, 3rd, and 5th Saturday at the Capital City Grange Hall. We dance to live music with contra dance bands and callers from around New England and beyond. Beginners, singles, and all ages are welcome; all dances are taught. We use gender neutral role terms. There's a newcomers lesson at 7:45 pm and dancing 8-11pm. Please bring clean soft-soled shoes. More info at www.montpeliercontradance.org $12 adults, $5 kids/low-income, $20 dance supporters. Cash preferred. Venmo or CC accepted. Questions? 802-225-8921 or cdu.tim@gmail.com.

The choral singers round out the year with an uplifting performance.

Filippo Ciabatti, director

The Coast's graduating seniors grab the reins.

Taylor Ho Bynum, director

The Montpelier Contra Dance happens every 1st, 3rd, and 5th Saturday at the Capital City Grange Hall. We dance to live music with contra dance bands and callers from around New England and beyond. Beginners, singles, and all ages are welcome; all dances are taught. We use gender neutral role terms. There's a newcomers lesson at 7:45 pm and dancing 8-11pm. Some months on 3rd Saturdays there is a Waltzing Session 7-7:45. Check the website or Facebook page. Please bring clean soft-soled shoes. More info at www.montpeliercontradance.org. $12 adults, $5 kids/low-income, $20 dance supporters. Cash preferred. Venmo or CC accepted. Questions? 802-225-8921 or cdu.tim@gmail.com.

Sing, dance and clap along!

Regional Emmy award winners and stars of the Vermont PBS take to the stage in this fun family concert. Chris Dorman (Mister Chris) and his collaborators share classic and original kids' songs.

Check out episodes from Seasons 1 and 2 of "Mister Chris and Friends" on Vermont PBS or YouTube.

This program is a great fit for ages 3-8 and families and is free and unticketed.