Festivals
Bluegrass, theatre, music, horses - festivals of all kinds!
ARTS AND CULTURAL EXPERIENCES IN MANCHESTER
Whether you’re looking for adventure or just a quiet escape, Manchester is just the place. For a quaint mountain town, we’ve got all the big perks; world-class heritage sites, award winning cultural venues, incredible galleries and museums, and recreational activities to suit even the most ardent enthusiast.
Established in 1974, Manchester Music Festival (MMF) has been a beacon for classical music enthusiasts for half a century, showcasing both established artists and young talents. Nestled in the beautiful Green Mountains of Southern Vermont, MMF plays a pivotal role in the cultural enrichment of our community and beyond.
The Festival celebrates its Golden Anniversary in 2024 with a curated season of more than 30 events, including performances, masterclasses, open rehearsals, talks, and outreach programs. Under the leadership of our Artistic Director, Philip Setzer, founder and violinist of the Emerson String Quartet, Season 50 celebrates “The Romantic Journey,” a theme that cuts to the heart of how art reflects our humanity.
MMF Thursday Nights | MMF Young Artists Program | MMF Special Events | MMF Discovery | MMF Family
Click on the event titles below for details and program information.
Ticket Sale Starts:
April 10 – Presale 2023 season subscribers
April 24 – Public sale new subscribers
May 8 – Single Tickets
SAVE THE DATE!
Friday, Sept 6, 2024 – Sunday, September 8, 2024
Friday and Saturday 10 am-5 pm
Sunday 10 am-4 pm
Craftproducers is pleased to announce the return of the Southern Vermont Art and Craft Festival to its home in Manchester, Vermont! The Riley Rink Events Field is the perfect location to host the festival once again this year. Situated between the Taconic and Green Mountain ranges, the verdant lawns will provide a lovely setting for the 125 exhibitors, each one a tented boutique, offering a plethora of handmade goods: pottery, jewelry, clothing, art, graphics, leather, glass, metal, specialty foods, and Vermont wines and distilled spirits to taste and take home.
As with any Craftproducers show, the ambience will be enhanced with creative food fair, local beers on tap, and live music filling the air not to mention convenient onsite (free) parking. The show is outdoors and includes a large dining tent with the stage. You can purchase tickets either in advance or at the gate. Kids are FREE. Parking is FREE. No pets, please! Visit the show website to see an ongoing list of participating artists and artisans. The show goes on rain or shine.
For all show details, please visit Southern Vermont Art & Craft Festival. To apply as an exhibitor, please visit https://craftproducers.com/. We look forward to seeing in beautiful Manchester, VT.
Read more...Join us for 5th Dead of Summer Music Festival. presented by Whirlygig Music. Happening July 12-14, 2024, the day event will return to Hunter Park, nestled on 25 acres in the Green Mountains in Manchester Vermont. Festival goers will experience 3 Days of Live Music on 2 stages, over 25 Vendors, including Food Trucks, Clothing, Art, Jewelry and Craft Vendors. This family/kid friendly festival also offers, 2 days of yoga, kids set, tie dying, 18-hole disc golf course on-site. This is a rain or shine event. RV Camping and Tent Camping is available but need to be reserved in advance.
The Dead of Summer Music Festival and Pink Taking Fish announce the special guests for their performance of the Grateful Dead album “Terrapin Station” along with a fusion of Pink Floyd, Talking Heads and Phish. The Ensemble includes THE WOLFPACK string & brass quintet along with members of Twiddle, Remain in Light, Cool Cool Cool, and Dead Set.
This year’s lineup also includes:
Neighbor / Max Creek / Bearly Dead / Dead Man’s Waltz / Deadgrass / Bar Brides / Lizards A Phish Tribute / Annie in The Water
Misty Blues Roadhouse Revival / Mystic Dead / Harvest & Rust A Neil Young Tribute / Rev Tor’s KlusterFunk / Saints and Liars
Organ Fairchild / The Rejuvenators w/ Wanda Houston / Woody and Rebel Alliance / The Morning Dudes / Andy The Music Man-Kid’s Set
For info, single- and 3-day tickets and all other info go to http://deadofsummermusicfestival.com/
Updated 03/15/2024
Read more...MISSION
Dorset Theatre Festival’s mission is to create bold, innovative, and authentic theatre that engages a diverse, multi-generational community, and economically diverse region: enlightening, entertaining, and inspiring our audience through the celebration of great plays. We aim to redefine the landscape of theatre by presenting thought-provoking productions drawn from the new and classic canon, as well as through the development of new plays, new audiences, and new artists for the future of American theater. We produce theatre that matters.
ABOUT
In the 2018 season we presented the third production of the award-winning play Cry It Out by Molly Smith Metzler. Dorset’s production was highlighted in American Theatre magazine for being one of the first theatres to present this groundbreaking new play that has become one of the most-produced plays in the country. The 2019 season included two world premieres: Mrs. Christie by Heidi Armbruster and Dig, written and directed by Theresa Rebeck.
The Festival’s 2017 World Premiere of Rebeck’s Downstairs starring Tim and Tyne Daly transferred to New York City the following fall, produced by Primary Stages, and has more regional productions to follow. The shift in our programming towards new plays over the last decade has allowed us to increase our capacity to support new work. This past season showcased a lineup of almost entirely new work, half of which Dorset Theatre Festival had a hand in creating and will be moving on to New York City and productions around the country.
The Pipeline Series of New Plays offers burgeoning playwrights a week-long retreat in Dorset during the summer season. With a director and a cast of professional actors, the playwrights prepare one-night-only staged readings of their new plays, offering our audience a glimpse at the play-development process and our artistic staff an opportunity to gauge a play’s potential for success in future seasons. In 2016, playwright Martyna Majok presented 30 pages of her play that would become the 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winner, Cost of Living.
Our track record of providing industry-recognized support and development opportunities to artists, as well as the world-class theater we produce at the historic Dorset Playhouse each summer, makes Dorset Theatre Festival a national resource and a cherished local treasure for the people who live, work, and vacation here.
Over the past decade the Dorset Theatre Festival has become a national incubator for new play development, committed to nurturing new plays and playwrights who are innovative, authentic and celebrate our common humanity. The Festival has taken huge steps forward in living our mission to create bold, innovative, and authentic theatre, and in any given year, the Festival is developing more than a dozen new plays. As the Festival grows, we build our internal capacity for robustly supporting the production of World Premieres, as well as Regional Premieres and second and third productions of new works.
OUR HISTORY
The Festival’s summer home is an intimate theatre built from 2 pre-revolutionary barns. Opening its doors to local thespians in 1929, the Dorset Playhouse became host to the professional Equity Summer Festival in 1977. Today, Dorset Theatre Festival is a rich cultural resource and integral part of the community. Whether we’re staging dramatic classics, producing great plays from the contemporary canon, or providing a platform for fresh new theatrical voices, the Festival is always pursuing its single mission: to create an environment in which our audiences can experience thought‐provoking, inspiring, and entertaining live theatre.
Through our Giving Back program and educational outreach, we also even the playing field for under-served populations and families and bring them into the theatre experience. We partner with other nonprofit organizations to support creativity, build community engagement, and enrich the cultural landscape. Our goal is to make excellent theatre a shared community experience and inspire our audiences to think, laugh, and feel long after the curtain falls.
Dorset Theatre Festival is a nonprofit organization supported by individuals like you who believe that live theatre enriches our experiences as a community and connects us to what makes us human.
Read more...Taconic’s Summer Festival brings internationally acclaimed musicians and Chamber Music Intensive students from across the country together for four weeks of chamber-music performances and masterclasses. Music in Action brings music to schools, libraries, bookstores, art galleries, veterans homes, senior residences, and other non-traditional venues, while Strings for Kids offers violin, viola, and cello lessons for ages 5–18. Taconic’s resident ensemble, Taconic Chamber Players, offers a broad repertoire of Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and contemporary works, including pop, rock and jazz arrangements. They perform across the region at a variety of fun, interesting venues–from bespoke concerts in private homes to performances in local galleries and traditional concert halls.
For the Faithful. . .
Tickets go on sale starting Friday, January 19 at 10:00am, when a very limited number of Faithful Festivarian weekend passes will be released. At $150 for the weekend (+$40/camping) these tickets are for the earliest of early birds. Once they’re gone, we will move into our Eager Beaver rate of $175 for the weekend ($50/camping), which will run until March 31 at midnight. We’re finalizing a KILLER lineup for 2024 that you won’t want to miss, so grab tickets early and often!
New for 2024:
VIP Experience!
We’ve designed a very special VIP experience this year and will be releasing a limited number of these passes starting 1/19/24. There will be two phases of VIP ticket sales: Faithful Festivarian VIPs for $350, starting on 1/19/24, and when those are gone the price will increase to $400. What does this VIP Experience include you ask?
A special welcome bag of GMBR-themed goodies upon arrival
A preferred parking pass for the weekend
A VIP Lounge near the stage with snacks and soft drinks
A dedicated viewing area at both the Main Stage and Lamplighter
Late night snack at Lamplighter
Glamping is Back!
We’re pleased to offer Glamping again this year. The Glampground will be back on North Main (map) and will be provided by the good folks at Epic Glamping. Details will be available on our site prior to the on-sale date of January 19th.
GMBR is a four-day music festival featuring a variety of bluegrass, roots and Americana music from both icons of the industry and innovative up-and-coming artists. Featuring a main stage, dance tent, late night acoustic stage, camping, kids activities, local food trucks, Vermont craft beer and wine, in the magical mountain setting of Manchester Vermont. Located right in town, our attendees can stay at one of the many varieties of hotels, bed and breakfast inns or camp in our fields. The goal of the festival is to bring together all generations, in one field, with beautiful musicianship, activities and a world class experience that everyone can enjoy.