Chandler Center for the Arts will host the Smithsonian's nationally touring exhibition "Crossroads: Change in Rural America" as well as a concert by award-winning Smithsonian Folkways recording artist Jake Blount, to kick off its 2025 season on Saturday, February 8th.
4 PM Meet the local artists in "Crossroads" and tour the gallery
5 PM Free Artist Talk with musician and music historian Jake Blount
6 PM Community Potluck Mixer
7 PM Concert with John & Ida Mae Specker opening, followed by Jake Blount
Blount's album "The New Faith", was named one of the best roots albums by Rolling Stone, NPR, The Guardian and more. Initially recognized for his skill as a string band musician – winner of the Steve Martin Banjo Prize and two first-place ribbons from Clifftop – Blount's still-young career has "charted an unprecedented, Afrofuturist course" that "disintegrates the boundaries between acoustic and electric, artist and medium, and ancestor and progeny."
John Specker, known as the 'Father of the Ithaca Sound' and his daughter Ida Mae (Vermont's Rising Star - New England Music Awards) open the show with a lively and upbeat performance.
In the gallery, Vermont artists give the nationally touring exhibition a local complement as the work of Cecily Anderson, Jennifer Davey, Davey DeGraff, Steve DePalma, Linda Diak, Carolyn Egeli, Amy Hook Therin, Woody Jackson, and Jack Rowell will be featured to highlight the unique cultural landscape of our state. Many of these artists will be in attendance to provide personalized context on February 8th at 4 PM!
Feb 8, 2025, 10 AM to 3 PM
Northfield Select Board Regular MeetingFeb 11, 2025, 7 to 9:30 PM
Pizza and Fun Middle Branch CollaborativeFeb 12, 2025, 4 to 7 PM