Some years later, on the way to a gig with her husband’s band, Sawyer saw the future for the Jenny Brook Bluegrass Festival, which she’d been running since 2001 and which was outgrowing its Weston, Vt., venue.
“When we pulled into that valley, we went ‘Wow!’ ” Sawyer recalled Monday in a phone conversation from the festival convoy as it motored from her Westminster West, Vt., home to Tunbridge. “We said, ‘We have to be here.’ ”
Starting this afternoon and running into Sunday night, the festival is here for the eighth year, populating five stages around the fairgrounds with a line-up that includes the Del McCoury Band on the main stage on Saturday night at 9.
“It’s always been my goal to have Del McCoury,” Sawyer said. “Each year, you keep saving and saving and saving up for it, and then to make it work into their schedule, it took a good two to three months. The day it happened, I was in tears, I was so happy.”
Sawyer and her team have been refining their booking and juggling skills since 2001, while bringing such acts as Union Station singer-guitarist-composer Dan Tyminski, Rhonda Vincent & the Rage and Seldom Scene to Vermont.
The Tyminski appearance in 2008 spotlighted the need to move out of the tight quarters of a little park on Jenny Brook, just above downtown Weston.
“Our first year here (2009), we had eight acts,” Sawyer recalled. “It’s probably more like 20 now.”
Performers orbiting around the McCoury sun this weekend range from the Jenny Brook-regular Gibson Brothers and Amy Gallagher & Stillwaters to Bob Amos & Catamount Crossing and the Seth Sawyer Band, for which Candi Sawyer plays bass.
“We play one set,” Sawyer said. “We were actually booked for two, but got too busy. It’s almost impossible to run the festival and play the way you want. When I’m onstage, I’m thinking about, ‘I need to do this, I need to do that’ when I’m off-stage.”
Preparations for the festival are always an adventure, too: Last weekend the Vermont History Expo occupied the Tunbridge Fairgrounds, so festival organizers — as well as performers and road crews and fans coming to camp there for the week — couldn’t begin setting up until Monday.
“My Bellows Falls High School class just had our 30-year reunion, but I wasn’t able to go,” said Sawyer, who grew up in Londonderry, Vt., before moving to Westminster after sixth grade. “We were so busy getting ready for this.”
Sawyer expected to stop worrying once the convoy pulled into that valley between South Royalton and Chelsea.
“It just felt like home the first time we went there,” Sawyer said. “Sometimes you leave one place and really miss it. That never happened with Tunbridge.”
The 16th annual Jenny Brook Bluegrass Festival opens this afternoon at 2:30 at the Tunbridge Fairgrounds with a performance by Tony Holt and the Wildwood Valley Boys. To reserve tickets (ranging from $20 for a Sunday day pass to $110 for an adult pass covering Thursday through Sunday) and learn more, visit jennybrookbluegrass.com.
On the Dartmouth green in Hanover tonight at 5:30, the Brooklyn-based band Red Baraat kicks off the Hopkins Center’s “Free for All” series of summer concerts with a multi-instrumental performance of South Asian drumming mixed with with hip-hop, R&B, rock and jazz. If the weather looks threatening, the concert will move to the Hop’s Spaulding Auditorium. At 4:30, Dartmouth percussion-ensemble director and music professor Hafiz Shabazz will host a demonstration of the band’s percussion instruments, which the audience is invited to try out. For more information about this concert and about the series, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.
AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon resumes its storytelling series, The Mudroom, tonight with a session on the theme of “Human Anatomy.” The doors open at 6:30, accompanied by music from Reckless Breakfast and the serving of Thai food and beer. The storytelling begins at 7. Seating is limited. Admission, for adults only, is $5 for AVA members, and for non-members $7.50 in advance and $10 at the door. To reserve tickets, visit avagallery.org. For more information, visit avagallery.org.
Tonight at 7, fiddler-composer Jeremy Kittel leads mandolinist Joshua Pinkham, cellist Nathaniel Smith and hammered-dulcimer player Simon Christman into the First Congregational Church on Thetford Hill. Admission is $10 to $20. To learn more, visit jeremykittel.com.
The national tour of the Asbury Shorts film festival stops tonight at Kimball Union Academy’s Flickinger Auditorium in Meriden. Featuring short movies from all over the world, the screenings begin at 7, with proceeds benefiting Meriden’s Aidron Duckworth Art Museum. Films include Love at First Sight, a British Academy Award-nominated short exploring the relationship between characters in their 70s played by John Hurt and Phyllida Law. To reserve tickets ($15) and learn more, visit aidronduckworthmuseum.org or call 603-469-3444.
Twenty-four students of Norwich-based music teacher Victoria Dobrushina perform an adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale Thumbelina at Northern Stage’s Barrette Center for the Arts in White River Junction on Friday night at 5:30. Piano students will play works of Beethoven, Chopin and Scriabin. While admission is free, donations toward the expenses of writing, composing, arranging, and use of piano and performance space are welcome through Dobrushina’s Kickstarter campaign; for more information,visit kickstarter.com/projects/thumbelinainvermont/thumbelina-collaborative-multicultural-childrens-m.
The Thumbelina project also will work on songs and scenes from the musical during a performance camp for ages 6 to 12 at the Upper Valley Music Center in Lebanon. To register for the camp, call 603-448-1642.
Hartland singer-songwriter Jay Nash and drummer Josh Day perform as The Contenders at Damon Hall in Hartland on Friday night at 7 and at ArtisTree Community Arts Center in South Pomfret on Saturday night at 7:30. For tickets to the Damon Hall concert, and for more information, visit wearethecontenders.com. To reserve tickets ($20) to the ArtisTree show and to learn more, visit artistreevt.org or call 802-457-3500.
In a benefit concert for Vital Communities, the pop band Madaila plays at the Skinny Pancake in Hanover on Friday night at 9. Tickets cost $10 in advance and $12 at the door. To reserve seats or learn more, visit skinnypancake.com or call 603-277-9115.
Rose Friedman and Justin Lader of Modern Times Theater perform a Punch-and-Judy puppet show at the Quechee Library on Tuesday afternoon at 4. Admission is free. For more information, visit quecheelibrary.org.
The Haitian roots ensemble Lakou Mizik will perform during the Feast and Field Market at the former Chase Farm in Barnard next Thursday night from 5:30 to 7:30. The nine musicians, ranging in age from early 20s to late 60s, came together during Haiti’s recovery from the earthquake of 2010, and released their debut album in April.
New London Barn Playhouse wraps its run of the Lerner-and-Loewe musical Brigadoon with performances tonight, Friday night and Saturday night at 7:30 and Sunday afternoon at 5. For tickets ($20 to $40) and more information, visit the box office in New London or nlbarn.org or call 603-526-6710.
The BarnArts Center for the Arts continues its outdoor staging of Will Eno’s The Realistic Joneses at Fable Farm in Barnard at 7 on Friday and Saturday nights, before closing on Sunday afternoon at 4. For tickets ($10 to $15) and more information, visit barnarts.org or call 802-234-1645.
The IMPACT ensemble of young actors from Jean’s Playhouse in Lincoln, N.H., performs a musical adaptation of Hansel and Gretel at the Claremont Opera House on Monday morning at 10. For tickets and for more information about the opera house’s series of Monday Morning Musicals for Children, call 603-542-0064.
The roots duo of fiddler Andy Stewart and singer-guitarist Mary Jo Slattery plays at Colburn Park from 4 to 7 this afternoon, during the Lebanon Farmer’s Market.
Interplay Jazz week in Woodstock continues tonight at 5:30, with faculty members and students performing a free brown-bag show on the village green. Next comes an all-star concert by faculty on Friday night at 8 in the Woodstock Town Hall Theatre and, on Saturday afternoon from noon to 3, an admission-free appearance by students and faculty on the village green. For tickets ($24) to the Friday-night performance, visit pentanglearts.org or call 802-457-3981.
The folk duo of Susan and Dana Robinson performs tonight from 5:30 to 8, during the weekly Feast and Field Farmers Market at 1544 Royalton Turnpike in Barnard.
Basia Bulat performs indie folk, pop and soul music at Lebanon’s Colburn Park tonight at 7, to kickoff the Lebanon Recreation Department’s Front Porch series of free summer concerts.
Coming off two rousing shows of R&B and pop at the Quechee Balloon Festival last Sunday, the Party Crashers fire up another busy weekend with performances on Friday night from 6:30 to 10 at the Hanover Center Fair and on Saturday night from 6 to 10 during the Enfield Family Fair in Huse Memorial Park.
Woodchuck’s Revenge plays a set of country and blues on the bandstand at Quechee Green on Wednesday night at 6:30.
The Raqs Salaam Dance Theater performs at Colburn Park in Lebanon on Monday night at 7, and wraps up with an introductory demonstration of belly dancing. Admission is free.
Pianist Will Ogmundson commands the keyboard at the Canoe Club in Hanover tonight at 6:30. Following him to the stage with 6:30 to 9:30 shows over the coming week are roots singer-guitarist Andrew Merzi on Friday, pianist Gillian Joy on Saturday, pianist Randall Mullen on Sunday and guitarist Billy Rosen on Tuesday.
The Whiskey Geese pull into Windsor Station tonight from 7 to 10 for a set of acoustic rock, blues and folk. Next up over the coming week is Toast with a set of eclectic rock on Saturday night at 9:30.
Under the stage name Grayson, singer-songwriter Michael Edsor appears at Bentley’s in Woodstock tonight at 8.
Bobbi ’n’ Me plays at Jesse’s restaurant in Hanover on Friday night starting at 5.
The Joe Mitchell Project sets a funky rhythm for dancing at Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners on Friday night at 8.
The Friday night lineup at the Upper Valley’s Salt hill Pubs features the Rock Island Blues Brothers Revue in Lebanon and Josh Gerrish with a set of country-western and acoustic rock in Hanover. On Saturday, the choices are bluesman John Lackard in Newport, Arthur James and Northbound with a session of blues in Hanover and Frydaddy in Lebanon. All shows start at 9.
Bow Thayer wraps up his June residency at the Skinny Pancake in Hanover with a session of Americana music on Wednesday night from 8:30 to 11. For more information, visit skinnypancake.com or call 603-277-9115.
Ramunto’s Brick & Brew Pizza in Bridgewater hosts an open mic starting at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays. Participants get a free large cheese pizza.
String players of all ages and abilities are welcome at the weekly acoustic jam session at South Royalton’s BALE Commons on Friday night from 6:30 to 10.
Joe Stallsmith leads a weekly hootenanny of Americana, folk and bluegrass at Salt hill Pub in Hanover on Monday nights at 6.
Bradford’s Colatina Exit holds an open mic on Tuesdays at 8 p.m.
The Seven Barrel Brewery in West Lebanon runs an open mic on Tuesday nights at 8.
Jim Yeager hosts an open mic at Hartland’s Skunk Hollow Tavern, at 8:30 on Wednesday nights.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304.