The Village Trip ended its sixth annual run at the close of September, having entertained, elevated and energized Greenwich Village and the East Village/Lower East Side for two thrilling weeks.
Fifteen days, 43 events – it was quite a ride, from which the tiny band of festival organizers has now just about recovered! Looking through the scores of photos that captured almost every aspect of TVT24 reminded us of just how far we’ve come since 2018, when The Village Trip was little more than a long weekend of events, featuring a truly unique jazz concert which people still talk about and Suzanne Vega headlining our signature free concert in Washington Square Park.
We’ve made lots of friends since then, on-stage and off, and the festival is now a fixture on New York City’s late-summer calendar. This year we asked audience members to fill out a short survey and we’re gratified by the responses. Wrote one respondent:
“Keep up the great work! You are keeping alive and enlarging the true spirit of the Village!”
And that is indeed our goal –
to honor the past, celebrate the present, and inspire the future,
as Deana Stafford McCloud, esteemed curator at the Museum Collective succinctly puts it.
Hopefully, at The Village Trip 2024 we managed all three.
For a slide show with captions, click on the images
There’s not space to mention all the highlights and in some ways it’s invidious to mention just a few – but here we go: Framing the Village, the festival’s fourth art show, opened to wait lines on Eighth Street. Gail Merrifield Papp and a stellar cast of musicians and two brilliant young actors joined David Amram for a concert presentation of highlights from the music he wrote for the first 12 years of Shakespeare in the Park.
Janis Siegel, with Yaron Gershovsky and John di Martino and a host of other superlative musicians, celebrated the songbooks of Cy Coleman, and Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. The NYC premiere of Lead Belly: The Man Who Invented Rock & Roll moved many in the audience to tears and it was followed by a fascinating conversation between Alvin Singh II, Lead Belly’s great-nephew, and Anna Canoni, Woody Guthrie’s granddaughter.
Over two evenings we honored the legacies of the great Laura Nyro, whose music Bette Midler thought “the very essence of New York City,” and of Mick Moloney and Dan Milner, musicians, and scholars whose influence is heard wherever Irish music is played. The gender-bending theatrics of The Cockettes were recalled in words and photos by co-founder Fayette Hauser. And the timeless brilliance of James Baldwin, “the poet of the revolution,” was honored in his centennial year with an event which won high praise from another survey respondent, who wrote:
“Well written and imaginative production. The actor portraying James Baldwin was his incarnation!”
The festival’s Classical and New Music program celebrated the Village as a magnet to many innovators who pushed the boundaries of arts and ideas and changed – sometimes directed – the musical conversation. Among them Jonn Cage, whose piano music was performed by Eliza Garth in a concert described as “exquisite,” and “extremely beautiful.” Cage featured alongside Arnold Schoenberg and Charles Ives in a concert exploring “Genius and Invention.” Georgia O’Keeffe believed music could be “translated into something for the eye.” At the Salmagundi Club, art was translated into something for the ear, with musical interpretations of paintings by three of the Village’s most iconic artists – Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, and O’Keeffe.
Guitarist John Schneider took listeners on a journey into “the American Primitive” with works by Harry Partch and Lou Harrison played on microtonal adapted guitars. An innovative program explored the musical melting pot of the East Village tenement courtyard and its influence on later generations of composers in a concert featuring talented young students from the Third Street Music School alongside the trio Raices Negras. And GuitarFest24 – The Village Trip’s celebration of the guitar in all its glorious diversity – brought to an expansive conclusion the festival’s American Primitive and Inventors of Genius Weekend, which included a Microtonal Village Conference and drew delegates from around the world.
As always, The Village Trip was bookended by free outdoor events. The Village Trip on West 4th Street, co-hosted by the West Village BID, was a glorious sun-drenched, sound-enriched afternoon centered around the festival’s Artist Emeritus, David Amram and friends, among them bouzouki maestro Avram Pengas and versatile folk and roots musicians Our Band. The closing concert in Washington Square Park celebrated girl power – Jamie Barnett, Tish and Snooky, and BETTY, all of them singing in the rain to a crowd that happily danced among the puddles. In between, there were walks led by our entertaining and erudite trio of guides Marc Kehoe, Ann McDermott, and Marc Catapano, each exploring aspects of Downtown’s fabled history. And there was a very special tour of the Roy Lichtenstein Studio and Home, now home to the Whitney’s Independent Study Program and rarely open to the public. What a trip that was!
Thank you to everyone who made it all happen. Our civic and business partners, our board, our small creative team, our donors, and volunteers – and all our wonderful performers and artists and tour guides. It wouldn’t be the same without you!
And, thanks to all those who came to Village Trip events – it was wonderful to meet and chat with so many of you. There’s still time to fill out our short survey.
If you believe in our mission of shining a light in the darkness and having some fun, please support The Village Trip. We are now a 501c3 non-profit organization so your donations are tax-deductible. However modest (or immodest!) they are, please know that your dollars pay our artists and production costs – everyone else is a volunteer. Your support is essential for us to continue creating and presenting a festival that captures the spirit of Greenwich Village. We look forward to welcoming you around the same time next year.
Thank you and stay tuned!
Liz & Cliff
The Village Trip Festival thanks its sponsors, partners and supporters.
The Village Trip has been named Best Urban Celebration Event 2025
in the LUXElife Magazine Travel & Tourism Awards 2025