Two hundred and fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the words of the Founding Fathers feel newly urgent. Gathering to hear American music, in in a city that has always stood for pluralism and possibility and in a neighborhood that was described by poet Mascha Kaléko as “the melting pot in the melting pot” is itself an act of faith — in what the Republic has been, and in what it still can be.

In “We the People,” Poetica Musica draws on music from America’s first 25 decades – including works by Robert Beaser, Aaron Copland, William Bolcom, Hall Johnson, and others — to trace a thread of distinctly American expression across generations and styles.

Woody Guthrie’s Songs to Grow On is a 40‑minute interactive theater experience created especially for children ages 2–5—yet delightful for audiences of all ages. Presented by New York City Children’s Theater with The Village Trip, the production introduces young audiences to Guthrie’s music while exploring curiosity, empathy, and community through playful, hands-on engagement.  A brand-new show, it is based on an unpublished manuscript by Woody Guthrie and the 1956 album Songs to Grow On for Mother and Child. Original script by Frank Ruiz, with direction by Susanna Brock.

Those who came to Bernstein Remix at TVT2025 will already be acquainted with the awesome Ahn Trio, “classical revolutionaries” (Newsday) who combine razor-sharp technique with the fierce energy of rock stars, seamlessly fusing classical music with rock, jazz, and multimedia. Their exciting and innovative collaborations have wowed audiences around the world. President Obama invited them to perform at the White House State Dinner in honor of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and First Lady Kim Yoon-ok. The Village Trip is delighted to welcome them back with The Art of Collaboration: Sting, Jobim and Baechle, an unmissable evening of duos, trios and quartets.

The classic hootenanny, a multi-performer folk concert, returns to the heart of Greenwich Village as the Peoples’ Voice Cafe presents Songs of Freedom and Resistance, an all-acoustic showcase featuring four longtime activist musicians: Judy Gorman, David Tarlo, Lindsey Wilson, and Adele Rolider. Each will do a 30-minute set. Come prepared to join in on the choruses as these four artists sing out for peace, human rights, and social justice.

Paul Robeson — singer, athlete, actor, activist — embodied all the promise of America at its best. He used his art as a weapon of justice and, as a global citizen, he spoke truth to power, heedless of the personal cost. “Artists are the gatekeepers of truth,” he once said. “We are civilization’s radical voice.” Fifty years after his passing, his magnificent voice still rings out, entreating us all to fight the good fight. Bass-baritone James C Martin, with Lynn Raley at the piano, celebrates a true American patriot with a program of Robeson’s best-loved songs and his bravest words, spoken in a tumultuous time when many turned against him. The program also features a world première by David Amram and other composers, including Augusta Read Thomas, Chen Shih-hui, Erik Santos, Robert Wellington Pound, and Maria Thompson Corley setting words by Robeson’s friend and fellow activist Langston Hughes.

Since their New York debut in 2011, the Horszowski Trio – Jesse Mills, violin; Ole Akahoshi, cello; Rieko Aizawa, piano – has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe, the Far East, and India, earning a reputation as one of the most vital chamber ensembles of their generation. The centerpiece of their concert is the US premiere of 25 Decades, a piano trio by William Kentner Anderson — composer, guitarist, and Director of Classical and New Music for The Village Trip — performed alongside Brahms' Piano Trio No. 2 in C major, Op 87, a pairing that sets Anderson's new work in direct conversation with the Romantic tradition it both inherits and unsettles.

Born into Gilded Age luxury, Cole Porter defied family expectations to forge a life in popular music, trading classical expectations for exotic melodies, harmonic innovation and modern rhythms coupled with sophisticated, urbane lyrics packed with cultural references, sexual innuendo, and complex rhymes. In so doing, Porter wrote the songs that form the backbone of the Great American Songbook – timeless numbers that have transcended generations. Join award-winning singer and arranger Janie Barnett as she turns Porter’s sophisticated classics on their head, reinterpreting them with raw, rootsy soul.

The Village Trip presents “Women's Work,” an evening of music and poetry that explores the tension between the external demands placed on women and the rich creative interior lives they have always sustained. Central to the program is a world première from Greenwich Village composer Kitty Brazelton. The program also draws on works by Liz Queler (The Edna Project), Missy Mazzoli, Shoko Suzuki, Ann Southam, and Whitney George, alongside texts by Eleanor Roosevelt, Marcella Remund, Edna St Vincent Millay and Anne Lovering Rounds.

Join legendary multi-instrumentalist and "Renaissance man of American music" David Amram and his septet for a musical journey celebrating the legacies of Miles Davis and John Coltrane in their centennial year. This performance is more than a tribute: It is a first-hand account of jazz history from an artist who lived it. In the 1950s, Amram worked with the great bands of Charles Mingus, Oscar Pettiford, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton and his own quartet. He was well acquainted with both Miles and Trane, two giants from the vibrant New York scene of the 1950s, and he brings a unique perspective to their transformative works.

Four composers from diverse backgrounds – Samuel Adler, Victoria Bond, Dina Koston, and Nehemiah Luckett – offer very personal interpretations of the dreams that have lured immigrants from all around the world to America’s shores. Performed by Ensemble Cygnus and singers.

Each year, The Village Trip brings together composers with deep ties to Greenwich Village and the East Village for an evening celebrating Village Voices. This year's program draws on an extraordinary range of voices — and histories – featuring premieres by Scott Wheeler, and Ella Milch-Sheriff, as well as new settings of Herman Melville by Akemi Naito and Kile Smith.

An intimate evening in the company of Allen Shawn, author, pianist, and composer whose six-year sojourn in the West Village marked a creative turning point when – influenced by his friendship with clarinetist Benny Goodman – he began blending classical music with elements of jazz. His lively music is characterized by emotional directness and an openness to a variety of idioms. “Notes from a Life” is a sonic diary featuring chamber pieces from across four decades by this multifaceted musician celebrated for his “distinctly urban energy.”

What better way to end the second Saturday of The Village Trip than in the warm company of the Peoples’ Voice Café, featuring Pamela Jean Agaloos, a familiar face on New York’s Irish/Scottish trad scene, and Cactus Rose NYC, a Native Americana act from Lenapehoking.

Classical Cool is the festival’s annual concert for children and families and this year, with Ich Bin Ein New Yorker, it honors the New York spirit and the East Village community at its heart. Hosted by Nina Bernstein Simmons, the program features excerpts from Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, and his "Ode to Freedom" from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, performed at his Christmas concert in Berlin in 1989, a year of hope and peaceful revolutions. Classical Cool also features premières by Shoko Suzuki, and William Kentner Anderson. Community African drummers under Amos Gabia and local choral ensembles join The Village Trip Festival Orchestra, conducted by Garrett Keast of the Berlin American Academy of Music. Featured soloists include the winner of our Concerto Competition, and soprano Curtlyn Ifill.

The Village Trip is proud to be working with Rod MacDonald and Raymond Micek to co-present The Greenwich Village Folk Festival at 40, a very special all-star celebration of the rich legacy of folk music in the Village. In the 1960s, the sounds of the folk revival reverberated around the world, but the roots of that revival can be traced back to the 1940s when the neighborhood was a cheap, bohemian refuge for radicals, artists, and writers – among them Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly, both of whom sang in the Great Hall at Cooper Union where the folk community will gather once more to raise its voice in song.