A Two-Week Festival Celebrating Arts and Activism Across Greenwich Village and the East Village

September 10 - 25, 2022

Less a week to go – and the entire program for The Village Trip 2022 is now live, all events open for booking.

We are gratified to be working with so many partners across the Village, from Washington Square Park to Tompkins Park. Some have been with us from the outset, not least the Washington Square Hotel, which is part of the history our festival seeks to celebrate and is celebrating 120 years as the heart and soul of Greenwich Village hospitality.

In addition to our wonderful roster of civic and business partners, we are thrilled to be working with a diverse and growing group of presenting organisations and venues.

And once again, many restaurants and bars have come aboard to offer special dishes and cocktails throughout the festival. Please support them.

This is what The Village Trip was always intended to be – a big-tent festival offering opportunity for all. So come on in and join the fun.

Say tuned an sign up for The Village Trip Newsletter. And please donate what you can. The organisers are volunteers, but musicians, speakers and production teams all need to be paid. The last couple of years have demonstrated how important the arts are to our city and supporting The Village Trip is one way to show your appreciation.

Many thanks – and we look forward to seeing you soon.

 

 FESTIVAL 2022 NEWS

On Saturday, September 10, The Village Trip 2022 will kick off on Eighth Street with David Amram and a host of friends sounding a fanfare that heralds two weeks of celebration across Greenwich Village—both East and West. We even have a musical procession – Tilted Axes, a twenty-piece guitar orchestra that will strike out from St John’s in the Village and head through Washington Square Park to Astor Place and then back down Eighth Street where they will jam with David. You might call it a Jamram! Sponsored by Village Alliance, which calls this event The Eighth Street Experience, it will be a family-friendly afternoon of music and more – live painting, children’s games, animal adoption, food and fun.

From then on, the beat will never stop. The first weekend alone features walking tours celebrating Mrs Maisel, Downtown movie locations and Village architecture. John Strausbaugh and Clayton Patterson will be talking about their new book, Offbeats: Lower East Side Portraits, and of course Framing the Village, the inaugural Village Trip art show, curated by artist and tour guide Marc Kehoe, which runs from September 6 – 30 at our festival hub, St John’s in the Village. Marc has designed our wonderful new poster (below, click on the image to download it).

The Village Trip Poster 2022

The afternoon and evening of September 10 also features The Village Trip GuitarFest: Ah… Let’s Go Back to the Village, its title taken from a new piece by David Amram, one of several works to be premiered at TVT22. It’s also the first concert in our Classical and New Music Program, curated by William Anderson, guitarist and composer. He is forging relationships between The Village Trip and a diverse group of outstanding performers and well-established new music organizations in the US and around the world, crafting events that fit The Village Trip’s mission. To William, the Village is an artistic meeting place that encourages a “One-Music” approach, a holographic way of programming that is possible in few other places anywhere in the world.

For example, last year, “Frank Zappa Calls Varese,” a concert at the Bitter End, celebrated one of the more surprising resonances between American psychedelia and French Symbolisme and Modernisme This year, Hilliard Greene and the Jazz Expressions will share a program with the Momenta String Quartet celebrating the friendship of Charlie Parker and German Jewish refugee Stefan Wolpe. Bebop and Wolpe both have an energy in their work that is akin to the energy of abstract expressionist painting and the artists Wolpe made a point of befriending.

This year, Composers Concordance, Cygnus, The League/ISCM, Cutting Edge Concerts, and Marsyas Productions are collaborating to form an extensive offering of Greenwich Village composers and musicians. Performers and composers from the US, Spain, Italy, Austria will be participating.  And The Village Trip will soon go international, with events abroad. Masha Kaléko, who lived on Minetta Street in Greenwich Village, was twice a refugee. The Village Trip’s Kaléko Project will travel to Kaleko’s home countries, Poland and Germany. Gamel Woolsey who lived on Patchin Place in the 1920s but spent most of her life in Spain, will be remembered through a concert at the Gerald Brenan House in Churriana, near Malaga.

Global Greenwich Village indeed! Manhattan Borough Historian Robert Snyder will address this topic in his inaugural Village Trip Lecture on September 15 at the Jefferson Market Library.

The Village Trip strives for “hi jinks and high ideals,” as public historian Kathleen Hulser puts it. Kathleen will lead two walks celebrating Downtown’s rabble-rousing women – makers of “good trouble” as the late John Lewis used to say. Among them was Eleanor Roosevelt whose legacy, sixty years after her death, will be assessed by the distinguished panel Kathleen will convene on September 21 at the LGBTQ Center to discuss “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights”.

This is our fifth year and the fourth Festival, and we feel very privileged to be presenting so many distinguished figures across its fifteen days. Privileged too, to have been able to draw on the advice of William, Kathleen and Robert. Their contributions are immeasurable.

And The Village Trip would never have become reality were it not for the friendship, wisdom and generosity of the inimitable David Amram, Artist Emeritus and the heart and soul of the Festival; and of Doug Yeager, who has shared the knowledge and contacts acquired during his own long and esteemed career in music management.

If we build it, they will come…. That belief has always spurred us onward. We have built a community of Trippers and we are already planning TVT23 and beyond. Please support us, because it really does take a Village.

See you soon – enjoy the summer meantime.

LIZ & CLIFF

CLASSICAL AND NEW MUSIC at The Village Trip 2022

 

The festival this year features an expanded classical and new music program under the direction of William Anderson, distinguished guitarist, composer and teacher.

 

Highlights of The Village Trip Program in 2022

Today

Framing the Village Exhibition

Revelation Gallery at St John's in the Village 218 W 11th Street, NY, United States

By the 1850s, the Village was a living art colony and by the time sculptor and heiress Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney established her first gallery in MacDougal Alley in 1907 there was an embarrassment of riches for her to choose from.

Free

The Village Trip – The Eighth Street Experience

Intersection of Eighth and MacDougal streets Greenwich Village, New York, NY, United States

The David Amram Septet plus pianist Dave Keyes and special guests kick off this year’s Village Trip and are joined by Tilted Axes: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars at this family friendly, outdoor street party. Food, fun, furry friends and games for children of all ages – it’s all happening on Eighth Street as we herald our fourth neighborhood festival.

Free

The Village Trip GuitarFest:
Ah, Let’s go Back to the Village

St John’s in the Village 218 W 11th St, New York, NY, United States

Celebrate the Jack Kerouac centenary with the world premiere of David Amram’s Ah, Let’s Go Back to the Village, a chamber music composition commissioned by The Village Trip and based on text from Kerouac’s book Lonesome Traveler. Tilted Axes – twenty electric guitars – kick off this unique guitar extravaganza. There follows a program of South American guitar music, and twenty classical guitarists wrap up, joining David Amram, who will jam on his score for the Robert Frank film Pull My Daisy.

$15 – $20

Labor Rights After the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: A Social Justice Walk with Historian Daniel Katz

Great Hall at Cooper Union 7 East 7th Street, NY, United States

On Saturday, March 25, 1911, at the end of the work day, a fire began on the 8th floor of the Triangle Garment Factory. Within thirty minutes,146 of the 500 workers laboring on floors eight, nine, and ten would die. The tragedy provoked outrage, union movement building, and led to political reform.

$35 – $40

Wonderful Town: Walking Tour with Jamie Bernstein

Washington Square Hotel 103 Waverly Place, NY, United States

Join a unique walking tour with Maestro Leonard Bernstein’s daughter Jamie and explore the crooked streets of Greenwich Village which inspired the great 20th-century musical 'Wonderful Town'. It begins – as the musical does – at Washington Square and Waverly Place! New starting point: Meet at Northwest corner of 14th St and 7th Ave. Please assemble at 3:45pm

$20 – $25

Wonderful Town: Cabaret and Cocktails with Janis Siegel and Friends

North Square Lounge at the Washington Square Hotel 103 Waverly Place, New York, NY, United States

A unique and intimate cabaret – featuring the Grammy-garlanded Janis Siegel with baritone Michael Kelly, Jamie Bernstein and The Manhattan Transfer's long-time musical director Yaron Gershovsky on keyboards – is a glorious celebration of songs such as “Ohio,” “Pass the Football,” and “One Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man,” plus more.

$45

CompCord Chamber Orchestra featuring Suzanne Vega: Songs and Poems from the Village

The Players Theatre 115 MacDougal Street, NY, United States

With music by New York City composers, including the legendary Suzanne Vega singing some of her classic songs in new orchestral arrangements by Gene Pritsker, William Anderson and Jonathan Dawe. Poetry recitations pay tribute to Greenwich Village.

$42 – $62

Global Greenwich Village: Lecture by Robert W. Snyder

Jefferson Market Library 425 6th Avenue, NY, United States

Greenwich Village has long been a place where people make plans to turn the world upside down. Since the late nineteenth century, the neighborhood has absorbed new people and new ideas in the arts, culture, and politics; marinated them in hope, humor and contentiousness; and then shared them with New York City, the USA, and the world.

Free

Children of the American Bop (and Mambo) Night!

The Public Theater at Joe's Pub 425 Lafayette Street (at Astor Place), NY, United States

Jack Kerouac's legendary status as the leading voice of the Beat writers was cemented with his seminal work, On the Road. Published in 1957, the same year West Side Story debuted on Broadway and Sputnik launched into space. David Amram and Bobby Sanabria will perform jazz and Latin classics of the 1950s that influenced Kerouac and an entire generation. The show will also include brief readings from On the Road with music, just as Kerouac and Amram pioneered jazz-poetry in New York in 1957.

$25

On the Road Reading with Music

The Strand: The Rare Book Room 828 Broadway at 12th Street, NY, United States

A recording of the livestream is available to buy.
A diverse cast including Stephanie Berry, Kevin Corrigan, John Doman, Marsha Mason, Dael Orlandersmith, Mercedes Ruehl, Jose Rivera, and John Ventimiglia read excerpts from Jack Kerouac’s classic novel accompanied by a jazz quartet led by the legendary David Amram and directed by David Deblinger. Produced in collaboration with HB Studio.

$10 – $20

Janis Siegel: I’ll Take Manhattan

The Public Theater at Joe's Pub 425 Lafayette Street (at Astor Place), NY, United States

Nine-time Grammy winner and founding member of The Manhattan Transfer, Janis Siegel, waxes rhapsodic about her beloved city in song and word. She will be assisted by two master musicians, John di Martino on piano and Boris Koslov on bass. The songs are diverse, romantic, bittersweet, vintage, modern, and full of heart and history, just like New York City itself.

$25

Jack Kerouac: Then and Now

Jefferson Market Library 425 6th Avenue, NY, United States

As part of the festival’s Jack Kerouac 100 celebrations, a distinguished panel—Holly George-Warren, Joyce Johnson, Anne Waldman, and David Amram - will reflect on aspects of the writer’s life in New York City generally and the Village in particular and discuss his enduring legacy.

Free

Women’s Rights are Human Rights: Eleanor Roosevelt’s Legacy

LGBTQ Center 208 W 13 Street, NY, United States

A panel, chaired by public historian Kathleen Hulser, will assess the legacy of Eleanor Roosevelt, a brave woman ahead of her time whose beliefs were shaped by her life in the Village.

Free

Bringing It All Back Home to Washington Square
with The Klezmatics and Joshua Nelson
Free outdoor concert

Garibaldi Plaza Washington Square Park, New York, NY, United States

Geographically and spiritually, Washington Square has always been the center of the Village. Bohemia’s beating heart. A place to gather, whether to protest or just hang out, often with a guitar. The now-traditional Village Trip concert in the Park, headlined this year by Grammy-winning local heroes The Klezmatics, celebrates Greenwich Village as “a state of mind with no boundaries.”

Free

VIEW THE FULL PROGRAM >>

 

Get a taste of the vibe in our new video, the splendid work of Michael Jacobsohn, assiduous chronicler of the Downtown scene. The Village Trip at Café Figaro

REVIEW of THE VILLAGE TRIP 2021

A nine-day festival held in late September 2021 that celebrated the glorious community of Greenwich Village and all it has given the world. More than 30 events and over 50 performers at venues across the Village. Scroll on for photos.

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Crowds in the Park at The Village Trip 2021

The Village Trip Mission Statement

To uplift, to entertain and to celebrate the arts for all New Yorkers, their families and all people from around the world who come to visit Downtown Manhattan’s special oases, Greenwich Village and the East Village.

New York City AIDS Memorial
David Amram
walking tour
opening event audience
Earth Requiem