NEPM Asparagus Festival
Hadley Town Common
Saturday, June 7 from 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Each year, the NEPM Asparagus Festival brings thousands to the Hadley Town Common to enjoy the best of western Mass. flavors, agriculture, live music, and, of course, Hadley grass. The festival is free and open to all with a suggested donation of $5 per person or $20 per family at the gates. Register before the festival to skip the line at the gates and get a chance win a VIP package to the Green River Festival on June 20 – 22. Proceeds from the NEPM Asparagus Festival support public media in western Mass.
The New England Mosaic Society Collaborative Show
Beckett Arts Center
Friday, May 16 — Sunday, June 8
Opening reception Friday, May 16 from 5 – 7 p.m.
Here’s a very cool collaborative project where pairs of mosaic artists work together to create two original mosaics. Each artist starts a piece, completes it half-way, then sends it to their partner to complete. Each artist has the experience of starting a mosaic and finishing a mosaic started by a partner. The second artist may choose to compliment or contrast the style of the first mosaicist. The two finished mosaics will be hung next to each other in the exhibition along with printed images of the half-finished mosaics.
Madeleine Peyroux & Bettye LaVette: Let’s Walk Tour 2025
The Mahaiwe, Great Barrington
Friday, May 16 at 8 p.m.
Madeleine Peyroux’s ninth album, Let’s Walk, is her most assured, courageous work to date. Powered by the distinctive, honeyed croon that delivered her from the Paris streets to concert halls, these ten unabashedly personal songs deftly interweave jazz, folk, and chamber pop. Bettye LaVette is a singer in the tradition of great vocalists like Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, and Dinah Washington. Now in her 63rd year in show business, she is one of very few of her contemporaries who were recording during the birth of soul music in the 1960s.
Witch Panic! Massachusetts Before Salem
Springfield Museums
Opens Saturday, May 17
This new exhibit at the Wood Museum of Springfield History looks back at a time when accused witches walked among us right here in western Mass. Forty years before the infamous trials in Salem, fear gripped the small settlement of Springfield. Neighbors whispered about Mary and Hugh Parsons as rumors simmered for years, exploding into hysteria that eventually consumed the town.
Nolumbeka Project Day of Remembrance
Great Falls Discovery Center, Turners Falls
Saturday, May 17 from 1 – 3:30 p.m.
Commemorate the 349th Anniversary of the Great Falls Massacre, outdoors weather permitting, or in the Great Hall. Liz Coldwind Santana Kiser, Elder, Council Woman, and Tribal Historical Preservation Officer for the Chaubunagungamaug Band of Nipmuck Indians is one of several honored guests. Free and open to all. Tribal members and non-Tribal public are welcome.
The Birch Festival: Shostakovich and Bach
First Congregational Church, Stockbridge
Saturday, May 17 at 3 p.m.
This concert, led by Birch Festival artistic director Yevgeny Kutik, will include two string quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich alongside instrumental music by J.S. Bach. This is one of over 100 ArtWeek Berkshires events happening throughout Berkshire County’s five state-designated Cultural Districts—the Downtown Great Barrington Cultural District, Lenox Cultural District, North Adams Cultural District, Upstreet Cultural District in Pittsfield, and Williamstown Cultural District.
Jimmy Webb
Iron Horse, Northampton
Saturday, May 17 at 7 p.m.
Legendary songwriter Jimmy Webb’s hits read like a who’s who of music giants – Glen Campbell, Linda Ronstadt, Richard Harris, Donna Summer and more icons have topped the charts with songs like “Wichita Lineman,” “Didn’t We,” and “MacArthur Park.” In concert and in his memoir, Webb reveals riveting stories of how these songs came to be and his adventures at the center of the 1960s and ‘70s music scene.
Kathleen Parks Band
Parlor Room, Northampton
Saturday, May 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Kathleen Parks has been heavily involved in touring and recording with the band Twisted Pine and her duo Kat & Brad, where she sings, writes, and fiddles for both. Her writing leans toward Pop, Folk, and classic Jazz, while her virtuosic fiddle blends and reimagines traditional and modern musical styles with boundless groove, and a playful improvisational spirit. Her deep grounding in Celtic and American roots music blends with her love for pop songwriting, funk rhythms, soulful vocals, and groove-based improvisation.
Frente Cumbiero + Mica Farías Gómez
The Drake, Amherst
Saturday, May 17 at 8 p.m.
Since their 2010 debut of the trippy, synth-dense Pitchito, the world has looked to Frente for the most swinging, forward-thinking cumbia and tropical music. Hailing from Buenos Aires, Mica Farías Gómez is a singer/composer/dancer and Double Edge theater performer — born and raised in Argentina but recently resettled in Ashfield.
Fine Art Soft Pastels Workshop with Rebecca Clark
Salmon Falls Gallery, Shelburne Falls
Sunday, May 18 from 1 – 4 p.m.
If you're fascinated with vibrant color and line work, and want to carve out a few hours on a Sunday afternoon, this workshop will introduce you to the immediate gratification of pastel. In a very short time span the class will touch on some of the most important aspects of mastering pastels beginning with learning about materials and mark making. Students will then experiment with shadow and light, work on a still life, and end with landscapes.
Fiddle Orchestra of Western Massachusetts Spring Concert
Bombyx, Florence
Sunday, May 18 at 1 p.m.
The Fiddle Orchestra of Western Massachusetts is an amateur orchestra made up mostly of fiddle players but also players of other instruments. This season musical director Annika Amstutz and local musician Natalie Padilla crafted an exciting season of new and familiar music for members to learn and explore. With traditional and and contemporary fiddle tunes, the spring concert will celebrate the power of music to foster friendships and connections.
The Champlain Trio
52 Sumner, Springfield
Sunday, May 18 at 3 p.m.
Since forming in 2020, the Champlain Trio have been sharing compelling performances, delighting audiences with their artistry, connection and dedication to chamber music. Violinist Letitia Quante, cellist Emily Taubl, and pianist Hiromi Fukuda earned degrees from The Juilliard School, Yale School of Music, Peabody Conservatory, and New England Conservatory collectively, and hold teaching positions at Amherst College and the University of Vermont. They will perform Josef Suk’s Elegie op.23, Beethoven’s Trio in B-flat Major, op. 11 “Gassenhauer Trio,” and Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio in G minor, op. 17.
Karrin Allyson Trio Benefit Concert
North Hadley Congregational Church
Sunday, May 18 at 4 p.m.
The Friends of Lake Warner & the Mill River is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to the preservation, improvement and responsible use of the Mill River and Lake Warner in Hadley. This intimate concert featuring Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist and pianist Karrin Allyson will deliver an intimate, fun, musical afternoon featuring her signature mix of styles, while giving you the chance to support the work of “FoLW.”
Signature Sounds + Northampton Jazz Festival Present Sun Ra Arkestra
Academy of Music, Northampton
Sunday, May 18 at 8 p.m.
Founded in Chicago in the mid-1950’s, Sun Ra Arkestra was among the earliest pioneers of the synthesizer and the free jazz revolution of 1960’s. The group is known worldwide for live shows that combine big-band swing, space-age free jazz, be-bop, singing, dancing, chanting and Afro-pageantry. The Arkestra has been at the forefront of Afro-futurism since their inception.
Secret Mall Apartment
Amherst Cinema
Monday, May 19 at 7 p.m.
In 2003, eight young Rhode Islanders created a secret apartment in a hidden space inside the Providence Place Mall and lived in it for four years, filming everything along the way. Far more than just a wild prank, the secret apartment became a deeply meaningful place for all its inhabitants—a personal expression of defiance against local gentrification and a boundary-pushing work of art. Lead subject Michael Townsend will join Monte Belmonte, host of The Fabulous 413 for a post-screening discussion.
Smithsonian Institution Museum on Main Street Exhibit
Voices and Votes: Democracy in America
Mohawk Trail Regional High School Library, Shelburne Falls
Mondays, Tuesdays, and Saturdays from 11 a.m. – 4p.m.
Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. through May 31
When American revolutionaries waged a war for independence, they took a leap of faith that sent ripple effects across generations. They embraced a radical idea of establishing a government that entrusted the power of the nation not in a monarchy, but in its citizens. Voices and Votes is based on a major exhibition currently on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. It’s an honor to have this exhibit here in Shelburne Falls!