RANDOLPH — Vincent Freeman started his recording studio, The Underground, here in 2019, and the following year organized a slate of acts in town for Make Music Day.
That first year was virtual, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, but subsequent years have been live, and getting larger and larger. Over the course of 12 hours on Sunday, Randolph alone will host 12 to 15 musical acts.
“We’ve really put Randolph on the map,” both in Vermont and New England, as a small town with a big music scene.
Make Music Day is a global celebration of song, founded in Paris in 1982, that falls every year on June 21. This year, Freeman is organizing not just Randolph, but Make Music Vermont, a statewide event featuring dozens of free events, ranging from casual gatherings on porches or at public libraries to longtime pros like Spencer Lewis and Friends, who’ll be at the Bethel Bandstand from 2 to 5 p.m.
Singer-songwriter Ali T will play sets at wit & grit in Randolph from 10 a.m. to noon, and at SILO Distillery in Windsor from 2 to 4 p.m. Jim Yeager plays a set at the Seasoned Skillet in Randolph from 6 to 8 p.m. All the Rivers, a world music act comprising more than a dozen refugees to Vermont, headlines Randolph’s performances, with shows at 1:15 p.m. in Randolph Town Park and at 6:30 in Chandler Music Hall, a co-sponsor of the event.
You get the idea, but for the full picture, there’s a map that shows who’s playing where across the state at makemusicvt.org. Some locations, Montpelier for example, hadn’t added their events when I talked to Freeman on Tuesday, and musicians are still free to sign up. The event includes an app that pairs musicians with venues.
Freeman took over organizing Make Music Vermont from Big Heavy World, the Burlington-based nonprofit musicians’ clearinghouse. After 30 years leading the charge for Vermont musicians, Big Heavy World has been slowly unwinding.
(An observation: Burlington’s music scene is so well-established that it might not need a nonprofit to give it structure. It will be interesting to see whether the Upper Valley, where Windsor music collective What Doth Life just formed a nonprofit, is following a similar trajectory.)
Globally, around 2,000 cities are participating in Make Music Day. Vermont, which is about the size of a city, but a bit spread out, is the first statewide participant, Freeman said.
The best way to look at Make Music Day is not as a festival, but as a holiday, he added. It’s “a great way to kick off summer,” he said.
More free music
Lake Morey Resort in Fairlee kicks off a series of free summer concerts Thursday evening, and some of the future shows are kind of a big deal.
The season opens with Adam Ezra Group, a New England Americana band. The following two shows, on June 25 and July 2, feature Fitz and the Tantrums and reggae powerhouse Shaggy, respectively.
Later in the summer, acts include Guster (July 9), pop diva Natasha Bedingfield (Aug. 6) and Collective Soul (Aug. 20). For the full slate, go to lakemoreyresort.com.
Chess piece
Ben Mezrich, who wrote the book that became the Aaron Sorkin film “The Social Network, will be at Woodstock’s Norman Williams Public Library at 2 p.m. Saturday to discuss his new book, “Checkmate: Genius, Lies, Ambition, and the Biggest Scandal in Chess,” with his brother, Joshua Mezrich.
The book tells the story of the September 2022 chess match between 19-year-old Hans Niemann, an American chess prodigy, and world champion Magnus Carlsen. Niemann won, Carlsen accused him of cheating and Chess.com launched an investigation. “Checkmate” is about a violation of the cherished idea of fair play, but also about how that idea is distorted when the outcome of a game carries outsized fame and financial rewards.
The event is free, but seating is limited. Go to normanwilliams.org for more information.
The fix is not in
“World Repair: Recent Paintings by John Stomberg,” opens Thursday at AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m.
Stomberg, who’s in his last few weeks as director of the Hood Museum of Art, has been making colorful abstract paintings that examine the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, or “world repair,” and the Japanese pottery repair technique called Kintsugi, which uses molten gold to fuse broken ceramics back together.
The artist is slated to give a talk about his work at 5:30 p.m. on July 10.
