Weekend Planner: Plenty of Music and Magic

1. Music Festival! The Nashua Family Music Fest will take place at Greeley Park in Nashua on Saturday, Jun. 22 from noon to 5 p.m. The festival will feature a variety of musical performances including great jazz from The Jon Lorentz Quartet, Open Aire featuring Rebecca Jeffreys and Marjorie Bollinger, Mike Loce’s Ukestra made popular through the former Studio 99 in Nashua, and African Drumming with Marie Mendelow. Kids activities will include a karate demonstration from students at the Tiger Den Karate School, an instrument “Petting Zoo” and face painting. Weir’s Roasting will be catering the event with a variety of delicious food offerings. The Family Music Fest’s goal, in addition to providing inexpensive family fun, is to showcase local musical talent and raise awareness and support for the Nashua Community School. The Nashua Community Music School will be holding a “Family Music Festival” at Greeley Park on Saturday June 22nd from noon-5pm. Please support the school by purchasing food tickets for the event at www.nashuacms.org/musicfest.html . 

2. Run around! The Blues Traveler will play at the Capitol Center for the Arts on Sunday, Jun. 23 at 7 p.m. Eighteen years after scoring the Grammy Award winning, harmonica laced Billboard Top Ten breakthrough hit that came to define pop music in the mid-90s, Blues Traveler are still finding unique ways to ensure that they don’t give their legion of worldwide fans the “Run-Around.” On their instantly infectious, musically expansive 11th studio album and 429 Records/SLG debut, Suzie Cracks The Whip, they remain creatively focused while dramatically expanding their musical horizons upon celebrating over 25 years as a band. Tickets are $45.50.

3. Magical! Midsummer Night Magic, presented by The Duprey Companies, is a summoning of community spirit, an evening festival of the unexpected, and a treasure trove of family-friendly fun. The magic will take over the courtyards and side streets of downtown Concord with live performances, multicultural musings, artistic acts, an outdoor movie and a people’s parade. There is no cost for admission to the event but we encourage patronage to the downtown restaurants and merchants, many of whom will be staying open late and offering discounts and specials.

4. Musica! Catch Os Mutantes at the Tupelo Music Hall in Londonderry on Friday, Jun. 21 at 8 p.m. Before the long-running style Musica Popular Brasileira settled in as Brazil's national favorite, evolved a form of boundary-shattering multi-dimensional pop art music called Tropicalia. A combination of classical, folk, rock, samba, and bossa nova, Tropicalia thrived in the governmentally terrorized country for only a brief period. In the mid-60s leading the way of this music was the giddily experimental Os Mutantes, which began as a trio made up of brothers Sérgio (guitar and bass) and Arnaldo Dias Baptista (keyboard and bass), and Rita Lee (vocal, percussion, and effects). The group started out as part of Six-Sided Rockers, but expanded from there with Os Mutantes' several albums of mad pop meets musique concrete. Fans of Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso or Tom Ze, and recent artists such as Beck, David Byrne, and The Fiery Furnaces should not resist the band's indescribable albums (all of which are now distributed by Light In The Attic), and do everything they can to see them on tour in the United States this summer. This historic tour marks their first US visit, and first full tour in over thirty years.