“It’s the artists of the world,
the feelers and thinkers,
who will ultimately save us;
who can articulate, educate,
defy, insist, sing, and shout
the big dreams…”

By Liz Thomson

It was June 1970, and Leonard Bernstein was giving the Berkshire Music Center Welcome Address. Its title was The Principle of Hope and, just weeks after the killings at Kent State and then Jackson State and with the Vietnam war raging, hope probably seemed in short supply. But it wasn’t all hopeless: PBS had recently been established, Earth Day had been observed for the first time, and President Nixon would shortly announce the start of the Environmental Protection Agency. The counterculture – an idea to which Bernstein and his wife Felicia were very alive – would surely change the world.

Fifty-five years on, as the United States prepares for its 250th anniversary in 2026, the national mood is rather darker. Which means we need to insist harder, sing louder, dream bigger. If we build it they will come.

That was always the somewhat crazy motivation behind The Village Trip, which kicks off this year’s festival on September 19 and runs through to September 28 with some 35 family-friendly events reflecting downtown’s rich heritage and its unique melting pot. A festival celebrating the neighborhood where, across 150 years or so, countless people dreamed big dreams of a better, fairer and more fulfilling life. Labor rights, voting rights, women’s rights, gay rights – the right to free expression, to live life on your own terms – all those good fights were fought in the Village. And free expression transformed theater, poetry, art, and music with revolutionary movements in which Greenwich Village and the East Village played leading roles. In this most challenging of times, freedom of expression is what The Village Trip, a festival celebrating culture and community, seeks to honor.

My own crazy dream arrived almost fully formed around 15 years ago, inspired by a book project I was working on. But it wasn’t until 2015 that – supported by my long-time friends at the historic Washington Square Hotel – I began assembling a coalition of the willing that led to the first three-day, music-focused events in 2018 and 2019. Through the Covid-ether, I met West Villager Cliff Pearson, and the two of us have shared artistic direction (and bottle-washing duties!) ever since, developing The Village Trip into a respected and eagerly anticipated late-summer fixture.

We’ve been fortunate in the process to make a lot of good friends who seem to appreciate what we’re trying to do. They have inspired us, dared us to dream bigger. Among them is Jamie Bernstein, the Maestro’s daughter, who spent a sunny afternoon dancing in Washington Square Park in 2021 to the infectious beat of Bobby Sanabria and His Multiverse Big Band with special guest Janis Siegel. It was Janis who introduced us and since then Cliff and I have been fortunate to work with them both, often cooking up ideas over cocktails and canapes. Wonderful Town, a cabaret-style presentation of Leonard Bernstein’s great Village musical (debuted in 2022 and reprised), was the first fruit of our friendship.

And this year the Bernstein legacy is at the very heart of The Village Trip, with two concerts benefiting Artful Learning, the teaching model founded by Jamie’s brother Alexander that puts their father’s educational philosophies into practice. The first, Classical Cool! (September 20), is a family concert hosted by Nina Bernstein Simmons, the youngest of Leonard and Felicia’s three children. She will narrate a performance of that whimsical family favorite, Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals.

The following day (September 21), Bernstein Remix! will see a star-studded line-up of Jamie’s friends from across the musical spectrum turning out to offer their unique take on various slices of Bernsteiniana. Among them: Colombian harp virtuoso Edmar Castañeda, actor-singer Darius de Haas, classical guitarist Sharon Isbin, and singer-songwriter Janis Ian, whose talent Bernstein championed way back in 1967 on his TV show Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution. We’ll also welcome two of the great names in jazz, vocalist Janis Siegel and pianist Pete Malinverni, and The Queer Urban Orchestra (QUO) who will play a rarely heard arrangement from 1935 by 17-year-old camp counsellor Leonard Bernstein! Based on a concept supplied by D J Spooky, who will perform with The Ahn Trio, the evening will be hosted by Jamie who notes: “Bernstein Remix! is a wonderful way to remind today’s listeners of my dad’s musical multiplicities, reflected off the many facets of these brilliant musicians. Plus, we get a blazing new expression of Bernstein’s lifelong devotion to using music to make our world a better place.”

Amen to that.

Music has always been central to the Village and another of our concerts, Musica Poetica (September 26) features work by Gershwin, Ives and Piazzolla who at various times made their homes on its crooked streets and found inspiration there. In the 1960s, of course, it was Bob Dylan and his confrères who drew the world to the Village – what a shame not a single scene of A Complete Unknown was shot here! We celebrate them too – that era when there was “music in the cafés at night and revolution in the air,” as Dylan sang on Blood On the Tracks (1975), written while he was studying art with Norman Raeben, who is the subject of a lecture by Dylan and Raeben scholar Fabio Fantuzzi (September 24).

And speaking of movies, we have a screening of The Cornelia Street Café in Exile, Michael Jacobsohn’s acclaimed documentary about a much-missed Village fixture on whose rickety basement stage Suzanne Vega launched her career and Eve Ensler developed The Vagina Monologues (September 25).

Framing the Village, the annual art show curated by artist and historian Marc Kehoe, runs throughout the festival: FREEDOMLAND! is its theme. The Village Trip Lecture will be given by New York Times journalist Clay Risen about his book Red Scare. And let’s not forget our salute to the Beats with Howl a special seventieth-anniversary performance with percussion and cornet by Justin Jay Hines and Kirk Knuffke (September 23), plus the Beat Generation Live Poetry Tour with the irrepressible Marcos de la Fuente and Annalisa Marí Pegrum (September 20). Kennedy Administration, supported by rising star Dali Rose, will drench Washington Square Park in an intoxicating fusion of jazz-R&B-hip-hop-and-pop at our signature free concert (September 27).

The festival’s own living legend, David Amram, now in his eighth year as Artist Emeritus, opens the proceedings (September 19) with the world première by baritone James Martin of Five American Voices, a song cycle reflecting the diverse pieces of America’s cultural mosaic.

So come on down, all you angelheaded hipsters, and do as Maestro Bernstein commanded us do: Sing. Shout. Dream big! We can’t wait to see you all.

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The Village Trip takes place at venues across Greenwich Village and the East Village/Lower East Side from September 19-28. Look out for the full program in September’s Village View and at www.TheVillageTrip.com