The Arts

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  • Music,  Road Trips

    Prairie Home Companion Live at Tanglewood

    For my father’s day gift from my wife Elisa we went the following Saturday (June 27) to Lenox, Massachusetts and Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It was our fourth visit to Tanglewood and the third time that we saw Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion performed there. The guests that were scheduled to appear were Martin Sheen, Steve Martin with the Steep Canyon Rangers, multi-instrumentalist Stuart Duncan, and singer Heather Masse. During the brief warm-up before the show goes live on the radio, Garrison announced that Arlo Guthrie would also perform. In a word, the show was awesome. Arlo played a couple of nice songs during the show…

  • Music

    Open Mikes in New England

    I’m just a hobbyist when it comes to playing guitar, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t like performing in front of an audience from time to time. For amateur musicians like myself, often the best venue for satisfying our thirst for public performance is a local open mike. Luckily, New England is full of them. Over the years I’ve played at several open mikes in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, including Keene, Mt. Vernon, Nashua, and Troy (in New Hampshire), and Fitchburg, Waltham, Westford and Westminster (in Massachusetts). Open mikes are a wonderful way to enjoy an inexpensive evening out with live entertainment, and if a particular performer isn’t quite your…