The Village Trip

The countdown to The Village Trip 2023 has begun.

Once again, the festival will run for two weeks, beginning on September 9 with a concert party on Eighth Street at MacDougal in partnership with the Village Alliance. It will close with TVT’s signature event on September 23, the free concert in Washington Square Park (though for those with stamina, there will also be an evening concert).

They will bookend scores of events across both Greenwich Village and the East Village. A unifying theme this year is music and civil rights, marking sixty years since the great March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom while also celebrating the centrality of the Village to the civil rights struggle. From the birth of the NAACP to Barack Obama, the voices of the movement have rung out from the Great Hall of Cooper Union, summoning America, and the world, to join a fight which sadly must still go on. Look out for some very special events commemorating the visions and the voices which stirred our conscience.

On September 10, The Village Trip will celebrate Ukrainian culture and honor the bravery of the Ukrainian people with events across the East Village. A Playathon and concert at St Mark’s in-the-Bowery will raise money for the Ukraine Children’s Action Project founded by Drs Irwin and Karen Redlener. A band straight from Odesa, plus special guests, will close the day with a roof-raising performance at DROM in support of a great cause.

As ever, The Village Trip will present an infinite variety of music – folk, rock, jazz, classical and new music. The Wonderful Town cabaret which debuted last year in the intimacy of the Washington Square Hotel will be reprised at Joe’s Pub by Jamie Bernstein, Janis Siegel and Michael Kelly, with Yaron Gershovsky at the piano. At Joe’s Pub, and at DROM, we will mark Rosh Hashana with two very special programmes. And a beguiling mix of classical and new music, including at least two important premieres, is also on the menu. Stay tuned!

The Village Trip Art Exhibition returns for its second year, and historian Eric Washington will deliver the second Village Trip Annual Lecture. We will showcase new books by Terri Thal and Gail Papp. 

This is our sixth year and our fifth festival. Mark your calendars, alert your friends – and get ready to party at The Village Trip!

Liz Thomson & Cliff Pearson, Co-Artistic Directors
LizThomson@TheVillageTrip.com | CliffPearson@TheVillageTrip.com