Weekend of Play Continues Sun. 5/18

Somerville Weekend of Play!

With activities in Somerville Parks:

Saturday, May 17 (afternoon)

• Parkour: Baxter Park (Assembly Square waterfront)
• Inflatable Go Cart course, Knucklebones activities: Morse-Kelley Playground (Craigie Street / Summer Street)
• Children’s sing-a-long with Liza Kitchell: Morse-Kelley Playground, 2 p.m.
• Children’s sing-a-long with Jeremy Lyons: Hodgkins-Curtin Playground (Holland Street),    2 .p.m.
• Imagination Playground: Lexington Park (Lexington Ave. / Commnity Path)

Sunday, May 18 (Noon-4 p.m.)

• SportsFort, Children’s Playspace, Knucklebones activities: Hodgkins Park
• Inflatable Go Cart course, Knucklebones activities: Morse-Kelley Playground
• Parkour: Nathan Tufts Park (Powder House Rotary)
• Public Ice Skating: Veterans Memorial Rink (Somerville Ave.), 12 – 1:50 p.m.

For more information about the events or locations, contact Jackie Rossetti at 617-625-6600 ext 2614 or JRossetti@somervillema.gov.

Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone & The Somerville Arts Council present:

Produced by the Somerville Arts Council, City of Somerville, Joseph A. Curtatone, Mayor

PorchFest!

About the event:

Perhaps you’ve sat on your porch and overheard a neighbor strumming guitar on another porch? Well Porchfest takes this idea and multiplies it. This is not a festival per se but rather a community event where Somervillians share their love of playing and listening to music. Think of Somerville Open Studios, which is for visual artists, but for music.

We launched PorchFest back in 2011 and it has been growing rapidly ever since. This year well over 100 musical acts will be performing on porches (and sometimes spilling into front yards and gardens) all over town. Genres range from gypsy punk, cosmic americana and killer blues to Afrobeat, acid folk, and American space rock. There’s even Porch-ioke where passersby can step up and belt out a tune with a band backing them up!

Acts in East Somerville perform from noon to 2pm; central Somerville bands perform from 2-4pm and West Somerville musicians perform from 4-6pm. This way, music will sweep like a giant wave from East to West and festival goers can plan our their routes to hear as much music as possible. To see the complete lineup and map, go to www.somervilleartscouncil.org. All acts register themselves on the site; many include MP3s so Porchfest goers can hear musical samplings online.

PorchFest originated in Ithaca four years ago. When Somervillian Nancy Goodman learned about this event she thought: Why not Somerville? So, she contacted the Somerville Arts Council two years ago and things were quickly set in motion. From the get-go, response from musicians and music-loving residents was resounding. There were 35 people at the initial planning meeting and 75 musicians and acts registered to perform for our first edition in 2011.***

Click here to see our flyer

To interview Nancy Goodman regarding this event, call: 617-501-8543.***