Category: Concerts

☼ ☼ ☼ Lissa Schneckenburger Trio | Nelson Town Hall | February 27, 2026 – 7:30 PM

About, Concerts, Dance Music, Events, Songs

On Friday, February 27 join Lissa (fiddle and vocals), Rachel Aucoin (piano), and Samuel Foucher (accordion) for a night of traditional fiddling, folk songs, and more! The concert begins at 7:30 PM. Admission is $25/$20 (in advance).

Over the last several decades Schneckenburger has made music that showcased everything from traditional New England dance tunes, to original songs inspired by her experience as a foster and adoptive parent. Her new album, Falling Forward, has blended her love of traditional music with her love of writing, in her first fiddle forward album in over a decade. Raised in a small town in Maine, Schneckenburger grew up with music. She began playing fiddle at the age of six, inspired by her parent’s interest in folk music. In 2001 she graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music with a degree in Contemporary Improvisation. She has been writing, performing, and teaching music around the world ever since.

“To me, music creates community,” Schneckenburger says. “Music is what people sing along to, dance to, fall in love to… music brings people together. These songs are part of all of us, and it’s an honor to have had the chance to record them.”

Rachel Aucoin – “I have been playing and writing music since I was a child growing up in Southern Maine and wrote my first song about my dog, Red, at the age of seven . Recently I have been compelled to share my music and hopefully others will enjoy listening as much as I enjoy writing. My style is alternative rock, pop, instrumental rock, and singer/songwriter to folk.”  

Samuel Foucher – “I grew up in the Monadnock region of southern New Hampshire. My love for the accordion began at a new years’ eve concert at a young, impressionable age. Bob McQuillen, Jimmy Keane and Jeremiah McLane were some of my mentors and sources of inspiration on this versatile instrument. Contra dancing was a frequent and beloved part of my childhood, and I have a deep appreciation for music and dance traditions of all sorts. I also love song, especially songs about the land and local history. While not playing my instrument, I enjoy woodworking and carpentry, riding bicycles, growing food, making useful and beautiful items, and anything that can serve as a catalyst for building community.”

For Advance Reservations, Click Here.

☼ ☼ ☼ Los Sugar Kings | Nelson Town Hall | January 30, 2026 7:30 PM

About, Concerts, Dance Music, Events

You’re invited to leave the comfort of your wood stove and get out on the town for an energizing evening of music from the Afro-Cuban band, Los Sugar Kings. Admission $25/$20 (in advance).

Sugar Kings (named after a Cuban baseball team) is a Boston-based quartet known for their dynamic live performances, rich harmonies, intense musicianship and ability to transcend genres with an authenticity rarely heard. In their world, respect is paid to the forefathers of Afro-Cuban Son, Salsa, and Rumba-Flamenca. But that’s only part of their story. Sugar Kings also actively draw on influences from nearly every continent in their unique Roots-Rock-Reggae repertoire. All are highly accomplished on their instruments, however the true magic of Sugar Kings is how these four individuals come together to put on a performance worthy of any festival, party, club or concert hall. Every show is an intimate, spontaneous and joyous dialogue between the band members on stage and their audience.

“You gotta see this band… Patino Vazquez is a dynamic performer and singer who is at once approachable, intimate and completely mesmerizing. Mik Mersha brings in the Funk, Reggae and harmonic and rhythmic influences from Ethiopia. Then Dan Abreu hits you with soaring, take-you-for-a-ride solos and harmonic accompaniment. Underneath all of that is the hidden gem in the band, the soulful voice and rhytmic talents of Tony Curtis Hall. Put these guys together on a stage and it’s impossible for a party to stop from breaking out, wherever Sugar Kings perform.”  

☼ ☼ ☼ Nelson Solstice Party | Nelson Town Hall | December 20, 2025 ***SOLD OUT***

About, Concerts, Contra Dance, Events

On Saturday, December 20, we’ll hold our Annual Solstice Party starting at 7:00 PM`

The Monadnock Folklore Society brings this community event to the Nelson Town Hall each year, admission is $10, and treats are appreciated for the dessert potluck.

Tickets are SOLD OUT, do not attend if you don’t already have a ticket! Our apologies for the amazing and wonderful popularity of this event.

This year the evening will begin with a holiday concert featuring a selection of traditional and original seasonal music performed by The Solstice Sisters (Alouette Iselin, Kim Wallach, Heather Bower, Margaret Iselin, Natalie Backes, Grace Johnson, & Patricia Blanchard) and friends. The Folklore Society invites you to bring along your favorite holiday dessert and we’ll supply the beverages for the intermission. After the concert the chairs and benches are cleared to make way for a traditional New England Contradance. Unfortunately, or not, the dance is often interrupted by various groups of unsavory characters presenting their idea of seasonal entertainment. These diversions, sometimes involving costumed individuals making complete fools of themselves or performing ancient ritual dances to help us through this dark time of the year, are generally tolerated as once they are applauded and fed we can return to dancing the night away.

 

☼ ☼ ☼ Cosy Sheridan and Sloan Wainwright | Friday, September 19, 2025

Concerts

Cosy Sheridan & Sloan Wainwright will appear in concert at the Nelson Town Hall on Friday, September 19 at 7:30 PM. Admission is $20/$17 (in advance).

 

 

This will be the opening night concert for The Song Sessions weekend of song, voice, & guitar workshops featuring the songwriting of Cosy Sheridan and Sloan Wainwright, accompanied by Charlie Koch and Glen Roethel.

Cosy Sheridan has been called one of the era’s finest and most thoughtful songwriters, and also ‘a buddhist monk trapped in the body of a singer-songwriter’. Her music regularly tops the folk radio charts. Her CD, Pretty Bird, was listed among Sing Out Magazine’s Great CDs of 2014. Her concerts are wide-ranging explorations: ragtime guitar and social satire, modern renditions of mythology (meet Hades the Biker) and tales of modern adulthood. Her alter ego, Chlamydia, sometimes appears with songs such as “Botox Tango” or “Multiply Pierced.” The Cornell Folksong Society wrote: “Sheridan is frank, feisty, sublimely and devilishly funny. She fuses myth with modern culture; Persephone with Botox.”

A guitar student of instrumental luminaries Guy Van Duser and Eric Schoenberg, and a voice student at The Berklee School of Music, she brings a depth of experience to her craft. She plays a percussive bluesy guitar style – often in open tunings and occasionally with two or more capos on the guitar.

Sloan Wainwright is a songwriter, singer, performer, teacher, mentor and collaborator. A unique hybrid of pop, folk, jazz and blues, Wainwright’s music is unified by her melodious tone and rich, powerful contralto. Over the course of a 30-year career in music, she has played the great concert halls, the most storied listening rooms and top music festivals while also teaching at the nation’s leading music retreats. She has inspired hundreds of students on their creative journeys and collaborated with dozens of musicians, writers, choreographers and performers.

Most of all, Wainwright is an artist. As a member of an acclaimed family of artists (brother Loudon Wainwright, sister-in-law Kate McGarrigle, nephew Rufus Wainwright and nieces Martha Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche), Wainwright has charted an artistic path all her own, one based in close observation, joy, and spiritual connection.

Now, standing on the foundation of a rich and diverse career, Wainwright is tapping into fresh material as she continues to provide transformative, healing, and energetic experiences for her audiences. Always looking to grow as an artist, these days Wainwright is pursuing new collaborative partnerships, exploring traditional music, and developing fresh avenues for teaching and mentorship.

☼ ☼ ☼ Aurora Nealand & the Royal Roses | Dublin School | July 4, 2025

Concerts

Join us for a special evening of traditional New Orleans jazz with Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses at the Dublin School in Dublin, NH. This will be an outdoor event, weather permitting, Friday, July 4, 7:30 pm at the Fountain Arts Building on the Dublin School campus.

The concert is co-sponsored by The Walden School, the Monadnock Folklore Society and the Dublin School and is FREE and open to the public.

The Royal Roses grew out of the rich resurgence that traditional jazz is seeing in New Orleans amongst the younger generation of musicians today. Saxophonist/vocalist Aurora Nealand has been playing in various groups in New Orleans since 2005, and the Royal Roses, founded in 2010, is her first venture as a bandleader. The Royal Roses draw their repertoire heavily from Sidney Bechet, Django Reinhart and traditional jazz of New Orleans. Comprised of some of the finest young players on the New Orleans music scene today, the Royal Roses are seeking to breath new energy, arrangements and compositions into this genre of music while exploring and learning from its rich history and tradition. They’ve performed in New Orleans at the French Quarter Festival, Satchmo Festival and Preservation Hall, as well as in NYC at Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival. In the Spring of 2018 The Royal Roses were voted “Best Traditional Jazz Band”  at the Big Easy Awards!! Their first album “A Tribute to Sydney Bechet: Live at Preservation Hall” was released in 2011 to national acclaim. Their second album “The LookBack Transmission” was released in 2014 and includes original and traditional compositions including one Ms. Nealand wrote for the HBO series “Treme”. Inn 2016 they released a third album, “Comeback Children”.

This year’s line up accompanying Aurora includes Tomas Majcherski (saxophone), Josh Dunn (guitar), Jared Engel (bass), Brad Webb (drums), and TBD (trombone).

This is the first in a series of FREE concerts that the Walden School offers. Click here for a complete look at their 2025 concert series.

☼ ☼ ☼ Summer Solstice Concert | Nelson Town Hall | June 21, 2025

About, Concerts, Events, Songs

 

The Solstice Sisters return for a celebration of the Summer Solstice on Saturday, June 21, 2025 at 7:30 PM at the Nelson Town Hall. Admission is $12/$15(day of show), children under 16 FREE w/adult.

 

Alouette Iselin, Kim Wallach, and Heather Bower have been mainstays of our Nelson Winter Solstice party for years, presenting a program of original and traditional and sometimes just wacky seasonal music. Margaret Page Iselin completes the line up along with new sisters Patty Blanchard, Grace Johnson & Natalie Backes. Please join us for this biannual celebration of the seasons and come celebrate the Summer Solstice, Fathers Day, the end of black fly season, St. John’s Day, the longest day of the year, Midsummer, Ivan Kupala night, Wianki, Jani, the shortest night of the year, the Red Sox or whatever floats your boat with a selection of music that only the Solstice Sisters could pull together!

☼ ☼ ☼ Lui Collins & Anand Nayak | Nelson Town Hall | June 1, 2025

About, Concerts, Events, Songs

Lui Collins and Anand Nayak will appear for a concert on Sunday, June 1 at 3:00 PM in the afternoon at the Nelson Town Hall. Admission is $20/$25(day of show).

Folk singer/songwriter Lui Collins has been performing, writing and recording for 50 years, earning international acclaim for her music. Her clear voice and engaging presence on stage remain to this day as vibrant as ever. Her repertoire, accompanied on tenor ukulele and banjo, ranges from original and traditional folk songs and American standards to bossa nova in the original Brazilian Portuguese. Lui has shared the stage with such notables as Tom Rush, Bonnie Raitt, and Stan Rogers. Renowned guitarist Dave van Ronk called her “one of the best guitarist-arrangers I have heard in years.”

Lui will be joined by guitarist/Grammy-nominated producer and longtime
collaborator, Anand Nayak. Immersed in music at an early age, and building on
years of classical piano, Anand turned to the guitar as a teenager, teaching
himself to play anything and everything he could. An equal love for acoustic and
electric music kept him stylistically open in those formative years, creating a
foundation for a unique ability to play with and enhance the music of a wide
variety of musicians.

Lui and Anand’s nearly two decades of creative collaboration are evident in the
fluid musical dialogue and joy of their live performance.

☼ ☼ ☼ Pine Tree Flyers | Nelson Town Hall | May 9, 2025

About, Concerts, Dance Music, Events, Songs

We managed to snag the Pine Tree Flyers en route to a festival in Burlington, VT for a concert at The Nelson Town Hall on Friday, May 9 at 7:30 PM. Admission is $20/$25 (day of show).

Four of the finest voices in New England’s traditional music scene shine a renewed light on the tunes of the Northeast with excitement and respect. From festival stages and concert halls to raucous August nights at fiddle camp, the Flyers are here to make sure New England music has a seat at the table as a distinct and vital American tradition. All residents of the great state of Maine, Katie McNally (fiddle), Emily Troll (accordion), Benjamin Foss (guitar), and Neil Pearlman (piano) cut their teeth playing for contra dances and learning from the greats. Individually, they’ve toured the world playing Irish, Scottish, and Quebecois music and they bring this wellspring of knowledge and technical prowess to the American music that was born from these traditions.

 Each member of the band brings years of experience and dedication to their craft: Foss and Pearlman have taught at Maine Fiddle Camp since they were teens, Troll plays in the acclaimed contra dance band Anadama, and McNally performed for over a decade with New England supergroup Childsplay. The Flyers have toured internationally and domestically, gracing the stages of festivals such as Celtic Connections, Celtic Colours, Festival of Small Halls, Ossipee Valley Music Festival and playing concerts and dances across the Northeast. They released their self-titled album in May 2024 and appear on the Celtic Colours Live, Vol. 10; both recordings feature founding band member Owen Marshall on guitar.

In the liner notes of their debut album, Amelia Mason writes “Practically every aesthetic choice the Pine Tree Flyers make is in service to New England music’s fundamental accessibility and appeal. In essence, they are repaying the music for its gift to them: a sense of joy, communion, and one’s place in the world.” While New England tunes may not be well known outside of the Northeastern United States, the Flyers are proving that their musical heritage is as vibrant and vital as any American folk tradition. Make way for…THE PINE TREE FLYERS!

“Inspirational” (The Strad)
“Infectious” (Strings Magazine)
“a lightness of being, a sweet soulful exuberance and palpable delicacy” (Songlines)
“…delightful speed and ferocity.” (Kithfolk)
“Striking” (Boston Irish Reporter)

☼ ☼ ☼ Cold Chocolate | Nelson Town Hall | April 6, 2025

About, Concerts, Events

Ethan Robbins and Cold Chocolate, will be at the Nelson Town Hall on Sunday, April 6, 2025 for an afternoon concert starting at 3:00 PM. Admission is $15/$20(day of show).

Cold Chocolate is a genre-bending Americana band that fuses folk, funk, and bluegrass to create a unique sound all their own. Featuring Ethan Robbins on guitar, Ariel Bernstein on percussion, and backed by some of the root’s music scene’s finest players, this group from Boston is impressing audiences throughout New England and beyond.  Punctuated by tight harmonies and skillful musicianship, and with a focus on songwriting, Cold Chocolate has quickly gained recognition for their original music and high-energy shows. The band has shared bills with Leftover Salmon and David Grisman, and regularly performs at venues and music festivals across the country.

☼ ☼ ☼ Garrett Cameron & Natalie Backes | Nelson Town Hall | February 23, 2025

About, Concerts, Dance Music, Events

Natalie Backes and Garrett Cameron will present an afternoon concert on Sunday, February 23 at 3:00PM. Admission is $10 in advance/$12 day of the show.

We’re excited to see these talented musicians from our Monday night contradances show us what they’ve got outside the structure of dance music!

Natalie and Garrett together create a sound, rooted in the Celtic traditions, that branches out in unexpected directions. Garrett’s mandolin can sparkle in the upper octaves above Natalie’s guitar, or blend in rich harmonies or percussive force with Natalie’s fiddle- a stripped down sound from the contra dances which are their common ground.