When Featherstone Center for the Arts announced last month it would discontinue its Musical Mondays series, Island music lovers lamented the end of an outdoor concert series that featured local performers for more than 20 summers.
But while the Featherstone meadow no longer fills with a festive crowd on Monday evenings, open-air music is happening all over Martha’s Vineyard just about every night of the week and usually for free. Tuesdays are particularly action-packed, with four outdoor concerts at opposite ends of the Island.
Starting Tuesdays at 5 p.m., the Aquinnah Public Library presents young performers on its deck in the MVYRadio Youth Music Series, a collaboration with Alex’s Place at the YMCA of Martha’s Vineyard.
“It’s a pretty strong trio of nonprofits,” said WMVY’s Laurel Redington, a mainstay of the Alex’s Place teen music incubator that helped launch the career of local singer-songwriter Nate D’Angelo.
The Aquinnah concerts offer listeners the chance to hear other up-and-coming teen musicians who auditioned to perform in the series. The final concert is August 28.
In addition to the Aquinnah deck concerts, WMVY also co-sponsors the Porch Concert series at the Harbor View in Edgartown, which starts at 6 p.m. Tuesdays through August 14. On the overcast evening of July 17, under the sheltering porch roof, a rapt crowd in rockers and folding chairs sang along with 18-year-old Caroline Sky on the Beatles’ Come Together.
Well-known not only on Martha’s Vineyard but, since becoming a contestant on television’s The Voice in 2017, around the country, Ms. Sky is also a counselor at Camp Jabberwocky.
She told the audience she would donate any contributions to the camp, then launched into a soulful solo version of another Beatles song, Can’t Buy Me Love.
Singer-songwriter Tristan Israel performs next in the Porch Concerts series, July 24.
A mile across town at the Edgartown Public Library, Tuesday evening concerts on the lawn have been a tradition since long before the library moved to its new location from the Carnegie building on North Water street.
The Sounds Like Summer series, sponsored by the Friends of the Edgartown Library, presents favorite Island bands such as Sabrina & the Groovers (July 31) and Johnny Hoy & the Bluefish (August 14).
The season finale, on August 28 this year, is always the Grateful Dread, a reggae-rock jam band with a fervent Vineyard following.
“There’ll be a lot of people dancing,” said reference librarian Nis Kildegaard, as he listened to the gentle tones of guitarist Joel Harrison’s jazz trio July 17.
Along with music, the library also offers listeners a table of soft drinks, cookies and fruit.
As the final notes of the library concerts fade into the evening breeze, the Dock Dance Band sets up on Memorial Wharf downtown. Now taking place Tuesdays from 8 to 10 p.m., Dock Dances have been an Edgartown tradition for close to half a century.
Practically the only night life in town for under-21-year-olds, the all-ages dances draw a throng of dressed-to-mingle teenagers to the band’s end of the dock, while older folks find more elbow room at the Chappy Ferry end.
The band plays cover versions of party tunes and radio hits from three generations that can be heard all over the waterfront and for blocks inland.
On July 17, young fans danced on the dock with their arms in the air to catch a crowd-surfer during Tom Petty’s American Girl. From the parking lot, Edgartown police officers observed the crowd, prepared to help disperse revelers when 10 p.m. rolled around.
On Wednesdays at 4 p.m., the Vineyard Trust presents live music on the North Water street lawn of the former Edgartown library, now renamed The Carnegie after the benefactor that funded its 1904 construction.
Performers at the free concerts will be Island musicians including a cappella, jazz and bluegrass groups, according to the Carnegie website.
Thursdays, Cliffhangers take-out restaurant in Aquinnah hosts free clifftop concerts featuring singer-guitarist Ellen Biskis in an acoustic duo or trio setting with longtime collaborators including her husband, bassist Taurus Biskis, and guitarists Don Groover and Chris Carroll.
The group’s name, Mrs. Biskis, came from Mr. Groover, a longtime playing companion of her husband’s who would not take no for an answer some 10 years ago when she tried to get out of playing in public.
“Don went ahead and made a poster that said Mrs. Biskis would play a song at the Offshore,” she said.
The Aquinnah series came about because both Ms. and Mr. Biskis are friends of Theresa and Paul Manning, owners of Cliffhangers. When the restaurant opened in 2016, the couple would hang out at the picnic tables and began bringing their instruments to play.
Last fall, the two couples “started making it a more formal thing,” Ms. Biskis said. “Hey, we’re here anyway and you can’t beat the view.”
On July 12, an all-ages crowd gathered at the picnic tables to eat take-out while listening to Ms. Biskis play folk and country classics with Mr. Biskis and Mr. Carroll.
Other musicians are welcome to step up as well, she said. “The fun of it is having any body jump in—that’s what playing music is all about.”
Up-Island musicians also stop by to jam outside Menemsha Texaco on Sunday nights in a similarly informal acoustic series.
On Fridays, the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association hosts free concerts on the green in front of the Tabernacle in its Sunset Music Series, where the Mrs. Biskis trio performed July 13. Hungry listeners can purchase barbecue prepared on the scene by Smoak Catering Company.
The Dock Dance Band plays the Sunset Music Series July 20 and the Beetlebung Steel Band is on July 27. The series concludes August 31 with the Pickpocket Bluegrass Band.
The first Friday of each month is when Vineyard Haven celebrates art, food and music all along Main Street from 4 to 9 p.m. Island musician Andy Herr curates live local bands who perform at the Owen Park bandstand throughout the event, coming up next on August 3.
Owen Park is also the scene of biweekly Sunday evening concerts by the venerable Vineyard Haven Band, now in its 151st season. On alternating Sundays, the community band is at Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs, where families often dance around the bandstand to classic show tunes and other crowd-pleasing band music. The downbeat is at 8 p.m.
The Vineyard Haven Band plays Ocean Park June 22 and June 29 before returning to Owen Park August 3, and holds its gala anniversary concert August 9 at the Tabernacle.
Other upcoming Tabernacle events include the annual Vineyard Sound concert, July 28 at 7:30 p.m. (ticket charge applies) and weekly community sings from 8 to 9 p.m. on Wednesdays.
And while Featherstone no longer packs its meadow with music lovers on Mondays, the last weekend of July is when the annual Opera at Featherstone takes place on the art center’s grounds.
For more outdoor music check the local listings or put an ear to the wind and follow the tune.
To discover the latest concerts and events on Martha’s Vineyard, visit the calendar at calendar.vineyardgazette.com.
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