Your feet are bare and deep in green grass; the bee left you for the plastic cup of wine; there’s a frisbee getting tossed in your vicinity. It’s summer and it’s festival time.

Connecticut’s outdoor events offer an incredibly diverse palate of music, food and culture. Cities and even hard-to-find small towns all have something to offer, from Milford’s two-day Oyster Fest, to the Monday night jazz next to the Capitol building in Hartford’s Bushnell park, to the Festival of Green Corn in Stonington, a day-long inter-tribal pow-wow with bull-riding and crafts.

Here’s our comprehensive list of festivals to attend during the upcoming balmy weekends or during vacation (and a vacation it is, don’t get pressured into explaining it as a “staycation”).


Woodbury Reggae Fest
11 a.m.–11 p.m. June 27–28. 785 Washington Road, Woodbury. $25 in advance, $35 at the gate. Weekend pass $45 in advance, $60 at the gate. (203) 263-2203, woodburyskiarea.com.

When one thinks of reggae and world music festivals, one generally thinks of Jamaica, California, Italy, Paris, or somewhere near a waterfall. For the past 37 years, Woodbury Ski Area owner Rod Taylor has hosted a full weekend of music that has attracted internationally famous artists such as Fela Kuti, Aswad, Dennis Brown and King Sunny Ade to name a few. 

“We’re really mixing it up this year,” says Taylor in a phone conversation. “We’ve got several of the classic roots reggae bands that are my favorites, but we’re also bringing in a bunch of great dancehall and more hip-hop-oriented artists because we want to make sure young people like it too.” He adds, “You can bring your cooler, put down a blanket, and just have a good time. That’s the way we run it.”

There are several groups from Connecticut.  The punky-ska scene is represented by The Screw-Ups from Sandy Hook. From Danbury are both the Skanktones, who will perform their more ’70s-style roots reggae originals, and Harry Ellis & Deep Intentions, whose smooth-jazz-meets-“R&B inna dancehall”-style seems unique. Originally from St. Andrew, Jamaica, singer Eric Smith currently resides in Bridgeport. His large ensemble assists him in performing original tunes in the roots style of groups like Black Uhuru.
Anguile and the High Steppers hail from Gabon by way of Montreal, Canada, and Brooklyn, N.Y., and perform self-styled “African and European” reggae with French lyrics. Anguile’s positive spirit and energetic delivery may win fans even if they can’t quite understand the words.

Mo Ambesa hails from Brattleboro, Vt., and blends jazz and R&B with reggae rhythms and conscious lyrics. Slated for Sunday is the Capsicum Records Crew, a cadre of singers from the New Jersey and Hartford–based label’s roster that will each perform with the label’s house band.   

Taylor has also landed several giants of reggae to anchor the festival. The Meditations recorded their first hit at the legendary Channel One Studios in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1974. Since then the vocal trio has recorded dozens more excellent songs and collaborated as backing vocalists for Gregory Isaacs, Lee Perry, Jimmy Cliff, and Bob Marley. The four-man, don’t-call-us-a-boy-band sensation from Kingston, Jamaica, T.O.K., is slated to bring slinky but tough reggae and rap.

For the full schedule, visit woodburyskiarea.com.

Podunk Bluegrass Music Festival
July 30-Aug. 2, Martin Park 307, Burnside Ave., East Hartford, 528-1458, podunkbluegrass.net.

Quite incredibly, the Northeast’s biggest bluegrass festival is in East Hartford off Burnside Avenue. From July 30 to August 2, the 14th year of the Podunk Bluegrass Music Festival showcases more than a couple dozen sets of top national bluegrass acts, professional music workshops and activities for kids.

Podunk (pronounced Poh-dunk) sets up in Martin Park, and has room for more than 300 camping sites. Festival-goers hang out after the last set to pluck and jam until the a.m., says Roger Moss of East Hartford Parks and Recreation, who manages and books the festival. “There’s all type of field-picking going on,” he says. “That’s part of the whole experience.” They could be playing mandolins, banjos, guitars, basses or fiddles — the five instruments you need for traditional bluegrass music.

There are $23 two-night tickets for people who just want to see the headliners. Del McCoury Band play on Friday night and Natalie MacMaster closes out Saturday night. “She dances amazingly while she fiddles,” Moss says of MacMaster. Other performers are Alison Brown, Steep Canyon Rangers, Rhonda Vincent & The Rage, and Bearfoot.

Litchfield Jazz Festival
Jul. 31-Aug 2, Kent, (intersection of Routes 7 and 341), (860) 567-4162, litchfieldjazzfest.com.

Connecticut’s most significant jazz event is in the middle of nowhere. From Hartford it takes 80 minutes to arrive at the huge pasture in Kent’s rolling hills. But it’s worth it.

Litchfield Jazz Festival has gained a reputation for showcasing musical giants and elder statesmen while also inviting little-known talent. The festival’s first year in 1996, for example, hosted bebop trombone pioneer J.J. Johnson, the popular trumpeter Terence Blanchard, and presented the new vocalist Diana Krall. Other noteworthy performers from years past include Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, Toots Thielemans, Brad Mehldau, Tito Puente, and Ray Charles.

Everything started with a historic house in Litchfield where owners Vita West Muir and husband began holding classical guitar concerts in their 100-person capacity living room. They continued having concerts and made the nonprofit Litchfield Performing Arts, which brought classical music to schools, churches and prisons and eventually started a jazz camp that runs through the month of July. Highlights for 2009 include vocalist Jane Monheit on July 31 (she first appeared at Litchfield in 2001 as a little-known opener for Dave Brubeck), the first appearance of New Orleans-based Preservation Hall Jazz Band on Aug. 1, and conga master Poncho Sanchez’s band to close out the event on Aug. 2 with seriously vigorous Latin jazz.

Gathering of the Vibes
July 23–26. Seaside Park, Bridgeport. $60 single day; $185 full pass. (203) 908-3030, gatheringofthevibes.com.

Gathering once again at the 370-acre Seaside Park this summer, the Vibes looks ready to outdo itself this year. This festival takes some of the best acts from the last two years — Bob Weir & Ratdog, Buddy Guy, George Clinton & P-Funk, Keller Williams, Deep Banana Blackout — and adds moe., Guster, State Radio and headliners Crosby, Stills and Nash. The Vibes (if you know what’s what, you don’t need to say “Gathering of the”) is a place and time for tents, friends, sun block, beer, art and nothing to stress about, except where to put your blanket and picking which organic burrito to purchase. Check your office stress at the park’s Memorial Arch, park your car somewhere in the field and take a weekend-long look how insanely perfect Seaside Park is for a music festival.


SoNo Arts Celebration
Fri. kickoff event TBA; Sat., 10 a.m.–7 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m.–6 p.m., July 31–Aug. 2, South Norwalk, (203) 866-7916, sonoarts.org.

The SoNo Arts Celebration mixes unplanned peculiarity and Marti Gras-like spirit with honest-to-God family fun. It is run impressively by a motley group of volunteers with little financial backing and is becoming more eclectic and expansive as it ages. (This is its 33rd year.) Classical dancers, quiet-folk singers, African drummers, independent cinema screenings, exotic food vendors, huge balloons and giant puppets and an unpredictable roster of local musicians all accompany the large-scale art show. (There was even a “hip-hop violinist” on last year’s roster.) This year’s juried art show will feature 150 craftspeople from across the country with the judged categories being painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, wood, ceramics, jewelry/metalsmithing, fiber, mixed media or glass.

 
Safe to Swim
Sept. 4–6. Downtown Danbury. www.myspace.com/safetoswimweekend.

Poor organization and a lull in the local music scene had halted music festivals in Danbury for several years, when Tony Yacobellis organized the first Safe to Swim Weekend last year. Using the same impressive promoting skills and set of connections that keep Sub Rosa Party, his alt-rock showcase at Cousin Larry’s, flooded with bands four to six days a week, Yacobellis nabbed nearly 100 acts to play Larry’s, the City Ale House, the Danbury Green and elsewhere nonstop for 48 hours. Like a week’s worth of shows at Larry’s, there was an impressive array of well-known locals, up-and-coming NYC acts and a few national and international arrivals. Though the lineup and details are still in the works, a second Safe to Swim is scheduled for the first weekend in September.



Mystic Sea Music Festival
June 11–14. 75 Greenmanville Ave., Mystic. $18–$100. (860) 572-5315. Visit mysticseaport.org for specific event prices. 

At the Mystic Sea Music Festival, they say world music was born at sea more than 200 years ago. On any 19th-century ship, the crew sang together while they worked or rested. “You might have people from Europe, Africa, the Americas and the Pacific all thrown into the crew of a single ship,” says Geoff Kaufman, artistic director of this year’s festival. The result: sea music, a blend of rhythms, stories, jokes, and melodies from across the globe.

Sea songs fall into two categories: “chanteys,” which are songs the crew sang as they worked, and “fo’c’stle” songs, which they sang to each other on deck in their free time. Think of chanteys as workout music: entertaining and repetitive with a strong beat. Fo’c’stle songs are longer narratives that reach back to the ancient ballad tradition and oral storytelling. More than 30 acts, hailing from the United States to the Netherlands will bring these songs to life in seven different locations at the Mystic Seaport museum.

Kaufman says he’s focused on bringing back performers “who have been significant in terms of keeping this music alive, either around the United States or abroad.” Talith MacKenzie will sing Scots Gaelic ballads, including the “waulking” songs that workers sang while pounding wool to make felt. Les Bouthilliers, a father-daughter duo, will sing sea songs from French Canada and Brittany.

While most visitors won’t be able to use a winch, everyone can sing along to the music. “Sailors didn’t audition to sing the choruses,” writes former musical director and longtime performer Bob Walser in an e-mail. “They just did it as part of the job, so anyone can participate!”

There’s something generous about this music, which makes the relatively pricey tickets a sour piece of news. But the money buys some education on the things we’ve lost touch with in the past 200 years. “Both the work songs and the ballad tradition have been powerful through centuries in giving people a hook by which to understand their culture,” Kaufman says. “The storytelling that goes on in these songs is wonderful.”

Sunken Garden Poetry & Music Festival
Every other Wednesday starting June 10, poetry at 7:30 p.m., Hill-Stead Museum, 35 Mountain Road, Farmington, 677-4787, hillstead.org.

“Poetry has now moved out of the classroom,” says Cindy Cormier. “We’re kind of riding that wave.” Cormier is the director of the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival. But the event might have helped create the wave, by making top poetry accessible on the idyllic grounds of Farmington’s Hill-Stead Museum.
Every other Wednesday, starting June 10 with former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass, Hill-Stead opens at 4:30 p.m. for people to set up on the museum’s grounds or browse its art (30,000 visitors are attracted each year for the Monet paintings). At 6:30 p.m., there’s a musical performance (genres this year include Brazilian jazz, classical, bluegrass and neo-soul) and the readings begin at 7:30 p.m. While the performers are often academic heavyweights, they typically choose easier-to-digest summer fare. “The poets know you’re sitting there in the lawn chair with your glass of wine, so they won’t be doing their most difficult pieces,” says Cormier.

On July 22, former State Laureate Marilyn Nelson and founder of the Soul Mountain Retreat Writers’ Colony will perform with poets from Cave Canem, a group dedicated to cultivating African-American poetry. C.K. Williams, award-winning writer and Princeton professor, will be reading on Aug. 5.

Connecticut Irish Festival
June 27–28. North Haven Fairgrounds, Washington Avenue (near I-91), North Haven. $8–$12. Free for kids under 16. ctirishfestival.com.

If you’re looking for a weekend of full-blown festivity, the Connecticut Irish Festival has its arms wide open. The Irish-American Community Center of East Haven hosts this grand, old-style festival with games, sports, music, crafts and dance at the North Haven Fairgrounds. Expect “a display of all things Irish,” says Patrick Lillis, president of the New Haven Gaelic Football and Hurling Club. “It’s a very festive, carnival-like, family-oriented weekend.”

Two special events make this year’s Connecticut Irish Festival stand out in its near-30-year history: the Wolfe Tones concert and the North American Minor Irish Dance Championship. The Wolfe Tones have traveled the world to perform humorous and tragic Irish folk for 45 years.

This year, the North American Feis Commission gave the Festival the honor of hosting the North American Minor Irish Dance Championship, which will bring competitive young dancers from around the country to North Haven to battle for the George Sweetnam Memorial Trophy. Lillis says this means the best young local dancers will be in town. “They’re not going to go to other festivals because they’ve been training all year for this.”

Other highlights at this year’s festival include continuous music — Irish traditional, Celtic fusion, the requisite U2 tribute band — soda bread baking demonstrations, a 5K road race to benefit the ALS Association (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and “every manner of shopping,” says festival publicity chair Denis Regan. (Our favorite event may be the shepherd-dog-herding exhibition.)

On both days, young members of the New Haven Gaelic Football and Hurling Club will play matches against visiting teams from the region, including Philadelphia and Boston. Founded by Irish immigrants just after World War II, the club’s membership has risen to more than 100 players in five age groups.

As Lillis puts it, the festival is “very economical, especially in times like these.” He adds, “We are grateful for the community we live in, and we want to give back.”