The Village Trip is an annual festival celebrating Arts and Activism
across Greenwich Village and the East Village

TVT2026: Celebrating Voices that Changed the World
Friday, September 25 – Sunday, October 4

As promised, we’re now serving you the second course of Village Trip goodies.
Remember, though, we’re inviting you to a banquet, so there’s lots more to come! 

The Village Trip--a 501(c)3 nonprofit--relies on the support of people like you.
Please donate to this year's festival.

TVT2026: Revolutionary Voices: Part Two

The Ahn Trio: Homage to Sting

Those who came to Bernstein Remix at TVT2025 will already be acquainted with The Ahn Trio, whose exciting and innovative collaborations have wowed audiences around the world. We’re delighted to welcome them back with The Art of Collaboration: Sting, Jobim and Baechle.

James MooreInspired by Sting's 1994 collaboration with Antonio Carlos Jobim on the song "Insensatez", The Ahn Trio celebrates music that transcends genres and borders with a performance of Dusan Bogdanovic's Suite of Six Songs by Sting reimagined through the lens of chamber music. They will be joined by renowned guitarist James Moore (left). The Trio – sisters Maria, cello, Lucia, piano, and violinist Khullip Jeung – will also present the world première of an exciting new work by Emmy Award–winning composer Mark Baechle. We can’t wait.

The Ahn Trio
Nehemiah Luckett

Nehemiah Luckett: Song Cycle

We have other important premières too: Nehemiah Luckett, no stranger to the festival, returns with a song cycle for voice and piano commissioned by the ASCAP Foundation Charles Kingsford Fund and The Village Trip. Luckett draws for his text on the writings of Thomas Paine, among others. What could be more appropriate in America’s birthday year than a new work celebrating one of the Colonies’ most passionate voices for independence, and a Villager to boot – he wrote the third and final part of The Age of Reason at his home at 309 Bleecker Street.

Ella Milch Sheriff

Ella MiIch-Sheriff: Poems by Mascha Kaléko

Ella MiIch-Sheriff makes her Village Trip debut with settings for voice, cello and piano of poems by Mascha Kaléko, who came to the Village in 1942 as a refugee, living at the other end of Minetta Street from Saul Bellow. Her writing vividly evokes the Village, which she regarded as “a hotbed of genius,” and “the melting pot in the melting pot.” The song cycle was commissioned by the Roger Shapiro Fund and The Village Trip from Milch-Sheriff, whose opera Alma was nominated for the 2025 International Opera Award.

Victoria Bond

Victoria Bond: Sirens Episode #11

Victoria Bond, a pioneering conductor as well as a distinguished composer, is now (we are pleased to say) something of a Village Trip stalwart. Her featured works have included Dancing Colors, inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe, and Dancing on Glass, Victoria’s 85th birthday tribute to composer Philip Glass. Last year, The Village Trip presented “Leopold Bloom’s Homecoming” from her opera Ulysses, and we’ll be continuing that story this year with a truly unique performance of the Sirens Episode #11 in which James Joyce has flirtatious barmaids seduce male patrons with their irresistible singing! Stay tuned!

Greenwich Village Folk Festival: 40th Anniversary Concert

Finally for now, The Village Trip is honored to be presenting the 40th anniversary concert of the Greenwich Village Folk Festival, launched as “a gift to the community” and celebrating the rich history of folk music in the Village.

    • Suzanne Vega,
    • Noel Paul Stookey of Peter Paul & Mary,
    • John McCutcheon,
    • Kirsten Maxwell,
    • Kenny White,
    • Cliff Eberhardt,
    • David Massengill

    and many more will feature in the festival’s all-star closing concert in the Great Hall of Cooper Union which has hosted such giants of the folk scene as Pete Seeger, Odetta, Richie Havens, and Judy Collins, not to mention the fiftieth anniversary broadcast of Oscar Brand and the WNYC Folk Festival.

    The Greenwich Village Folk festival ran annually until 1994 and was revived in 2020 with monthly online concerts that brought joy to musicians and audience alike as Covid deprived everyone of the gift of live music. Producers Raymond Micek and Rod MacDonald were motivated by the success of the online concerts to create this very special live event. Said Rod, a celebrated singer-songwriter in his own right who will also be performing.

    "The music of the Village has inspired writers, singers, and fans for decades, not only for its commercial success but for its insight, relevance, and originality. We consider ourselves part of the movement to continue this great tradition and are very pleased to share this event and this ideal with The Village Trip."

The Village Trip Poster 2026

We’ll be back again very soon with more irresistible goodies, but before we sign off, we’re thrilled to be able to share with you Marc Kehoe’s splendid poster for The Village Trip 2026. Marc is an East Village-based artist, art historian and tour guide, and he’s been a key part of Team TVT since 2022. This relationship grew out of a chance encounter on the A-Train en route to the Women March in 2017. We’ve been marching together ever since.

The Village Trip poster 2026 by Marc Kehoe

Let’s all keep our eyes on the prize.

Liz & Cliff

 

TVT2026: Revolutionary Voices: Part One

In America’s big birthday year, The Village Trip will be celebrating not Independence but the Revolution that brought it about. What it meant, what it promised, and how the events of the last 250 years have changed so many lives, in America and around the world. Revolutionary Voices is our theme, and we’re tapping into the veins of the musical, theatrical, literary, artistic, and social-activist history of the Village to create an exciting and thought-provoking program that celebrates some of the people who have made a difference since the colonists declared the first No Kings Day, swapping George III for George Washington.

Paul Robeson

We’re thrilled to welcome back acclaimed baritone James Martin, who will perform a very special concert celebrating Paul Robeson, a true renaissance figure who used his magnificent voice to speak out against injustice wherever he saw it, whatever the personal cost. Robeson’s rise to stardom is rooted in the avant-garde and bohemian culture of 1920s Greenwich Village, where he was cast as the lead in Eugene O'Neill's All God's Chillun Got Wings at the Provincetown Playhouse. He knew, or at least crossed paths with, many of the other figures we are celebrating.

Paul Robeson and James Martin
Woody Guthrie

Woody Guthrie

We’re thrilled to be partnering with New York City Children’s Theater to honor Woody Guthrie, the great Dust Bowl Balladeer whose 3,000 songs include “This Land Is Your Land,” America’s unofficial national anthem. Written by Frank Ruiz, Songs to Grow On is NYCCT’s brand-new interactive show based on Woody’s 1956 album Songs to Grow On for Mother and Child, which was inspired by Woody and Marjory’s cross-country road trip with their daughter, Cathy, a little girl who’s asking big questions about the world around her.

It will launch this year’s expanded kids’ programming which includes songwriting classes for today’s would-be troubadours, and a reprise of Classical Cool, a family concert featuring The Village Trip Festival Orchestra and Village Choristers.

The Village Trip Lecture: Dorothy Day

Robert Ellsberg, who helped his father Daniel photocopy what came to be known as The Pentagon Papers, will deliver the annual Village Trip Lecture devoted to his mentor and friend Dorothy Day. The founder of the Catholic Worker, she crossed paths in the Village with Robeson and Guthrie and famously declared: "Conscience is a muscle—the less you use it, the weaker it is." Amen to that.

Musical Activism

Janis Siegel and Lauren Kinhan and friends bring their Vocal Gumbo series to The Village Trip with an evening celebrating musical activism. Expect an embarrassment of musical riches. And the ever-versatile Janie Barnett salutes Cole Porter, who revolutionized popular song with his sophisticated style and risqué lyrics, proving that anything goes!

The classical and new music program, directed by William Anderson and Joan Forsyth, continues our revolutionary theme. The ensemble Poetica Musica will open the festival with We The People: 250 Years, after which we will adjourn for an evening of American folk and grassroots music, hosted by David Amram, The Village Trip’s Artist Emeritus, and the festival’s guiding spirit. And there’s Women’s Work, an evening dedicated to music and poetry by women creators. A reminder, as if one were needed, that in the Village women were often the changemakers!

Miles Davis and John Coltrane

Maestro Amram has lived more history than most of us. In Miles and Trane at 100, David and his Quintet will reflect on the early days of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, honoring the ever-evolving musical landscape that followed the passing of Charlie Parker in 1955. Jazz was on the cusp of revolution, and David was both witness and participant, in the smoky dive bars of the Village – a place where, as Dylan wrote, there’s always been “music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air.”

Miles Davis (by Palumbo) and John Contrane in 1963

Washington Square Park Free Concert

Finally – at least for now – our signature free concert in Washington Square Park will take place this year on the opening weekend of The Village Trip. We are delighted to present The Slambovian Circus of Dreams, whose Woodstock-tinged psychedelia, with subtle accents of southern rock, Celtic and British folk, is as delicious a slice of Americana pie as you’re ever likely to find. Prepare to be blown away!

The Slambovian Circus of Dreams

Mark your calendars and get festival-fit – because there’ll be no time for sleeping when The Village Trip comes to town on September 25!

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Liz & Cliff

THE VILLAGE TRIP READING LIST

A selection from the reading list compiled for The Village Trip by Three Lives & Company, Booksellers

Three Lives and Co logo

Jenny and the Cat Club by Esther Averill
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
Kafka Was the Rage by Anatole Broyard
Growing Up Bank Street by Donna Florio
The Village by John Strausbaugh

The Village Trip Mission Statement

To uplift, to entertain and to celebrate the arts for all New Yorkers, their families and all people from around the world who come to visit Downtown Manhattan’s special oases, Greenwich Village and the East Village.

 FESTIVAL PARTNERS

The Village Trip Festival thanks its sponsors, partners and supporters.

Media partner WFUV radio
Washington Square Hotel logo
New York University logo
conEdison logo

Travel and Tourism Awards logo

 

The Village Trip has been named Best Urban Celebration Event 2025
in the LUXElife Magazine Travel & Tourism Awards 2025

New York City AIDS Memorial
David Amram
walking tour
opening event audience
Earth Requiem