This Week in New Haven (September 19 – 25)

M illennial music fans will be pinching themselves this week, as will fall lovers, bargain hunters and literary types.

Monday, September 19
At 5 p.m. inside the Yale University Art Gallery, this year’s Windham-Campbell Prizes Literary Festival kicks off three subsequent days full of talks and activities with a prize ceremony and a keynote address by Pulitzer-winning former US poet laureate Natasha Trethewey, who will take up the festival’s customary prompt, “Why I Write.”

Wednesday, September 21
Decoys & Mimics, an Institute Library exhibition that’s been “faking you out this summer with books, objects and images!”, gets a closing reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Guests are encouraged to “dress the part in faux prints, mock leathers/furs/feathers, camouflage and costume jewels!” as well as to “bring a favorite mock or faux food or drink to add to our reception potluck goodies…”

’90s/2000s “rock, rap, reggae, and funk”-hybrid hitmakers 311 come to College Street Music Hall at 8 with opener Tropidelic.

sponsored by

Hopkins School Virtual Admission Center

Thursday, September 22
At UrbanScapes Native Plant Nursery, a “Fall Clean Up and Seed Collecting” workshop at 5:30 p.m. aims to teach gardeners how to help butterflies, bees, birds and fireflies, even throughout winter, and “how to tell when to harvest seeds, how to best collect them, and how to store them so that they will be viable in the spring.”

The Branford Parks & Rec department presents an outdoor screening of the latest Spider-Man movie, No Way Home, at 7 on the Branford Green.

Friday, September 23
The First Congregational Church of West Haven hosts its 2022 Apple Festival from 5 to 9 tonight, 11 to 9 tomorrow and noon to 5 Sunday, promising food, artisans, bounce houses and a bevy of performing artists.

Led by guest conductor Carol Kuan, the Yale Philharmonia opens its season at 7:30 in Woolsey Hall, featuring Laura Karpman’s All American, four dance episodes from Aaron Copland’s Rodeo and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E minor.

Saturday, September 24
The 12th Annual Walk to End Domestic Violence, a fundraiser for Family Centered Services of CT, starts at Wilbur Cross High School at 10 a.m.

From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Hamden’s Brooksvale Park, the 22nd Brooksvale Festival promises “live music, food trucks, kid zone, beekeeping, nature crafts, bake sale, pumpkin patch, craft vendors, community organizations and more!”

From noon to 5, the Spring Glen One-Day Free Giveaway, “a community tag ‘sale’ where everything is FREE,” has 22 households (and counting) in the Hamden neighborhood giving away the stuff they no longer want or need.

Ticket prices feel steep, but Sound on Sound, a new music festival taking over Bridgeport’s Seaside Park this weekend, might just deliver on them. Notable performers over the two days, which start around noon, include Stevie Nicks, The Lumineers, The Roots, Spin Doctors, Band of Horses, The National, Jenny Lewis, Brandi Carlile and Dave Matthews, probably the biggest draw of all, performing with his customary acoustic set partner Tim Reynolds.

Westville improv troupe The Regicides presents a “hopefully funny” show with “proper lighting, mics and ‘refreshments’” on their home stage, The Stack, at 8 p.m.

Sunday, September 25
The last of this week’s great legacy performances is also the most intimate, as Jimmy Eat World comes to Toad’s Place for an 8 p.m. bill with opener Charly Bliss.

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a DJ show that opens with a “first come first serve” slot. That “open decks” set lasts from 8 to 9:30 at Stella Blues, as part of a going-away party for DJ Reductor.

Written by Dan Mims. Image 1, featuring Natasha Trethewey, photographed by Nancy Crampton. Image 2, featuring a tiger butterfly, photographed by Patrick Foto (Shutterstock). Image 3, featuring Dave Matthews performing last week, photographed by Sanjay Suchak. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations and prices before attending events.

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Dan has worked for a couple of major media companies, but he likes Daily Nutmeg best. As DN’s editor, he writes, photographs, edits and otherwise shepherds ideas into fully realized feature stories.

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