The longest days of the year, plus festivals, fairs and fireworks, mark the arrival of summer.
Monday, June 19 – Juneteenth
The city’s major Juneteenth celebrations happened over the weekend, so a different celebration, Yale Organ Week, takes center stage today. Spanning different locations, instruments and performers, the week of recitals showcasing the university’s organs begins tonight with concerts at 7:30 in Dwight Chapel, 8:10 in Battell Chapel and 8:50 in Woolsey Hall.
Tuesday, June 20
The International Festival of Arts & Ideas enters its second and final week. Scope out the schedule spanning music, theater, comedy, food, dance, tours and more before it’s past.
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Wednesday, June 21 – Summer Solstice
Make Music New Haven, the local version of “worldwide celebration of music” Make Music Day, presents 11 shows and more than 20 acts at venues around New Haven, plus a half-dozen events in other towns.
At 6 p.m., local startup accelerator Collab highlights its latest cohort at NXTHVN. “Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with like-minded professionals and applaud the remarkable accomplishments of these individuals.”
“Feeeeed me!” roars the next Movies in the Plaza screening. Starting at 8:30 in Pitkin Plaza, the feature is the 1986 horror comedy classic Little Shop of Horrors.
Thursday, June 22
“Get ready for a tropical night in the heart of New Haven” during an Unwind with Palmwine party on Elm City Social’s tiki bar rooftop. (Palmwine, organizers say, “is more than a wine club; it’s a vibrant community of creatives who appreciate the joy and connections that wine can foster.”) Promising natural wine and, from DJ Eric Otero, “groovy tunes,” the party starts at 6 p.m. RSVP here.
“New Haven’s only Italian Festival,” the Saint Andrew Society’s annual Festa, returns with “four days of Italian food, live music, and a celebration of Italian-American traditions” on the Society’s Wooster Square grounds. Kicking things off is an opening parade through the neighborhood at 6 p.m., which finds its bookend with “an old-world traditional procession” at 10 a.m. Sunday.
At 7, photographer Caryn B. Davis discusses her latest book, Connecticut Gardens, at RJ Julia in Madison. The book “takes readers on a visual tour of some of the state’s most breathtaking historic, public, and private gardens.”
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Friday, June 23
From 4:30 to 6 p.m., the New Haven Preservation Trust presents an open house event at the historically and architecturally significant Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church, with talks by historian Charles Warner Jr. and architect Edward E. Cherry. “Mr. Cherry,” the NHPT notes, “played a leading role in designing Modernist buildings that characterized the redevelopment of the neighborhood.”
At 8:30 and 10 p.m., the final performances of Firehouse 12’s spring concert series feature the noirishly cinematic music of Ralph Alessi and This Against That, with Firehouse’s bar set to open by 6:30.
Saturday, June 24
An hour from New Haven and about a thousand years away, Robin Hood’s Medieval Faire enters its second-to-last weekend starting at 10:30 a.m. Along with food, shopping, activities and LARPing, the fair offers a variety of performances from a large cast of royals, knights, jesters, bards, fairies, magickers and merry outlaws—plus, tonight only, an adults-only “Nottingham After Dark” experience promising more risqué amusements.
At 2 p.m., the New Haven Caribbean Heritage Festival returns to the New Haven Green, with “performances, delicious Caribbean cuisine, beautiful displays of islands and colorful costumes.”
Coastal fireworks in Branford, East Haven and Milford start at 9, 9:15 and also 9:15, respectively. But the festivities in East Haven and Milford start much earlier, at 2 and 4 p.m., with live music.
Sunday, June 25
Postponed due to weather, IRIS’s World Refugee Day craft fair, initially scheduled last Saturday, happens today instead, from 1 to 4 p.m. outside New Haven’s First Presbyterian Church. “Enjoy international food, handmade gifts & eco-friendly home items. Crafts are sold by immigrant women from Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria & all over the world. Proceeds go directly to the artisans, cash only please.”
Meanwhile, at 3, Three Sheets hosts a Sunday Punk Matinee. Local acts include Mitch Kramer (the name of a band led by Jeffrey Thunders) and West Rockers, with billmates No Room at the Morgue visiting from Providence.
Written by Dan Mims. Images 1 (of Dixwell Church), 2 (of the Newberry Organ in Woolsey Hall) and 4 (of past local fireworks) photographed by Dan Mims. Image 3, featuring a moment from a past Festa, provided courtesy of the Saint Andrew Society. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations and prices before attending events.
