River Island concert series begins today
WOONSOCKET – After a consortium of community organizations won a $25,000 matching grant to stage a weekly series of 10 live concerts earlier this year, the music begins this afternoon at River Island Art Park.
The Levitt AMP Woonsocket Music Series kicks off with performances by the Chicago-based Lowdown Brass Band, the headliners, and Julie Rhodes, a blues singer from Massachusetts. The homegrown Munroe Dairy Marching Milkman Band will also get some stage time.
The emphasis is on music, but the event will have the feel of a mini-festival, with food and beverages available, a few craft booths and an intermission for a “fitness activity” – in this case a hiphop exercise class, according to Meghan Rego, director of communications for Neighbor-Works Blackstone River Valley.
“We hope that the Levitt AMP Woonsocket Music Series brings new life to downtown, supports our local businesses, and gives our community a fun and exciting evening out every Friday night,” said Rego.
Last fall, Neighbor-Works teamed up with the Downtown Woonsocket Collaborative, Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council, and others to jointly apply for the grant to underwrite the all-Fridays, summer-long series of concerts from the
California-based Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation, a philanthropic organization dedicated to promoting culturally diverse, live music in outdoor venues.
In January, the foundation announced that Woonsocket was one of 15 small- and medium-sized cities in the nation to win a so-called “AMP” grant – the letters stand for music, amplify and place. Only two of the winners, including St. Johnsbury, Vt., were from New England in the highly competitive sweepstakes, which involved a much-publicized online voting component.
Drawing big numbers at the digital ballot box was only one criterion the Levitt judges took into account in selecting the winners, however. The foundation gave preference to applications featuring performance venues considered easily accessible to a wide range of socioeconomic groups and a programming concept that was “inclusive and family-friendly.”
After winning the grant, NeighborWorks created a lineup of talent that jibed with the foundation’s guidelines, which stress gender and ethnic diversity. Performers must also represent a blend of local, regional and national talent.
“They have a lot of rules,” Rego said, “But they’re helpful rules. We have an all-female drumming group coming on Aug. 3. Eight female musicians.”
Rego calls the series “a true collaboration in every way.” The city prepared the park for the event, running new power lines to the stage and providing staff. The Autumnfest Steering Committee built the stage for the performances. While BVTC and the DWC have aggressively promoted the concert series, many local restaurants and crafters have stepped up to sell their wares during the events.
The city has provided over 100 volunteers to make sure the series goes off “without a hitch,” Rego said.
Each concert in the series will include a intermission for an “On the Move” physical fitness routine sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island. Tomorrow’s hop-hop feature will be led by Contre Fitness, a local studio.
The Levitt AMP Woonsocket Music Series will run every Friday through Aug. 31, from 5-9 p.m. Each will include a local opening act, a headliner, local food vendors and artisan crafters.
In keeping with the Levitt guidelines, the acts cut across a wide range of musical genres, from salsa and country to funk and blues. Performers will be traveling from as far as California to perform in the city, according to Rego.
Today, the festivities begin shortly after the park opens at 5 p.m. with a performance by the Milkman Band. About an hour later, Baldelli-Hunt will welcome the crowd and introduce Rhodes, a Woburn, Mass., native described by “Howl” magazine as “a powerhouse vocalist” who is “on the cusp of a meteoric rise in the singer-songwriter community.”
At 7 p.m., the stage will be taken over by the Lowdown Brass Band, whose tasteful take on horn-driven funk can be sampled on YouTube. The ensemble draws on hip-hop, reggae and pop music to create its own brand of uptempo dance music, Rego says.
Different food vendors will show up through the course of series, but Ciro’s Tavern, Tacos Don Nacho, Nessa’s Snack Shack, Bugg’d Out BBQ, Family Affair Catering and Valentini’s Kitchen will be featured on Friday, serving from the patio at 40 South Main St., adjacent to the park. Beer and wine will be available for all of the concerts.
Beyond the group of organizations that applied for the AMP grant, Rego says the event would have been impossible to produce without the support of multiple local and national organizations, including Bank of America, Soucy Insurance Agency, Santander Bank, Nation Wide Construction, Michaud Auto Body, Citizens Bank, Washington Trust, Tyra Club, Connecting for Children and Families, United Way of RI, Olly’s Pizza, O’Hearne Associates, River Falls, Peking Tokyo, Original House of Pizza, Twin River Casino, Energy Geeks, WOONAM/FM, WNRI-AM and The Art Den.