Music, history, solstice salutes & a wildlife baby shower: 12 top things to do on Cape Cod June 17-23
It's a busy mid-June: Not only is it Father's Day weekend and Juneteenth, but the Summer Solstice happens this week and local conservation groups offer many ways to mark the passing season (including playing music on flower pots!). To celebrate Pride month, two libraries offer a movie and book event with stories about two dads.
Concerts this week include chamber music, Celtic music and a Mardi Gras. There's a plant swap, a garden tour and a strawberry festival. Those who love history can discover the past through a costume exhibit in Yarmouth Port or a cemetery tour in West Dennis.
And who wouldn't want to go to a shower for wildlife babies? Remember, bring a gift!
Learn more about West Dennis’ past
Terri Fox, vice president of the Dennis Historical Society, will lead a free tour of more than 300 years of local lore related to the West Dennis Village Cemetery, which originated circa 1700 as the Crowell family burial ground. Fox’s walk will highlight the lives of some of West Dennis’s most prominent early citizens, including members of the Crowell, Baker, Fisk, Kelley and Jenks families, and a captain who was captured as he tried to blockade Charleston Harbor in 1862.
When: 10 a.m. Friday (rain date 2 p.m. Sunday)
Where: West Dennis Village Cemetery, corner of Pond Street and Fisk Street (there is no parking within the cemetery itself)
Admission: Free
Information: https://www.dennishistoricalsociety.org/
Learn Yarmouth Port history through clothes
A historic clothing exhibit, “Styles and Stories from the Diaries of Lizzie Ryder Taylor,” will be held June 17-26 at the Captain Bangs Hallet House of the Historical Society of Old Yarmouth. The show will focus on the everyday lives of Yarmouth Port residents from 1886 to 1913. Eight rooms will be filled with 35 mannequins in clothing donated by local residents depicting stories from diaries, including a wedding, a funeral, a women’s sewing circle, christenings and children’s activities, women’s home and working life, and entertainment around a 1903 Edison phonograph. The mid-19th century captain’s home is fully furnished with Victorian-era furniture, paintings and memorabilia from the sea captains’ Far East voyages. Informal conversations about the clothing will be held several times during the show.
When: 1 to 4 p.m. daily June 17-26
Where: Captain Bangs Hallet House, 11 Strawberry Lane, Yarmouth Port
Admission: $15
Reservations: www.hsoy.org/events
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Bring a plant, get a new one
The First Lutheran Church will hold its second annual plant swap as a way for people “to grow together.” Attendees are asked to bring a plant or seedling (from a nursery or transplant from a yard) and swap it out for a flower, vegetable or herb at the church, many donated by local garden centers. Various experts and businesses will be on hand to share information. Whatever vegetables, herbs and pollinators are left over will be donated to Sandwich High School and the Housing Assistance Corp.’s North Falmouth Family Shelter for landscapes and schools.
When: 8 a.m. to noon Saturday
Where: the church, 1663 Main St., West Barnstable
Admission: Free
Information: https://firstcapecod.org/
Strawberry Festival returns to Falmouth church
Saint Barnabas’s Episcopal Church will continue a more than 70-year tradition with its annual Strawberry Festival, celebrating the summer, the favorite fruit and Falmouth’s place in strawberry history. The festival will offer handmade strawberry shortcake and strawberry jam, as well as lobster rolls, pulled pork sandwiches, shredded chicken sandwiches, garden burgers and hot dogs. There will also be children’s games, and a tent filled with baked goods, jewelry, books and attic treasures for sale. Funds raised help the church’s efforts for local nonprofit organizations. According to organizers, the festival, started in 1951, recalls a brief time in the 1930s when Falmouth farms together created the largest producer of strawberries in Massachusetts and the nation.
When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday
Where: Great Lawn of Saint Barnabas’s Episcopal Church, 91 Main St., Falmouth
Admission: Free
Information: 508-548-3863 or email office@stbfalmouth.org
Go to a baby shower for wild animals
Wild Care, a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center in Eastham, will host a wildlife baby shower as a fundraiser celebration of the babies being cared for by the organization. There will be guided tours of outdoor enclosures and hourly educational presentations with Animal Ambassadors. Guests may make an animal rescue box and decorate “Kindness Socks” — rice socks with inspirational messages used to keep animals warm. There will be children’s activities and snacks. All guests will receive a party favor, and those with gifts from a wish list will be entered to win a gift basket.
When: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday; ambassador programs will be 11:30 a.m., Ilean, a mallard duck; 12:30 p.m., Up Up, an Eastern Screech Owl and 1:30 p.m., Garv an Eastern box turtle
Where: Wild Care’s big yellow house on the Orleans Rotary, 10 Smith Lane, Eastham
Admission: Free
Information and a baby shower gift wish list: https://www.wildcarecapecod.org/wildlife-baby-shower/
Walk, listen and make unusual music to welcome summer
Conservation groups in eight towns are combining forces to welcome the longest day of the year and calendar start to the summer with free programs for the four-day “Celebrate the Solstice Cape Cod.” They include hikes, story walks, history talks, open houses, sunset beach strolls and more. One unusual event that also marks global Make Music Day is Barnstable Land Trust’s free participatory Flowerpot Music Concert. All ages are invited to bring a flowerpot) and a blanket or lawn chair, make pollinator-themed arts/crafts with the Cotuit Library preceding the concert, and then rehearse/perform the concert under the direction of guest conductor Su D’Ambrosio from Cape Symphony. Listeners are welcome.
When: events are at various times Saturday through Tuesday, June 18-21; the Flowerpot Music Concert is at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 21
Where: conservation areas in Barnstable, Brewster, Chatham, Dennis, Falmouth, Harwich, Wellfleet and Truro; the music contest is at Ropes Field, 58 Putnam Ave., Cotuit
Cost: Many events are free, some require small fee
Information and registration (if needed): https://blt.org/celebrate-the-solstice-cape-cod and on websites and social media of participating organizations
Band brings Mardi Gras to summer
Revolutionary Snake Ensemble, an American instrumental musical group led by Truro-based saxophonist Ken Field, will bring a “Mardi Gras Madness” concert to the Cultural Center of Cape Cod. The performance includes colorful costumes and creative music arrangements in an improvised style inspired by the second-line brass bands of New Orleans parades. The Boston-area musicians — including Jerry Sabatini on trumpet, Dave Harris on trombone and tuba, Blake Newman on bass, and Phil Neighbors on drums — have played around the country, including New Orleans and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Cultural Center of Cape Cod, 307 Old Main St., South Yarmouth
Tickets: $25
Information and reservations: https://www.cultural-center.org/ or 508-394-7100
Musicians join for Celtic concert
Musicians led by Rose Clancy will create a “Celtic Riptide” concert, featuring the traditional music of Ireland, Scotland, Cape Breton and beyond. There will be a pre-show reception with wine, Guinness and hors d’oeuvres. The musicians will include Clancy on fiddle, banjo and mandolin; John Alden on bass, accordion and vocals; Max Cohen on guitar and vocals; Gene Clancy on guitar and vocals; Sarah Ford Marchio on Highland pipes and Scottish small pipes; Bailey Ford on piano and Irish dance; Jonathan Ford on Irish whistle and fiddle; Thomas Marchio on guitar, banjo and mandolin; and Christopher Marchio on piano.
When: 6:30 p.m. for reception, concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: South Harwich Meetinghouse, 270 Chatham Road, Harwich
Tickets: $25; celticriptide.eventbrite.com or at the door
COVID-19 protocols: proof of vaccination and masks required
Information: southharwichmeetinghouse.com
Chamber music festival begins
The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival will open its 48th season with music for piano and horn, including contemporary American composer Eric Ewazen’s Sonata for Horn and Piano. Performers will be Donald Enos — the Festival’s founder, artistic director, and pianist — and Clark Matthews, principal hornist of the Cape Symphony. The 2022 series will span six weeks.
When: 7:30 p.m. Monday
Where: Church of the Holy Spirit, 204 Monument Road, Orleans
Tickets: $90 for the seven-concert season; $25 per concert at the door, if available
Reservations and information: http://www.meetinghousemusic.org or 508-896-3344
Two dads featured in both movie and book
As part of a celebration of Gay Pride month, a movie made on Cape Cod based on true events about a teen learning about her widowed father and his gay lover, and a book written about a dog and his two dads, will both be featured at four upcoming library screenings in association with local bookstores. James Egan, producer of the movie “Wild About Harry,” will be on hand, as will author Dan Perdios, a longtime gay rights activist and the film’s prop master whose book “A Golden Retriever & His Two Dads: An Adventure on Cape Cod” about a matchmaking dog is partly set during the filming. There will be book signings and sales following the screenings. The movie, directed by Gwen Wynne, stars Danielle Savre, Josh Peck, Adam Pascal, and Tate Donovan.
When and where: 5 p.m. Thursday, June 16 at Mashpee Library, 64 Steeple St.; 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 22 at Sandwich Public Library, 142 Main St.; 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 23 at Provincetown Library, 356 Commercial St.; 6:30 p.m. June 28 at the Nantucket Atheneum, 1 Library St.; and 7 p.m. June 29 at Edgartown Library, 26 Edgartown-West Tisbury Road
Admission: Free
Information and registration (when required): https://www.sandwichpubliclibrary.com/, https://www.provincetownlibrary.org/events; https://nantucket.librarycalendar.com/; https://www.edgartownlibrary.org/; https://mashpeepubliclibrary.org/
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Get access to private gardens in Cotuit
Cotuit Library will host a “Tour the Private Gardens of Cotuit” event, with pass-holders allowed access to properties with a variety of designs, blooms and natural elements and the chance to learn about bonsai trees, cranberry bogs and more. The pass includes signature Private Gardens notecards and a Garden Insider program booklet.
When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, June 23
Where: locations learned upon pass pickup at Cotuit Library, 871 Main St. during these hours: 4 to 6 p.m. June 21, 3 to 5 p.m. June 22, starting at 9 a.m. June 23
Admission: $45
Information and reservations: https://www.cotuitlibrary.org/gardens.html
Wright and Wang perform for Atwood concert series
The new concert series at the Atwood Museum will continue with a concert by two musicians who have performed globally: Audrey Wright, a violinist who is associate concertmaster for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and concertmaster of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, and Boston-based pianist Yundu Wang. Beer, white wine and non-alcoholic beverages will be available.
When: 7 p.m. Thursday, June 23 (performance begins at 7:30 p.m.)
Where: Mural Barn of the Atwood Museum, 347 Stage Harbor Road, Chatham
Tickets: $25
Information: https://chathamhistoricalsociety.org/events-schedule/music-at-the-atwood/, 508- 945-2493 or atwoodreservations@gmail.com
To have your event considered for Best Bets, send information to bestbets@capecodonline.com at least two weeks before the CapeWeek publication. Contact editor Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll at kdriscoll@capecodonline.com.
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod top things to do: music, history, solstice, wildlife babies
