You’re invited to a special fundraising celebration of the arts in our region.
This series of events will not only showcase the incredible talent and impact of our ValleyCreates grantees but also serve as a critical moment to invest in the future of our arts community.
Your support will help sustain and expand the creative identity of our region for generations to come. Together, we can ensure long-term financial sustainability for ValleyCreates!
Join us in building a $5 million Fund for Arts and Creativity in our region.
Saturday, May 31, 2025 | 7:30 – 10PM
Young@heart Chorus
Join friends to experience the magic of Young@Heart as it performs its first Beatles-Only show “Dissect The Beatles”, from the Meet The Beatles album all the way to Let It Be– and everything in between. The Young@Heart Ensemble will be joined by special guest instrumentalists.
Location: Academy of Music, 274 Main Street, Northampton, MA
Reception Details
Join staff and artists for a reception at 9:30PM after the show.
Location: Packard’s, 14 Masonic Street, Northampton, MA.
Saturday, July 12, 2025 | 6 – 9PM
Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival
Join friends at the Blues to Green’s annual festival to celebrate art, artists and
community! Kristin Neville, Executive Director of Blues to Green, founded the organization in honor of her late husband; legendary jazz musician Charles Neville. Inspired by his experiences, personal growth, and ability to unite people through music, this festival carries on his legacy and unites our community through music and song.
Location: Stearns Square and Tower Square Park, Springfield, MA
Reception Details
Join staff and artists for a reception at 6PM before heading to the festival. Location: Community Foundation, CFWM, 333 Bridge St., Springfield, MA.
Saturday, August 2, 2025 | 4:30 – 9PM
The Heron’s Flight
Join us for an unforgettable summer experience of Double Edge Theatre’s The Heron’s Flight, directed by Jennifer Johnson and Travis Coe. The performance moves through the gardens, barns, and waterways of Double Edge’s Farm Center. Walk with us toward transformation in an impossible world as we embrace the knowledge of the land – that each season of life is beloved. Double Edge Theatre is a cultural cooperative and ensemble collective — a place of nurturing and a sanctuary.
Location: Double Edge Theatre, 948 Conway Road, Ashfield, MA
Reception Details
Join staff and artists from 4:30 – 6:30PM for a tour, conversation, and delicious farm-to-table reception before the show. Doors for the show open at 7:00PM.
Location: Double Edge Theatre
Meet Cover Artist Sunny Allis
Sunny Allis (they/them) is a trans/non-binary multimedia artist. Their artistic works focus on cultivating community and connection through different forms of play and storytelling. Sunny studied directing and design for theater at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and received their MFA from California Institute of the Arts in Integrated Media.
Sunny is passionate about engaging people’s voices and visions, so they feel empowered as change-makers, transforming themselves and the world around them. Bringing a unique, dynamic ability to work across various artistic disciplines, Sunny tells stories and guides audiences through new worlds, experiences, and emotions. They provide a fresh, original voice that is highly imaginative, intersectional, and centers joyful freedom.
RIVER VALLEY RADICAL FUTURES EXHIBIT
Sunny Allis, Mary Katherine Cleary, David von Dufving, Bo Kim, Sharon Leshner, Michael Medeiros, Laura Torraco, and Alix Gerber
May 2 – 25, 2025
Artists reception on May 9, 2025
A.P.E Gallery
Travel from the world we live in today in the Connecticut River Valley in Massachusetts, to a future in this same place 100 years beyond the fall of capitalism. The River Valley Radical Futures exhibit shares the future visions co-created by members of at least 14 local groups who enact alternative ways of being in the Valley today.
This exhibit is an invitation to contribute to a shared local folklore of the future we want to build together.
THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH LOVE
Sunny Allis and Jae Southerland
Opening Reception on June 13, 2025
at the Northampton Center for the Arts.
Sunny and Jae are both trans/non-binary artists who explore their queer identities through abstraction. As friends and collaborators who use complementary materials to create imagined worlds, they want to discover how their work can be in conversation with each other. Love, in this context, is a celebration of desire and connection, and our muster point in a world on fire.
More about ValleyCreates
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Trenda Loftin
Trenda speaks about her experience as the first ever recipient of the Kent Alexander Radical Imagination Award.
Watch story
Mark Guglielmo
Artist grantee and now community advisor for ValleyCreates, Mark Guglielmo, speaks on his experience being in community.
Watch story
Carmela Lanza-Weil
In the arts realm where creativity and storytelling have no bounds, we illuminate the work of 2023 Project Evolution Grantee.
Read story