Hello, River Reporter readers! The weather has officially turned, with sunny skies and warming waters marking the arrival of the summer season to the river valley. (As of time of writing, the thermometer reads a cool 90 degrees from yours truly’s desk in Narrowsburg, NY.)
The Upper Delaware River Valley lacks not for cultural vivacity at any point throughout the year. Even in the dead of winter, the region’s galleries still teem with art and its performance stages ring with song. However, it’s the summer season that kicks everything into high gear, with festivals taking to streets now fit for human habitation (free from the Arctic cold of winter weather) and summer performance series kicking off their new year’s performances.
The preferred treats of the winter wonderland (hot cocoa and warm cookies) get traded in for frostier delicacies, sprinkle-stuck ice cream piled high atop a splintery cone. Nights spent huddled inside, hiding away from the chill winds that hung around for far longer in the year than they had any right to, turn into evenings if freedom, feeling the sun on one’s face out on some bustling bit of greenery. The heart yearns toward adventure, calling one out onto the road to get lost on the sprawling back roads and in the tight-packed nooks and crannies of the tree-shadowed landscape.
In this magazine, we’ve assembled for you a listing of some of the best and brightest performances, exhibitions and cultural events to be found throughout the Upper Delaware River Valley in the first couple months of the summer season. We can’t claim that it’s an exhaustive list—there’s a truly endless font of creativity in the region, and we’re sure there are hidden gems out there that have yet to come across our radar—but we’ve got some of the biggest names in the business tucked away between these pages, ready to lure you out to their performances.
This year, this magazine only contains an event listing for May through July—so keep an eye out for our Upper Delaware Magazine publications later in the summer, which will keep you up to date with a rolling listing of events for the back half of the summer and beyond. (And for some bonus content, check out our story on a new app for anglers on Page 15.) If you’re looking for more that isn’t included in these pages, check our calendar online at www.riverreporter.com/calendar, or check out the individual web pages or contact details included with each listing.
We guarantee there’s something for everyone here in the Upper Delaware. Here’s hoping that this magazine, and the River Reporter broadly speaking, can help you find your next unknown delight, or can help you reconnect with one of your old favorites.
Liam Mayo, Editor