Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled to be attending the Newport Folk Festival this year.  I am, however, sad to miss these FREE events in downtown Boston that are happening simultaneously with Newport.

This will be the fourth annual Boston Summer Arts Weekend event.  Set for July 25-26, 2015 at Copley Square in the Back Bay, the event features a wide range of eclectic performances. Can I mention again that it is all free?

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell

Here are some of the highlights:

• Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, winners of the Grammy Award for Best Americana Album of the Year in 2014 for Old Yellow Moon, will headline the festival on Saturday.  They’ll be joined on the lineup by New Orleans’ own Dirty Dozen Brass Band, as well as Grammy-nominated and Blues Music Award winner Bettye LaVette and Boston’s own Federator N°1.
• The weekend will kick off on Saturday at 11 a.m. with performances designed for the entire family. One of the most buzzed-about bands for families and kids on the East Coast, Karen K & the Jitterbugs, will open the festival, followed by the Ringmaster Clown Remarkable Renaldo and Grammy nominee Zak Morgan and the Funny Farmers.
• Blue Man Group will hold the final round for their 2^nd annual Boston Drum-Off on the main stage on Saturday, seeking to identify the most creative, most innovative and most insanely talented drummers in Greater Boston.
• Two finalists from WGBH’s original local TV series Sing That Thing! will also perform. The Merrimack Valley Chorus will perform on Saturday and Fermata Town will perform on Sunday.
• On Sunday, The Handel and Haydn Society will celebrate their Bicentennial as part of Boston Summer Arts Weekend.  They’ll perform Beethoven’s epic Symphony No. 9 (“Ode to Joy”) in the heart of Copley Square, sponsored by The Boston Foundation.
• Following their performance, Cape Breton fiddler Natalie MacMaster will take the stage, followed by a headline performance from Grammy Award winning R&B artist Aaron Neville.
• The weekend actually kicked off on Tuesday, July 21, when The Boston Globe hosted GlobeTalks: A Look into Boston’s Public Art Scene.  Moderated by Sebastian Smee, art critic for The Boston Globe, the event discussed Boston’s public art scene and a major shift away from historic places and bronze sculptures to new forms of expression.  The panel featured Lucas Cowan, public art curator at the Rose Kennedy Greenway, Jeff Grantz, founder of the Illuminus light festival and Brookline-based artist Janet Echelman, who has displayed her monumental fiber-net artworks around the world before recently being commissioned by Greenway Conservancy to install a sculpture in the skies over The Greenway’s Fort Point Channel Park.
• On Thursday, July 23, 2015, join WGBH for the 3rd annual Summer Arts Walk in the Back Bay.  From 5:00 – 8:00 p.m., enjoy complimentary refreshments, hors d’oeuvres, live music and art demonstration as you visit more than a dozen local galleries, including Axelle Fine Arts, The Back Bay Framery, Childs Gallery, Circle Furniture, Copley Society of Art, Galerie d’Orsay, International Poster Gallery, Landry & Arcari Rugs & Carpeting, L’Attitude Art & Sculpture Gallery, Martha Richardson Fine Art, Quidley & Company, Robert Klein Gallery and the Society of Arts & Crafts. Each gallery will feature a generously donated piece of art and display other works by local artists. Arts Walk attendees will have a chance to meet some of these artists and an opportunity to purchase select donated pieces to support WGBH.

I have paid a fair amount of money to see some of these acts and will pay in the future to see more of them. Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell are incredible, and their new album might be even better than their first one. Bettye LaVette is a treasure who should not be missed. And what can I say about Aaron Neville? He has one of the most gorgeous voices on this planet.

The weather forecast is for glorious weather, so if you are not at Newport Folk Festival or the Lowell Folk Festival, or can split your time among them, head to Copley Square for some incredible music.