Hejira channels the spirit of beloved Mitchell period
Guitarist and composer Pete Oxley spent decades building a solo catalog, along with a reputation as one of Britain’s most thoughtful jazz improvisers. A band dedicated to Joni Mitchell’s music wasn’t in his plans, nor a first-ever U.S. tour, yet that’s what’s happening. The story of how it came to be reads less like a career move than a series of improbable gifts.
Named for Mitchell’s 1976 album Hejira, the band was initially a one-off 2022 Christmas gig at a club in Oxford run by Oxley. The show was dedicated mainly to Mitchell’s late ’70s Shadows and Light live album, and it went well enough for Oxley to add a second date two months out and post tickets on his website.
“By 11 a.m. the next day it was sold out,” he said in a recent Zoom interview. “So I thought, maybe this is a project worth pursuing.”
Since his conservatory days, Oxley had been a fan of Mitchell’s jazz-inflected period, which ran from 1974’s Court and Spark through the extraordinary live album that captured her 1979 touring band featuring Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter and Lyle Mays.
“I had Hejira on cassette, and I played it so often that all the treble end was gone,” he recalled. “I just fell in love with it.” Shadows and Light became something of a north star for him. “It just fizzes with electricity when you put it on, yet at the same time it’s really warm, really beautifully produced. It’s always been one of my desert island discs.”
Oxley wanted a singular sonic identity rather than a note-for-note replica of source material. He put together a seven-piece band of players drawn from the British jazz world — bass clarinet, synths, percussion layered with drums.
“It’s not a tribute act,” he told them. “We want to serve the songs and reproduce the vibe … but we’ve got our own colors.”
Surprisingly, he’s found that arranging someone else’s music is harder than composing his own.
“When I’m writing, I have no constraints, but here, my challenge is to keep the melody — that’s what people know — but still make it our own,” he said. “People come up after a show and say, ‘I love the way you respect the songs, but you’ve made it yours,’ and that’s the most heartening response to get.”
Oxley’s Joni is Hattie Whitehead, a jazz singer and songwriter with a solid solo career including her highly regarded debut album, Bloom, released in 2024. She’s also the daughter of British saxophone player Tim Whitehead. The story of how she ended up in the band is its own comedy of near misses.
Three others came and went before Whitehead. One wanted to completely reframe the concept, another demanded that her boyfriend play bass, and a third asked to use her own band. Then Hejira bassist Dave Jones asked Oxley if he knew about a video Whitehead posted on YouTube of her performing songs from Shadows and Light.
“I found it, and it was just totally like yeah, she’s the singer,” Oxley said. He rang up Whitehead, who was quite happy for a chance to sing nothing but Joni. There was one hiccup; she already had a gig that night. But she found a substitute, came to one afternoon rehearsal, and the band was complete.
What she does, Oxley is careful to say, isn’t imitation. When an interviewer asked her how she could sound so much like Joni, Oxley interrupted to disagree. “She sounds like herself,” he insisted. “She sings in tune [and] she’s got a big vibrato like Joni, but she still sounds like Hattie. She’s dedicated and committed to the song, which is a beautiful thing.”
Kismet with a New Hampshire angle helped make Hejira’s American run possible. Milford resident Gary Connolly found their videos on YouTube and was so smitten that he flew to England to see them play. He even offered to drive the van if they made it to the States, and later helped book a show at Andres Institute of Art in Brookline to open the tour; it sold out.
Another crazy twist of fate came when an email arrived from the director of the Syracuse Jazz Festival, a devoted Shadows and Light fan who had also seen the videos. He offered Hejira a main stage slot and, when Oxley mentioned needing more dates to make a trip viable, doubled their fee and covered airfares.
“We kind of talked about it as a pipe dream every now and again — if we could get to America, there’s a big market there,” Oxley said. “Then there was … a ridiculous amount of luck.”
Hejira: Celebrating Joni Mitchell When: Wednesday, July 15, 7:30 p.m. Where: Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club, 135 Congress St., Portsmouth Tickets: $23 and up at ticketmaster.com
What would it take to be entered into a special type of raffle, a raffle with prizes you can’t buy for yourself? In the case of the 2026 Pup Crawl, it would involve petting dogs and drinking beer.
Olivia Ross from the Humane Society for Greater Nashua described the three-day fundraiser. “It’s not a traditional pub crawl,” she said. “We call it our Pup Crawl as a play on words. But really it’s a weekend-long event for folks who want to support local breweries, but also it is a dog-friendly event.”
Every stop along the Pup Crawl is a pro-dog brewery, she said. “We’ve chosen places that allow dogs on the outdoor patios or inside the breweries so that we get a lot of dog lovers who come through. It’s a great time for people to get together to celebrate and enjoy some good beer and some good food.”
It starts by buying a ticket on the Humane Society website, Ross said. “We sell tickets through our website, which is hsfn.org for, $25 per person. You do have to be 21 or older, of course, to purchase them. That money goes straight to the shelter, so it’s helping our animals right now who are currently awaiting adoption. And with that ticket you receive your Pup Crawl T-shirt and what we call our ‘Pawsport,’ which is a brochure with all the brewery and event info located on it.”
Throughout the weekend, each Pup Crawler will visit whichever and however many of the participating breweries they want to, Ross said. “So when they visit a brewery and they make a purchase, whether that’s for food or drink or even merchandise, they will get a stamp on that Pawsport from one of the staff members. And when we have our finale event on Sunday they’ll pass their Pawsport in and receive raffle tickets for each stamp that they’ve got on their Pawsport.”
The prizes for the raffles vary, Ross said, from things you might expect, like branded swag from participating breweries, to things a little harder to come by.
“One of the prizes is four tickets to a pre-season Patriots game,” she said. The most noteworthy prize is something much more personal. “This will be our third year doing this raffle where folks can enter to have their dog featured on next year’s Pup Crawl T-shirt. You can see this year’s T-shirt on our website. Our model is Miss Biscuit. She is an adorable cattle dog mix, and she’s just got a perfect little face for the T-shirt. She and her mom attend Pup Crawl each year, so she was very excited to win the raffle last year and have Biscuit featured on this year’s shirt.”
This year’s Pup Crawl will start on Friday, July 17, from 4 to 7 p.m. at Able Ebenezer Brewing in Merrimack.
“Our finale or closer will be at AJ’s Sports Bar and Grill in Hudson,” Ross said. “We used to host our finales at Anheuser-Busch in Merrimack, but unfortunately the location closed down. We visited AJ’s in Hudson and met with one of the managers there. They were so kind. They actually offer a doggy-friendly menu. You can order food and drink for yourself, but you can also order dog-friendly items like grilled chicken and plain rice for your dog. During the finale, along with the raffle, we’re also going to have a lure course that the dogs can participate in. Basically it is a white bag that’s attached to this zip line that sticks to the ground. Some dogs stay very focused and they run and follow the bag. It’s great exercise. Some of them will even catch the bag. And then you get the dogs like mine who get distracted and just wander off in the field or they just like to roll around in the grass.”
The Humane Society for Greater Nashua’s annual Pup Crawl When and where: begins Friday, July 17, at 4 p.m. at Able Ebenezer Brewing Co. (31 Columbia Circle, Merrimack, 844-223-2253, ableebenezer.com) and ends Sunday, July 10, at AJ’s Sports Bar (11 Tracy Lane, Hudson, 708-1102, ajs-sportsbar.com). Visit participating breweries in between. More: hsfn.org/pup-crawl
The Hillsboro Summerfest will take place from July 9 to July 12. According to the festival chair and creative director, Katherine Charrette, the celebration has been going on in one form or another for 36 years, offering carnival rides, music and community events to raise money for Hillsborough’s Fire Department and in recent years the Lions Club.
”It’s been a few different things over the years,” she said. “We were originally the Fireman’s Muster, so they would get together and compete, and it’s really grown since then. We were the Balloon Fest for a long time, and we’ve recently rebranded in the past seven years as the Hillsboro Summerfest, so we could kind of broaden our scope a little bit.”
“Our proceeds go to the firefighters,” Charrette said, “and their association, which provides lots of medical equipment.and materials that we need. It also splits with the other partner we have, which is the Lions Club. They provide lots of free meals for senior citizens. They do lunches with kids and students at the school. They provide eyewear. We’re completely nonprofit and our goal is to get money from this festival into the pockets of other nonprofits.”
Charrette said that aside from raising money for good causes the goal of Summerfest is to provide affordable entertainment.
“We really try to provide as much free stuff as we possibly can,” she said, “in order to have people not spending a ton of money and be able to really enjoy themselves without a huge price ticket. [What you see] all depends on the day that you show up. If you show up on Thursday, you’re going to see kids and teens running around everywhere, going on all the rides as many times in a row as they can. If you were to show up on Saturday, you could see a 12-foot-tall butterfly, a strongman performance by two-time world record holder Mighty Mike — he’s coming here from Nova Scotia to perform for us — we have stilt walkers, we have a long and very good fireworks show. We have a magic show. We have an RC truck crawler meet-up on Sunday this year — we have a truck that dumps off a bunch of rocks and you can take any kind of RC vehicle that you would like and you’ll be able to just kind of get tips and tricks from other RC enthusiasts … it’s really just about RC vehicles meeting up and learning from one another. And we are doing a giveaway for like a $300 RC crawler truck, which is like … a very tiny version of a lifted Toyota Tacoma.”
Another high point of this year’s Summerfest will be a 5K road race, Charette said.
“We have one of the most beautiful 5K courses in the world. Our route goes along our river and over a beautiful, very old bridge. So that’s a really unique experience.” Another not-to-be-missed event that has become a yearly tradition, she said, is the Women’s Skillet Toss. “All of the proceeds for that go to women’s heart health,” she said. “And this is exactly what it sounds like, which is hucking a skillet as far as you possibly can — only underhand, no overhand. And this year we have added a Men’s Marshmallow Long Drive so we can provide something for men as well. The money raised from that will raise money for men’s mental health.” The Long Drive is golf-oriented, Charette said. “You take your driver and hit a ball as far as you can, only we’ll be using marshmallows because mental health is messy sometimes.”
The Hillsboro Summerfest When: Thursday, July 9, from 6 to 10 p.m.; Friday, July 10, from 5 to 11 p.m.; Saturday, July 11, from 2 to 11 p.m.; and Sunday, July 12, from noon to 5 p.m. Where: Hillsborough Fair Grounds on Henniker Street in Hillsborough. More: hillsborosummerfest.com
Puppeteers for Fears return with AI-themed Robopocalypse
The premise of Robopocalypse: The Musical! sounds, on paper, like a high-speed collision of several ideas.
A tech billionaire invents a self-driving car that accidentally kills his wife, a tragedy that estranges him from his teenage daughter. Unable to communicate, each begins work on AI projects. Neither finishes, but their creations merge accidentally and go rogue, threatening the world, and the only ones who can stop it are two people who can’t talk to each other.
Oh, and there are puppets — wonderfully weird, and futuristic in a zany, retro way.
“It’s a wholly irrational project by any reasonable measure … it shouldn’t exist,” Puppeteers for Fears founder Josh Gross said in a recent Zoom interview. Yet it does, and with sufficient momentum to carry the Portland, Oregon-based hand-and-rod troupe through a 30-city national tour that includes a stop at BNH Stage in Concord on July 14.
Gross first wrote and performed Robopocalypse in 2018, and the world caught up to him some time later. The musical addresses AI at a moment when it’s become, as he puts it, “not science fiction anymore — just science.” When tools like ChatGPT launched a couple years ago, he continued, the company decided it was time to take the show nationwide.
Gross’s production has evolved, but it remains grounded in a philosophical tension between two AI schools of thought.
“One is that it’s a tool; another is that people are actually trying to create life,” he said. “But the thing about all life and consciousness is that a key component is a sense of self-preservation. If something is created as a tool but then achieves consciousness, it’s going to understand that a tool is property. And property doesn’t have control over its own outcomes.”
What’s changed about the show is what it’s wrapped in — a story that’s ultimately about what a parent owes to the life he helped create, and what it owes him. A father is trying to invent his way back to happiness after a tragedy, as his daughter tries to earn his attention by matching him on his own terms.
That two people can’t heal until they’re forced to face something they can only stop together is “a human story that anyone can relate to,” Gross said. “And putting it in the context of what we’re all facing right now, where people have very strong opinions on AI. It’s happening whether we want it to or not; we’ve got to figure out what to do.”
Puppeteers for Fears’ fun characters, Gross believes, are ideal for conveying the hard messages in Robopocalypse. “Puppets exist somewhere between reality and simulation. You can see them doing things, but we also know it’s a performance … someone putting on a mask. We make the conscious decision to accept that this thing lives in between.”
That liminality mirrors the many questions being grappled with when it comes to AI itself, like is it real consciousness or simulated? Is virtual reality real because it’s experienced as such, or manufactured because it’s made of ones and zeros? Hearing it all from talking cars and other next-level creations softens the blow.
The entire score for Robopocalypse was written on analog synthesizer, which Gross learned for the first time from how-to VHS tapes uploaded to YouTube. The Arturia MiniBrute he purchased from Portland vintage store Control Voltage wasn’t easy to tame, he said. “It’s not exactly an instrument you play so much as a runaway train you’re trying to hold on to.”
Gross is quick to say that his puppet musical isn’t for children — but not because of the usual reasons.
“Kids don’t have the attention span for a feature-length show about the nature of grief and technology,” he said. “There are a few f-bombs and some mature content, but the biggest thing is it’s just a bit long.”
That said, BNH Stage lists the performance as 18+.
Puppeteers for Fears is self-contained on the road, traveling with its own screen, lighting trusses, and sound. A recent grant from the Oregon Community Foundation to upgrade what Gross called “technology we’d been holding together with duct tape and shoelaces for a while” really helped elevate Robopocalypse to national tour-worthiness.
It’s a long way from their debut in Ashland, Oregon, on Halloween 2015 in a Renaissance Faire-themed bar that held 30 people but drew over five times that and inspired them to continue. “It continues to astonish me,” Gross said. “I’ve played a lot of empty rooms in other projects.”
Puppeteers for Fears presents Robopocalypse: The Musical! When: Tuesday, July 14, at 8 p.m. Where: BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord Admission: $26, ccanh.com 18+
A look at the creations that take ice cream to another level
There is, of course, no single surefire guaranteed way to put somebody in a good mood. But ice cream comes close and an ice cream sundae adds even more deliciousness.
Perhaps a sundae even helps sell the idea that ice cream is a meal unto itself? Karissa Grey, a scooper at Cremeland Drive In in Manchester said that while scooped ice cream and sundaes sell about equally well, as the day gets later customers are more likely to order sundaes. “Some days it’s just scoops, other days I get a lot of orders for sundaes, but we definitely sell more sundaes in the afternoon than we do in the morning.”
How to sundae? Here are some ideas from some area sundae purveyors.
• Rhubarb Sundae
$4.35 from Richardson’s Farm (170 Water St., Boscawen, 796-2788, richardsonsfarmnh.com)
“It’s a standard sundae,” owner Jim Richardson said, “two scoops of ice cream, whatever kind of sauce, whipped cream, nuts, and cherry. But in this case the sauce is our homemade rhubarb. Several years ago a woman came running up to the front door, pointing at our rhubarb, going, ‘Is that rhubarb?’ I wondered what was wrong with her — it’s obviously rhubarb, but she said she’d never seen it before. I asked her where the heck she came from, and she said, Maryland. I just shook my head.”
Richardson admitted that rhubarb is a bit old-fashioned.
“When I was a little kid,” he said, “my grandmother always had a rhubarb sauce on the stove in the springtime. And you had to have it to thin your blood. If you didn’t thin your blood in the springtime, you’d overheat in the summertime. So anyway, after the Maryland lady left, I thought, ‘Geez, I haven’t done that in years,’ so I made a big pot of rhubarb sauce.”
The rhubarb sauce was popular enough that Richardson added strawberry-rhubarb and blueberry-rhubarb ice creams into his rotation. “It sells better than plain strawberry does,” he said. “We have a constant demand for it.”
• Strawberry sundae
Strawberry Sundae at King Kone Photo by staff.
$6.75 for a small at King Kone (366 DW Highway in Merrimack, kingkonenh.com)
Known for their massive soft-serve ice cream cone, which you can get dipped or with toppings, King Kone also offers banana splits and sundaes, which are equally generous in size. Sundae offerings include hot fudge, peanut butter, pineapple, hot butterscotch, brownie and, for your berry cravings, a Strawberry Sundae, which you can get with your choice of soft-serve. At a recent visit, options included vanilla, chocolate, peanut butter, blueberry and, for maximum flavor, strawberry. The strawberry soft-serve was topped with syrupy strawberries, whipped cream, nuts and cherry.
“It’s like a banana split, without the banana,” said scooper Damaris Gilbert. “There’s three scoops of ice cream, and three — all of the toppings match up to the flavors, so there are strawberries on the strawberry [ice cream] and hot fudge on the chocolate ice cream, but what kind of topping matches up to vanilla? Well, pineapples are kind of the same color.”
Gilbert said that in her professional opinion the Dudley’s Special should be split between two or more people. “If I was going to eat a banana split or a Dudley’s Special or either of them, I would bring a team, personally,” she said, “but loads of people eat it by themselves. The Dudley’s Special is one of those mysterious types of things with aura where you remember when someone orders one. You remember the specific person who ordered it.”
• Ice Cream Sundae (bespoke)
A small for $6.50 at Granite State Candy Shoppe (13 Warren St., Concord, 225-2591; 832 Elm St., Manchester, 218-3885, granitestatecandyshoppe.com)
“I wanted to make you happy today,” said scooper Tasha Ross, “so I made you a lovely small sundae which consists of two scoops. I added one scoop of fudge brownie and another scoop of our peanut butter cup ice cream. On top, I put a little bit of chocolate fudge, and peanut butter sauce. The toppings I added were mini peanut butter cups and I also added some almonds since how can you have fudge brownies without almonds? And then I finished it off with some rainbow sprinkles and topped it with whipped cream and cherries.”
Granite State Candy sells more than 25 flavors of hard ice cream at any given time, Ross said. “If you order a large [sundae], you can add an extra flavor. We have four vegan flavors that are available in kinder, small, large, pint, or quart-sized. And our sundaes come in micro, small, and large sizes.”
“Because,” she repeated, “we want you to be happy.”
• Medium Three-Topping Sundae
$9.76 at Social Club Creamery (138 N. Main St., Concord, 333-2111, socialclubcreamery.com)
At the Social Club Creamery there are two ice cream menus. One menu is permanent, featuring always-there, familiar flavors, like double chocolate, maple latte, honeycomb or gooey butter cake. Additionally there is a second, smaller menu of seasonal flavors that changes each month. In July, for instance, it’s possible to order black raspberry chip, blueberry cheesecake, raspberry-brownie batter, or strawberry lemonade sorbet, which is vegan.
Asked to make a “very good sundae,” scoopers Maddie Dwyer and Chloe MacNevin consulted briefly and made a medium sundae with three toppings — a scoop each of Patty’s peppermint and double chocolate ice cream, with hot fudge, whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles. This particular sundae has not been named yet, they said, but if it were, it would be a staff favorite.
A Happy Cake Bowl is a sort of hybrid sundae, said Sweet Bel’s owner Jennifer Belmore.
“We cut cake up into cubes, and we put it in the bottom of a bowl and then you get to pick your ice cream. You get to pick your hot topping and then it’s covered in whipped cream and sprinkles and a cherry. It’s kind of like a throwback to your younger days when you had a birthday and you had your cake and ice cream. We’ve got away from that for some reason. And who doesn’t love cake and ice cream?”
• Fried Dough Sundae
$10.95 at Cremeland Drive In (250 Valley St., Manchester, 669-4430, see page on Facebook)
“The Fried Dough Sundae is pretty popular,” said Cremeland scooper Karissa Grey, “but not as much as the banana split, which is the favorite, especially in the afternoon. But the Fried Dough Sundae is literally just exactly what it says. It’s a piece of fried dough with ice cream, liquid topping, with cream and a cherry.”
The number of flavors of ice cream Cremeland carries depends on the time of year, Grey said. “It really depends on the time of the season, because we’re seasonal. So sometimes we have just our bare-bones flavors, like at the beginning of the season, at the end of the season. And other times, like right now, I think there’s 27 on the board.”
The secret to making a good sundae, Grey said, is attention to details.
“It’s my favorite thing to do,” she said, “making them look nice. It’s important not to rush, honestly. A lot of people, when it gets busy, will just rush to get things out. But you eat with your eyes first, not your mouth, and that plays a big part in — I feel like, that’s one of the things that make people want to come here or not.”
• Large Hot Fudge Sundae
$9.95 at The Big 1 (185 Concord St., Nashua, thebig1icecream.com)
Jeanne Marquis, the owner of The Big 1, said a traditional hot fudge sundae is far and away the most popular of her treats.
“The classic vanilla hard ice cream with hot fudge is the most popular,” she said. “Our parfaits run second to that. We have hot caramel and hot butterscotch sauces as well. They all sell extremely well. And they’re all kind of classics, really.”
• Brownie Sundae
$7.83 at The Inside Scoop (260 Wallace Road, Bedford, 471-7009, theinsidescoopnh.com)
According to scooper Courtney Winands, the brownie sundae is the most popular enhanced ice cream dish at the Inside Scoop.
“It’s a fudge brownie on the bottom, with ice cream and a topping,” she said. While you can get any flavor ice cream, she recommends Maine blackberry: “It’s a red raspberry base, with chocolate raspberry truffles. That goes really well with hot fudge, whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles.” She said that when ordering for themselves most customers order a single scoop of ice cream or a kid’s size ice cream. Full-sized sundaes are generally a team effort, she observed.
• Classic Banana Split
$11.94 at Moo’s Place Homemade Ice Cream (27 Crystal Ave., Derry, 425-0100, moosplace.com)
Moo’s has more than 30 flavors of ice cream — not counting soft-serve, frozen yogurt, sorbets and other frozen treats — all made on the premises. One of its most popular sundaes is a classic banana split, with three scoops of ice cream, a banana, three toppings, whipped cream, chopped walnuts and a cherry, according to its website.
• Small Banana Boat
$12 at Hayward’s Ice Cream (364 DW Highway, Merrimack, 424-5915; 7 DW Highway in Nashua, 888-4663; haywardsicecream.com)
You are pretty much spoiled for choice with ice cream flavors at Hayward’s in Merrimack and Nashua. There are always at least 45 flavors of hard ice cream, which is made in house. A small banana boat has two scoops of ice cream, two types of sauce, a banana, whipped cream, chopped walnuts and a cherry. Like the ice cream, the sauces can be customized. The choices include strawberry, hot fudge, marshmallow and pineapple.
• Banana Float Sundae
$10 at Trombly Gardens (150 N. River Road, Milford, 673-0647, tromblygardens.net)
Trombly Gardens is better known as a farm stand and garden nursery but has a steady stream of ice cream customers, said scooper Mackenzie Burke. One of the most popular sundaes is Trobley’s Banana Float Sundae.
“It has three scoops of strawberry ice cream,” she said, “hot fudge, caramel, and butterscotch toppings, with walnuts on it, whipped cream and cherries. Strawberry is our most popular flavor for our banana float sundaes, especially now, during strawberry season.”
Burke said her personal favorite is “chocolate with chocolate on chocolate.”
Cookie Monster Sundae at Hayward’s Family Ice Cream of Milford. Photo by John Fladd.
• Cookie Monster Sundae
$9.75 at Hayward’s Family Ice Cream of Milford (383 Elm St., Milford, 672-8383, haywardsfamilyicecream.com)
A Cookie Monster Sundae is made with bright blue Cookie Monster ice cream, marshmallow sauce, and frozen nuggets of cookie dough, topped with more Cookie Monster ice cream, more marshmallow, and even more frozen cookie dough.
• King Shake
$12.95 at Lickee’s & Chewy’s Candy and Creamery (53 Washington St., Dover, 343-1799, lickeesnchewys.com)
Meaka Cruz is one of the managers at Lickee’s & Chewy’s. She said the store focuses on King Shakes, though the two are very similar.
“We offer a lot of creative sundaes, I suppose,” she said, “but we’re probably more about the King Shakes, which can be made as sundaes. They have chocolate rims on the side and fun toppings to mix with the ice cream, like Nutella, hot fudge, and then nuts and sprinkles. They all have kind of intricate toppings and themes that we typically strive for. A new one that we have right now … [has] Nutella and strawberries. Our chocolatiers decorate the cups with hard chocolate syrup on the side [and] top it with frozen strawberries and a Kinder Bueno bar.”
Cruz has a theory about why ice cream places develop such elaborate desserts with their ice creams.
“I think it’s to be creative and draw people in,” she said. “Everywhere else does something cool and unique, so I feel like each store wants to express themselves and tries to put something great out.”
SUNDAE PANEL The Big 1 185 Concord St., Nashua, thebig1icecream.com Cremeland Drive In 250 Valley St., Manchester, 669-4430, see page on Facebook Dudley’s Ice Cream 846 Route 106, Loudon, 783-4800, facebook.com/dudleysicecreamshop Granite State Candy Shoppe 13 Warren St., Concord, 225-2591; 832 Elm St., Manchester, 218-3885, granitestatecandyshoppe.com Hayward’s Ice Cream 364 DW Highway, Merrimack, 424-5915; 7 DW Highway, Nashua, 888-4663; haywardsicecream.com Hayward’s Family Ice Cream of Milford 383 Elm St., Milford, 672-8383, haywardsfamilyicecream.com The Inside Scoop 260 Wallace Road, Bedford, 471-7009, theinsidescoopnh.com King Kone 366 DW Highway in Merrimack, kingkonenh.com Lickee’s & Chewy’s Candy and Creamery 53 Washington St., Dover, 343-1799, lickeesnchewys.com Moo’s Place Homemade Ice Cream 27 Crystal Ave., Derry, 425-0100, moosplace.com Richardson’s Farm 170 Water St., Boscawen, 796-2788, richardsonsfarmnh.com Social Club Creamery 138 N. Main St., Concord, 333-2111, socialclubcreamery.com Sweet Bel’s Ice Cream & Dessert Creations 608 DW Highway, Merrimack, 670-2161, sweetbels.com Trombly Gardens 150 N. River Road, Milford, 673-0647, tromblygardens.net
The National Park Service approved New Hampshire’s 10-year historic preservation plan, which is available to view at nhdhr.dncr.nh.gov, according to a N.H. Department of Natural & Cultural Resources press release on June 29. “According to the NHDHR, which serves as the state’s historic preservation office, ‘New Hampshire’s 10-Year Preservation Plan’ provides a snapshot of the current status of historic preservation in New Hampshire, looks back at what’s been happening statewide, and ‘looks forward with a vision vital to preserving New Hampshire’s identity,’” the release said. The plan identifies four goals: “increase public awareness and appreciation of historic properties and special places for their influence in the economic vitality, sense of place, and identity at the state and local level;” “Broaden content, availability and use of training opportunities, while expanding access to existing information and guidance;” “Incorporate and strengthen historic preservation as an element in local, regional, state and federal decision-making, ensuring its role as a critical part of interdisciplinary planning efforts,” and “Expand the use and availability of existing funding and incentives and promote the creation of new funding and incentives for historic and cultural resources,” the release said.
Make a game
Derry Public Library, 64 E. Broadway in Derry, will hold its “first-ever Game Jam” on Saturday, Aug. 8, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., according to derrypl.org, where you can sign up. “Join forces with others to make a team, and then work together to make your very own board game! After 5 hours of design up, compare notes with the other teams, and show off and play the games you’ve made! Lunch will be provided. Families are encouraged to attend together, but all children under 13 must be accompanied by an adult,” the website said.
Master class & concert
Broadway touring performer and Manchester Community Music School alumna Rachel Pantazis will be at the school to offer a master class and a concert performance on Thursday, Aug. 13, according to a school newsletter. Musical theater performers can register by July 15 at mcmusicschool.org to be considered for participation in the class, which will run from 4 to 6 p.m. on Aug. 13. The concert, “Rachel Pantazis: A Homecoming,” will take place Aug. 13 at 7 p.m., according to the website, where you can purchase “pay what you can” tickets. Pantazis “has built an exciting professional career as a New York City-based actor, vocalist, and teaching artist,” according to the newsletter. “Most recently, she completed the international tour of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory across Asia, performing as Grandma Georgina/Oompa Loompa Puppeteer and understudying Mrs. Teavee. She has also toured North America as Meg March in Little Women, performed in regional theaters across the East Coast, worked as a production singer with Carnival Cruise Line, and now teaches voice while inspiring young performers throughout NYC.”
The 10th Annual Swim With a Mission, which raises money for veterans services organizations, will take place Saturday, July 11, at Wellington State Park in Bristol featuring 1K, 5K and 10K individual swims as well as a 10K team relay and a 5K team memorial swim, according to a post on the organization’s Facebook page. See swam.org/swim26 to register and for details.
Center for the Arts in New London, centerfortheartsnh.org, will celebrate Arts Week 2026 from Friday, July 10, through Sunday, July 19, with events in the Lake Sunapee Region and the theme “Serenity, Joy and Roots,” according to a press release. This weekend’s events include trivia night at Hoptimystic Brewing in Sunapee Harbor on Thursday, July 10, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., and events at The Livery in Sunapee Harbor including an opening reception on Friday, July 11, from 5 to 7 p.m. of “Naturally New England Art & Photography Show”; a sing-along with the Ukudaylies on Saturday, July 12, from 3 to 5 p.m., and “Lake Nights & Gallery Lights: Ladies Night with Brooks Hubbard” on Sunday, July 13, at 6 p.m. (tickets required). See centerfortheartsnh.org/arts-week-2026 for a complete schedule.
Swim with a Mission will also take part in Mission 250, a celebration at Tuscan Village in Salem on Sunday, July 12, from 2 to 9 p.m. featuring military flyovers and demonstrations, a car show, a fireworks display, food trucks, live music, raffles and silent auctions hosted by SWAM and more, according to a press release. “Visitors can also test their strength, endurance, and determination during the Mission 250 Fitness Challenge, hosted by Drive Custom Fit at Tuscan Village from 3 to 5 p.m.,” the release said. See swam.org and tuscanvillagesalem.com.
