Peter Bradley Adams makes first New Hampshire appearance
In 1999, Robbie Robertson recognized the talents of Peter Bradley Adams and brought his band Eastmountainsouth into the studio to make a critically acclaimed album. Adams went solo a few years later and has produced a steady stream of stellar music since. In the pre-internet era he would headline summer sheds, but this is now and Adams is content to have a dedicated audience that fills up places like the Music Hall Lounge in Portsmouth, where he appears Oct. 2. It’s his first time performing in New Hampshire.
Adams has a storyteller’s knack for pulling listeners into his songs. The title track of his last full-length album A Face Like Mine is a hardscrabble portrait of generational regret, a Steinbeck novella sung like a James Taylor song. Miles Away, a four-song EP released in spring 2024, couples apocalyptic allegory on the title traack with the optimism of “When She Comes” — the latter has a lovely harmony from Ruth Moody of the Wailin’ Jennys and a haunting Mayuri Vasan outro.
One of the most appealing things about Adams is his voice, soothing and understated while also utterly engaging. Which is why it’s strange that he resisted using it for a long time, until the legendary leader of The Band nudged him. Born into a musical family, discovering his dad’s Beatles records at age 5 helped seal his fate as a musician. But at the time he met Robertson, Adams considered himself a composer, not a singer-songwriter.
“I was hiding a bit in the beginning behind Kat, the other half of the duo, and he was like, ‘Man, I really want you to sing more,’” Adams said recently from his home in Nashville. “I would get off the phone and be like, ‘f-ing Robbie Robertson just told you to do this, how can you not?’ I’m really grateful that he got what I was, could kind of hear what I was trying to reach…. We weren’t close friends or anything, but I do feel very connected to him because of that.”
Adams often goes it alone in the studio, building songs track by track, but lately he’s missing the spark of playing with other musicians.
“I realized that it was just killing me, that process, trying to construct something that felt like people in the room together,” he said. “Sometimes it works and a lot of times it doesn’t.”
He’s drawn to working with others. One example is the gorgeous “Rachel’s Song,” co-written and recorded with musician and director Haroula Rose for her film Once Upon a River. In that spirit, Adams reconnected with his longtime friend and collaborator Lex Price when he began to think about making a new album earlier this year.
“I’ve worked with him really longer than anyone…. He’s one of the reasons why I moved to Nashville,” he said. “We talked about it, and he said, ‘Let’s get an incredible band and go in the studio. And it’s not like it all has to happen live, but get as much as we can live so that all the elements are going down at the same time. I know this is how you’re supposed to make a record on some level. But it was just good for me to actually do it again.”
They went into Nashville’s Blackbird Studio, with Price on bass, Todd Lombardo playing acoustic guitar, electric guitarist Jed Hughes and Jerry Rowe on drums. “These are all the best guys in town, that straddle doing really interesting, creative, independent stuff,” Adams said, adding, “I’ve got almost a full record.”
As icing on the cake, Adams is heading out to his old hometown of Los Angeles to record Greg Leisz on steel guitar for one of the tracks. Leisz is a legend who’s worked with everyone from Joe Cocker to Sheryl Crow as well as Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan. He’s also produced records by Jackson Browne, Greg Copeland and others. “For me he’s like a prophet,” Adams said. “I mean, he is just my favorite musician in the world … there’s just no one like him.”
World Music for Peace – The Meter Maids, Amorphous Band w/ Senie Hunt & EJ Ouellette, and Big Blue World When: Friday, Sept. 20, 7:30 p.m. Where: Rockingham Ballroom, 22 Ash Swamp Road, Newmarket Tickets: $20 at coastalsoundsnh.com (21+)
Senie Hunt Trio appears Thursday, Sept. 19, at 9 p.m. at Penuche’s Ale House in Concord, and Senie Hunt plays solo at the Concord Multicultural Festival in Keach Park on Sunday, Sept. 22, at 3 p.m.
Featured photo: Senie Hunt.Courtesy photo.Photo by Christine Torrey (Birch & Fern Photography)
Three women bristle around each other in a New York apartment as they wait out their father’s final moments in His Three Daughters, a quiet movie packed with bittersweet humor and first-rate performances.
Oldest sister Katie (Carrie Coon) comes from Brooklyn, where she lives with her family that includes a teenage daughter she is clashing with. Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) is the mother to a young toddler and lives somewhere on the West Coast. They return to their father’s apartment, where he lives with Rachel (Natasha Lyonne), the daughter of his second wife, who he has raised since she was little. He is her father, she is his daughter, as Rachel explains at one point, as much as he is the father of Katie and Christina, but you can tell they’ve never entirely thought that.
On top of the difficult relationship they’ve clearly always had, they are now all dealing with grief — Rachel by getting and staying high, Katie by being angry at that and pretty much everything else Rachel does, and Christina, who we get the sense is always a little woo-woo, by what feels like aggressive meditation and forceful positivity. Katie and to some extent Christina sort of poke at Rachel about the fact that she will get their father’s large rent-controlled apartment to herself when he’s gone. Benjy (Jovan Adepo), Rachel’s boyfriend, urges her to stand up for herself and the fact that she has been with her father through his illness, taking care of him and keeping him company. And everybody seems to agree that Christina is, as Benjy said, not on this planet. These are three big personalities squished together in an apartment — big personalities with a lot of feelings they don’t know how to manage. It’s claustrophobic, it’s darkly funny and it’s occasionally throat-grabbingly sad.
There’s an almost stage-play quality to some of the elements of this movie — the mostly-in-one-apartment setting, the conversations between sisters — but with the best that an indie movie has to offer in the way it can study characters or root an insular space in a larger setting. The movie often gives us long, close shots of the women as they’re talking or just sitting and thinking. They don’t have the space to get away but we get the space and the time to really watch them — and to watch the excellent performances that Olsen, Coon and Lyonne are giving. The women give you so much with facial expressions and looks — the hard set of Coon’s face, Lyonne’s big-eyed gazes, Olsen’s ability to look quiet and neutral and also sort of crazed and at the end of her emotional rope. The movie can organically have them deliver monologues about their dad and also fight saying almost nothing and it all reads as believable. The movie also gets the balance of humor, dark humor and sadness just right. A
Rated R for language and drug use, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Azazel Jacobs, His Three Daughters is an hour and 41 minutes long and is in theaters and streaming on Netflix.
Transformers One (PG)
Before they were Optimus Prime and Megatron, the rival Transformers from Cybertron were Orion Pax and D-16 in Transformers One, an animated origin story for the Transformers and perhaps for a new approach to the franchise.
And while these Transformers are animated and lacking in the PG-13-ness of Michael Bay’s whole weird Megan Fox live-action deal, the movie is probably right at the edge of what I’d show to younger Transformers fans (think older elementary school-aged or so), what with all the robot-on-robot violence and characters being sliced in half and whatnot. I definitely heard some concerned squeaks from kids in the theater during some of the scarier parts. One of the too-cool-for-elementary-school kids I saw the movie with, while declining to call the movie scary, did say there were some creepy parts.
The animated nature of the movie does, however, allow for what feel like fuller, more complete personalities for the Transformers than some of the live-action movies. While we are still dealing with actor voices and separately generated images, these Transformers feel more, I don’t know, nuanced? We’re watching Orion Pax and his good buddy D-16 on their journeys to becoming Optimus and Megatron and I felt like the movie did a good job of showing those character arcs.
When we start out, Orion Pax (voice of Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (voice of Brian Tyree Henry) are miners looking for Energon, the Transformers’ energy source, which used to flow freely on Cybertron but has become harder to find since the Primes died during a conflict years earlier. (And if that all sounds like nonsense words, maybe just: “robots search for glowy blue stuff.”) But Orion firmly believes he and his friend are more than meets the eye, despite their lowly social status and inability to transform. To prove that, he tricks D-16 into joining a big race that only transforming Transformers have ever competed in. They don’t win, but their moxie attracts the attention of Sentinel Prime (voice of John Hamm), the big noise hero and leader of their massive city-state. He promises them that they’ll become role models, but a jealous competitor sends them to the garbage transfer room, where B-127 (voice of Keegan-Michael Key), who is called B, or maybe “Badassatron” if he can make that nickname stick, is ecstatic see other people for once. When it turns out some of the trash contains information that could help Sentinel Prime find a path to more Energon, Orion, D-16 and B think they’ve found their ticket out of the garbage room and begin a quest.
Eventually they join up with Elita-1 (voice of Scarlett Johansson), make it to the surface, learn a bunch of surprising information and are ready for a fight that eventually tears our core duo apart.
Spoiler alert, I guess? Except that Megatron v. Optimus Prime is probably the base level of information everybody has going in about the Transformers.
And if that’s all you know going into this movie, that’s probably fine. This is a pretty standard, easy-to-follow story about how people respond to discovering injustice — with a call for revenge or a call for, like, a more perfect union. If you are a bigger fan (or a parent who has had Transformer toys and cartoons injected into your life), you’ll appreciate the “hey it’s Starscream” and the “ha, the boombox guy.” And I think either way, viewers can enjoy this story that makes Transformers more individual characters than just the CGI marvels most are in the live-action movies. And I appreciated the effort put into the vocal work — Hemsworth allows you to hear that deep Optimus voice emerge from Orion’s more happy-go-lucky youngster while Henry turns D into a villain more in the Magneto vein, someone with justifiable anger who makes some good points.
Transformers One is also visually winning, adding both warmth and beauty to these metallic characters and their world. B+
Rated PG for sci-fi violence and animated action throughout, and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Josh Cooley with a screenplay by Eric Pearson and Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari, Transformers One is an hour and 44 minutes long and is distributed in theaters by Paramount Pictures.
Didi (R)
Young teens young-teen it up the summer before high school in Didi, a sweet, charming, only occasionally traumatic story written and directed by Sean Wang.
Based on his background as a Taiwanese-American who grew up in the Bay Area, as he describes in various media reports, Wang seems to be riffing on his own experiences for the experiences of Chris Wang (Izaac Wang) in the summer of 2008, all MySpace and Facebook and awkwardness everywhere. Chris, called Wang Wang by his friend group, is both kind of a mess and totally fine in that very specific young teen way. He gets along horribly with his big sister Vivian (Shirley Chen) who is about to leave for college. He is embarrassed by and sassy to his mom Chungsing Wang (Joan Chen) while politely semi-ignoring his paternal grandma Nai Nai (Zhang Li Hua), who lives with the family. Not living with the family is Chris’s father, who is working in Taiwan — a state of things that seems to irk everybody even as they are all resigned to it. Chungsing in particular seems frustrated with how this has all worked out for her. The movie spends a fair amount of time with Chungsing, a painter whose artistic ambitions have taken a backseat to raising her kids and caring for her hypercritical mother-in-law. We also in small ways get to see Vivian, her relationship with these two women and how she fits in with this family that she is moving a day’s drive away from for college.
But of course Chris is the movie’s true focus. We see him attempt to date a girl he has long been interested in, have falling-outs with his friends and attempt to impress an older group of skater kids — a lot of which plays out on MySpace and Facebook and via AOL Instant Messenger. Along the way, there is a lot of asking YouTube for advice — on how to kiss, on how to shoot a skater film. It’s all very cute and traumatizing in that “watching through your fingers” way as Chris tells a very boy-based, girl-horrifying story on a group date or fronts like he can handle various party intoxicants only to wind up puking in the bathroom. Mixed in with the standard teenage stuff are Chris’s struggles with what it means for him to be Asian — which comes with its own microaggressions even in this culturally diverse environment — and to be an American-raised kid with American desires even as his mother and grandmother have their own different (from Chris and from each other) cultural expectations and experiences. The movie does a great job of pulling this all in while still keeping the story very much on his specific life, his specific feelings and his difficult time communicating his feelings particularly to his friends. (Rather than say he was embarrassed or explain what he’s feeling he tends to just block his friends on AIM.) And all the stuff with his family seems equally well-drawn — the sibling relationship, with its horribleness and its supportiveness, is wonderfully spot-on. Excellent performances all the way around in this very solid movie. A
Rated R for language throughout, sexual material, and drug and alcohol use — all involving teens, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Sean Wang, Didi is an hour and 33 minutes long and distributed by Focus Features. It is available for rent or purchase and in theaters.
A traditional celebration of beer in Munich, Germany, Oktoberfest has been held each fall since 1810, and it has been adopted by many American breweries and brew pubs. Oddball Brewing in Suncook will hold its first Oktoberfest on Saturday, Oct. 12. For co-owner and brewer Joe Friolet, that means focusing intensely on the beer.
“We do a Märzen-style Oktoberfest,” he said. “That’s more of your traditional style.” Märzen is a pale, traditional, Munich-style lager. Friolet describes it as “still malty and flavorful — just an easy-drinking, full-bodied Oktoberfest.”
While it might be tempting to play around with a Märzen, to try infusing it with fruits or spices, Friolet said that would not be in the proper Oktoberfest spirit.
“The Germans are very purist, “ he said. “They don’t like fruit or anything else added to their beer besides yeast, water, hops and barley.” The oldest food purity law in history, Munich’s Beer Purity Law, enacted under Wilhelm IV in 1516, limits the ingredients allowed in beer to water, barley malt and hops. (The law was relaxed slightly in the 1800s to allow yeast.) “A fruited sour beer would not be a thing that would happen in Germany,” Friolet said. “The Märzen just spoke to us; it was more of the classic style.”
Oddball has saved its whimsy for another fall beer, its Built Gourd Tough Pumpkin Spiced Ale. “It’s based off of a pumpkin pie,” Friolet said. “So it comes in around 9.5 percent [Alcohol By Volume, or ABV]. It’s got real pumpkin in it and it’s roasted with brown sugar. There’s a little lactose for sweetness for the whipped cream aspect. It’s got some graham cracker malt and it also has some spices, so, you know, like your cinnamon and molasses for extra flavor.” While it isn’t an authentic Munich-style Oktoberfest beer, it is very Octobery.
While Oddball Brewing is just starting to celebrate Oktoberfest, the Mile Away Restaurant in Milford is reaching the end of an era. After more than 50 years, the restaurant and event venue will close permanently at the end of September, and its yearly Oktoberfest Dinner on Oct. 6 will be its last meal.
“This is our largest outdoor event to the public every year,” said Kyle Altman, the Mile Away’s general manager. “This year is going to serve not only as our final Oktoberfest but kind of a farewell to the Mile Away since the property was just sold to a charter school.”
Altman said that the restaurant’s connection with Oktoberfest and all things Teutonic goes back to the 1960s. The Mile Away was originally started by two men from Switzerland, Ernst Kell and Joe Zund.
“Because of the heavy Swiss influence, there was a lot of German atmosphere to the whole restaurant and German food,” Altman said. “When it was purchased by the Murphy family from the original owners in 1996, Kevin and Sandy Murphy had actually just come back from teaching overseas in Germany for two years. So it was a natural fit to start doing an Oktoberfest as a kind of an end to the wedding season.”
Oktoberfest has always been one of the high points of the year for the Mile Away.
“It’s always been this big blowout,” Altman said, “because it’s a completely outdoor event. We have three bars, we have authentic German food, and we have special beer that’s made in Germany that we’re the only ones in the state of New Hampshire that can receive this beer. We have to order it months and months in advance. There’s a live tuba band, people are always encouraged to come in traditional Bavarian lederhosen and all the staff dresses up. It’s the largest outdoor event that the Mile Away does every year.”
Upcoming Oktoberfest celebrations
• The Hop Knot (1000 Elm St., Manchester, 232-3731, hopknotnh.com) will have a rotating series of seasonal beers (Oktoberfest, festbiers, Marzens, pumpkin, ciders, etc.) from various breweries around New England.
• Daydreaming Brewing Co. (1 1/2 E. Broadway, Derry, 965-3454, cask.life/daydreaming-brewing-co) will have German Schwarzbier on as well as Marzen available throughout September and October. Daydreaming will also hold a 16-line tap event at Cask & Vine (1 E. Broadway, Derry, 965-3454, cask.life/cask-and-vine) with 12 Weihenstephaner beers and four additional Oktoberfest beers, along with a stein hoisting qualifying competition that runs the entire month of September, followed by an elimination round and finals into October. $25 gets you entry into the competition, a commemorative liter stein and a liter of any of the 16 options on draft.
• Samuel Adams Brewing (samueladams.com) and Dover restaurants will present the 16th AnnualDover Oktoberfest Saturday, Sept. 28, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in downtown Dover. Tickets are available at participating bars for $20. Visit facebook.com/DoverOktoberfest.
• Join Talespinner Brewery (57 Factory St., Suite B, Nashua, 318-3221, ramblingtale.com) for its third annual Oktoberfest gathering, Saturday, Sept. 28, from 1 to 5 p.m. in its new outdoor Biergarten (weather-dependent). The afternoon includes a stein-holding competition, German spelling bee, costume contest and more. Rambling House Food & Gathering will be serving brats and pretzels to pair with TaleSpinner brews. This is a 21+ event.
• There will be an Oktoberfest Polka & Pints Pub Crawls in Nashua, Manchester and Concord, Saturday, Sept. 28, from 4 to 11 p.m. Visit Pubcrawls.com.
• Henniker Brewing Co. (129 Centervale Road, Henniker, 428-3579, hennikerbrewing.com) will hold a four-day celebration of Oktoberfest, Thursday, Oct. 3, through Sunday, Oct. 6. There will be a special Oktoberfest menu, trivia, stein-holding, barrel-rolling, stein-racing, yodeling, pretzel-tossing, live music and more.
• There will be a Fall Fest Block Party at 603 Brewery (42 Main St., Londonderry, 404-6123, 603brewery.com), Saturday, Oct. 5, from noon to 9:30 p.m. The party will take over Main Street with food trucks, live music, a stein holding contest, axe throwing, 603 Scratch Kitchen specials and more.
• Celebrate Oktoberfest at the Mile Away Restaurant (52 Federal Hill, Milford, 673-3904, mileawayrestaurantnh.com) with the Tubafrau Hoffbråu Band, Sunday, Oct. 6, from 12:30 to 5:30 p.m. Dinner plates with German specialties like sauerbraten, schweineschnitzel and jaeger chicken with German side-dishes are $20. Event is cash-only; there is a $20 per car parking fee.
• Long Blue Cat Brewing (298 Rockingham Road, Londonderry, 818-8068, longbluecat.com) will participate in two Oktoberfest events this season. One is an Oktoberfest Celebration, Oct. 12, from noon to 10 p.m. at Fody’s Tavern (187 1/2 Rockingham Road, Derry, 404-6946, fodystavern.com), with Oktoberfest activities as well as beer and food. Long Blue Cat will also have an Farm Day/Oktoberfest event at Little Red Hen Farm (85 Norris Road, Pittsfield, 568-5540, littleredhenfarm.net) on Oct. 19. There will be a food truck, a beer tent and local vendors with New Hampshire-made crafts and food for sale and to sample. There will also be farm tours and petting.
• The White Mountain Octoberfest will be held Oct. 12 through Oct. 14 at Loon Mountain Resort (60 Loon Mountain Road, Lincoln, 745-8111, loonmtn.com). This three-day festival is the region’s largest celebration of German food, drink and music. There will be beer, live oompah bands, axe throwing, pretzel necklace-making, keg-tossing, stein-carrying and more. Admission is free. Visit loonmtn.com/events/oktoberfest.
• The New Hampshire Brew Fest (nhbrewfest.com) is Saturday, Oct. 12, from 1 to 4:30 p.m.. Held on the grounds of Cisco Brewers Portsmouth (35 Corporate Drive, Portsmouth, 380-7575, ciscobrewersportsmouth.com), New England craft breweries and food trucks will gather to raise money for the Prescott Park Arts Festival and the New England District of the Master Brewers Association of Americas. Admission includes entry to the session specified on individual tickets, beer samples and live music and festivities. Food is available for purchase. VIP tickets are $80 with noon access. General admission tickets are $60, with access at 1 p.m.. Designated driver tickets are $20 and include entry, food and non-alcoholic drink vouchers. Taps-down occurs at 4 p.m.
• Oddball Brewing (6 Glass St., Suncook, 210-5654, oddballbrewingnh.com) will hold its first Oktoberfest Saturday, Oct. 12, from 2 to 9 p.m., with beer specials, food specials like bratwursts and pretzels, and a stein hoisting competition. Live music from 4 to 6 p.m.
• Rockingham Brewing Co. (1 Corporate Park Drive, Unit 1, Derry, 216-2324, rockinghambrewing.com) will host its annual Steinfest on Saturday, Oct 12, from 1 to 8 p.m. There will be four German-style beers on tap, available in one-liter stein pours. There will be a men’s & women’s stein hoisting competition and Teenie Wienies Food Truck will be there with German-style Bratwurst.
• The New Hampshire Ski Club (nhskiclub.org), will hold an Oktoberfest Schussbomb on Saturday, Oct. 26, from 6 to 11 p.m. at the Sweeney Post American Legion, 251 Maple St., Manchester. Come dressed in Octoberfest clothing with a chance to win a prize for the best costume. Doors open at 6 p.m., and dancing starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25.
• The Mile Away Restaurant’s(52 Federal Hill, Milford, 673-3904, mileawayrestaurantnh.com) Oktoberfest on Sunday, Oct. 6, from 12:30 to 5:30 p.m. will be the popular venue’s last event. Dinner plates featuring German specialties like sauerbraten, schweineschnitzel and jaeger chicken with German side-dishes are $20. This is a cash-only event and there is a $20 per car parking fee.
Local brews
Here are some of the fall-themed and Oktoberfest beers at area breweries. Know of one not mentioned here? Let us know at [email protected].
• Able Ebenezer Brewing Co. (31 Columbia Circle, Merrimack, 844-223-2253, ableebenezer.com): Gemütlich Oktoberfest Märzen
• Backyard Brewery and Kitchen (1211 S. Mammoth Road, Manchester, 623-3545, backyardbrewerynh.com); Oktoberfest Märzen
The Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce’s downtown Visitors Center is an oasis for art lovers. New Hampshire Furniture Masters and the New Hampshire Art Association both display works there. Currently, sculpture and otherworldly tables and chairs built by Jon Brooks are streetside, while 11 paintings from Yildiz Grodowski adorn the back wall.
Grodowski was born in Istanbul, Turkey, and studied there before moving to New England; she’s lived in the Boston area for most of her life. Speaking by phone recently, she described herself as “a semi-abstract artist, because there are always recognizable elements in my paintings.”
These include scraps of text: handwritten or from newspapers, magazines or sources, like the Viking cruise ship brochure found in the lively “One Step at a Time.” The latter work is part of a series called “Into The Woods,” which occupies the first half of her exhibit, “Where Will I Take You.” Its four pieces — there are more, she said — are evocative, playful and joyous.
The first, “Ménage a Quatre,” has a bird with bits of sky in its wings rising toward three Dali-esque windows capped by a staircase to the stars. Below this raucous activity is a street scene that looks cribbed from a mid-20th-century European fashion magazine. The next two, “Her Hands Were Watching Me” and “One Step at a Time,” are colorful and animated.
The final painting of the group, “Take Me to Where the Wild Things Grow,” is subdued. It’s also beautifully textured, another characteristic of her work. It’s an important reason why looking at photos of her art online can’t do them justice.
Her overall selection of works for the exhibit, which ends in early November, was done in hopes of holding onto summer as it fades away.
“I like warm weather, I don’t like winter, I don’t like cold,” she said. “That’s the reason I wanted to bring some color, something happy, something joyful, something optimistic.”
That said, Grodowski stressed that her art isn’t born from crunching around in the autumn leaves, even if it arrives in a bucolic place eventually.
“I love nature. I respect it so much, but it’s not my inspiration for some reason,” she said, explaining that the series’ title is “about discovery of a space, of a person, of oneself.”
For Grodowski, the creative process is as kinetic as her works suggest. The first stage, which she calls “the play,” always includes music played at full blast, and a lot of movement. “I don’t even think about creating movement,” she said. “It’s so intuitive, it comes from within, you know? I’m a dancer, so I guess my brush dances on the substrate as I’m painting.”
She often layers on an already prepared surface.
“I start with either collage or my own writings on the substrate,” she said. “Collage pieces can be almost anything. A lot of them have also numbers and writings … or I write myself. If I’m listening to a song, maybe I’m just writing the lyrics, or whatever happened the day before, or what I’m feeling.”
The middle stage is the longest, one she calls The Ugly. “Which is the struggle,” she wrote for artsyshark.com, leading to “refinement — the home stretch. With the exception of the last stage, during which I need absolute quiet, I blast the music, singing and dancing … and of course, painting.”
At that point, after the pasting, the painting and occasionally the sanding of surfaces, Grodowski can bond with the piece and sign her name to it.
“Connection is everything; that’s the foundation of my art, really,” she said. “Connection means … there’s nothing more I can add; it’s all I could give to that piece. Although many artists and many masters say, and it’s true, that no art piece, no painting, is finished … there comes a moment that you know — this is it.”
Hopefully, the viewer will be similarly lifted.
“I want to create something so they can find their own place and connection,” she said, noting that the exhibit title is a question, not an answer. “Rather than giving it to them, saying ‘Here it is, take it,’ I want to ask them what they see.”
‘Where Will I Take You’ – Yildiz Grodowski When: Through Nov. 10, artist reception Saturday, Nov. 2, 6 p.m. Where: Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center, 49 S. Main St., Concord More: nhartassociation.org
Featured image: Works by Yildiz Grodowski. Courtesy photo.
This year’s grape harvest is as excellent as last year’s was bad
Some of the most reliable weapons in Amy LaBelle’s yearly battle to bring her grapes through to harvest are bars of soap. Of course there are nets to protect young grapes from birds — “As the grapes start to ripen, birds start to get savvy, and we have to drop our nets,” she said. And who could have predicted the beavers? “We had a few problems with beavers taking out an entire row one year and borrowing our trunks to make a dam in the stream that runs behind the winery. So that was kind of a bummer. Yeah, so we battle, but we’re winning so far. I don’t think anyone ever wins completely.”
But it’s the bars of Irish Spring soap that keep the deer away. “I’m a believer that Irish Spring soap works to protect my perennial beds at home and my grapes at the vineyard,” LaBelle said. “So we hang Irish Spring soap bars from some of the vines closer to the wood lines.”
LaBelle and her husband, Cesar Arboleda, own LaBelle Winery (345 Route 101 in Amherst and 14 Route 111 in Derry, 672-9898, labellewinery.com). They grow 6 acres of grapes between their two vineyards. It turns out you don’t need a huge amount of land to grow grapes. While a small apple orchard generally covers at least 20 acres, grain fields can be hundreds of acres in size, and some cattle ranches are as big as medium-sized European countries, a respectable vineyard often takes up about the same amount of space as a couple of football fields.
“The 3 acres in Derry haven’t matured quite yet,” she said. “We’re not pulling a full crop from there. In Amherst we’re pulling about 14,000 pounds a year.”
Most years.
2023 was a rough year for New Hampshire grape growers. A hard frost toward the end of May killed off new blossoms and buds, more or less destroying last year’s grape crop.
“On May 18 [last year], I lost my entire crop in two hours,” LaBelle said. “The six weeks just before that I had spent meticulously pruning that whole vineyard myself, every single plant, and I was making sure that every plant was perfect. I was trying to have the best year ever. Last year I [harvested] 300 pounds of grapes.”
This year’s grape harvest is looking good across the board.
“This year was our earliest harvest ever,” said Al Fulchino, owner of Fulchino Vineyard in Hollis. “We started picking on Aug. 21. It’s been a fabulous year. We’re three and a half weeks into our harvest, maybe four, and then we probably have two more weeks. The tonnage has been good.” Fulchino said that the sugar content in this year’s grapes have been high, and their acidity has been right about where it should be.
That acidity comes in part from New Hampshire’s climate. Winter temperatures are low enough that most vineyards in the state grow cold-weather varietals that tend to be lower in sugar and fairly acidic.
“It’s interesting,” said Richard Jacob of Vinilandia NH, a wholesaler specializing in wine from small estate vineyards, “because we obviously have a different climate than very famous growing regions for grapes. Normally in New Hampshire grape wine-making, you would get a lower-alcohol wine with higher acidity. So that being said, a classic thing that winemakers would do in New Hampshire is if they do go bone dry, sometimes the acidity can be a little bit overwhelming. And so you can back sweeten by adding some sugar or you can stop your fermentation a little bit earlier, so that way you have a little bit of natural residual sugar and the acidity isn’t as intense.” In that case, he explained, because the fermentation has been stopped early, the resulting wine is normally lower in alcohol.
Ted Jarvis is the owner of Black Bear Vineyard in Salisbury and the President of the New Hampshire Winery Association (260 Stage Road, Hampstead, 770-6719, nhwineryassociation.org). He said that New Hampshire wine makers are not limited to acidic wines.
“Each winemaker can finish the wines however they like,” Jarvis said. Personally, I don’t like sweet wines, and I like my wines finished off fruit-forward. We can’t grow just any type of grape here in the Northeast.”
“For instance,” Jarvis continued, “I do what is called a meritage, which is a blend of a couple of my reds together that we grow here on the property.” He also experiments with flavors in his finished wines. “I do some infusion in wines where I make what is called Amante de Chocolate, which is a raspberry chocolate-infused red wine, which is a big hit. I also do a take on my favorite childhood ice cream; I’ve turned an orange creamsicle into a wine. Yeah. It tastes exactly like an orange creamsicle ice cream. I sought out a certain coffee bean — a Sumatra coffee bean that had some spicy notes and chocolatey notes — and then I infused that into the wine; it’s called Vino Cappuccino.”
Not all grapes in New Hampshire are grown for wine. Owner John Lastowka grows 16 varieties of table grapes at Maple Gate Farm and Vineyard (183 Amherst Road, Merrimack, 759-9174).
Photo courtesy of Flag Hill Distillery and Winery.
“Normally, the table grapes that we get here in New England come from California in one season,” he said, “and in our winter season they come from Chile. Those two locations supply pretty much all the table grapes in the country.” As a result, Lastowka explained, most supermarket grapes have been developed to ship well from the West Coast or South America, and not necessarily for other characteristics, like flavor. “The universities have been doing a lot of research on table grapes to develop hybrids and different rootstocks that will survive our cold winters,” he said.
Like other New Hampshire grape-growers, Lastowka only devotes a small area to his vines. “I have about a half-acre vineyard,” he said. “I’m not done picking, and so far I’ve picked two tons. Each vine will produce on average 20 to 30 pounds of grapes.” His rows are 9 feet long and spaced 4 feet apart.
This sort of density of planting seems to be the norm, but Amy LaBelle says she plants each varietal of grape a little differently. “I’ve planted them a little bit differently depending on their expected vigor,” she said. The Cayuga [varietal], for example, is a very vigorous vine, so I planted those a little closer together to try to control that vigor so I don’t get an all-vine-no-grape kind of situation. It reduces the workload eventually in the vineyard a little bit, because if you can help the plant naturally reduce its vigor then you don’t have to trim it back every week to make sure that the grapes can do their thing.”
Ted Jarvis at Black Bear devotes a little more acreage to his vines. “I’m very old-school, very traditional,” he said. “We have one of the largest vineyards here in the Lakes region. We have about 4 1/2, 5 acres of vines on our property. We grow seven different varietals. We started our vineyard in 2008. It was my oldest son’s senior high school project. He got the A+. My wife and I get to spend every time we have money.”
LaBelle grows six main varietals in her vineyards — three white and three red. “In Amherst, we take all of the white varietals,” she explained, “and we blend those into an estate blend called Amherst Vineyard White. And that wine is so beautiful because it has that little influence from the grape called petit amie, which is, even when you just eat them fresh off the vine, that you get this huge explosion of florals, especially roses. It’s crisp and elegant and lovely and with that floral overtone — just very, very special.”
Al Fulchino said that about half of Fulchino Vineyards’ wines are blends. “I would say we’re closer to 50-50,” he said. “We do a lot of single varietals and we do do a lot of blends. That’s kind of a lot of fun in that. Literally taking the same grapes and doing a tweak one way or the other, aging it differently, oaking it differently, and getting a totally different wine that will be more suitable for one customer over the other.”
Because New Hampshire vineyards are comparatively small, if the grapes are ready to be picked, most or all of a season’s crop can be harvested very quickly, often in a day or two. LaBelle winery brings its customers in on the process.
“We usually select a date for harvest, and then we send out a note to our Vineyard Club,” Amy LaBelle said. “Our Vineyard Club is a long-standing club at LaBelle Wine. They are very loyal, very good customers — folks who have paid money to join the Vineyard Club. [Club members] sponsor a vine in the vineyard. They get their name on one of the vines and they come and visit their vine during the year and they take pictures with their vine. It’s very cute.”
Bill and Mary Reinhardt are Vineyard Club members. They said harvesting grapes at LaBelle is one of the highlights of their year. “What happens is that early in the morning we’ll gather with other Vineyard Club members. Amy and Caesar basically tell us, OK, this is what we’re going to be doing; we’re going to be harvesting these grapes’ and go through the process,” Mary Reinhardt said. “It’s a day where you can just go out and enjoy nature and life, go pick grapes, and talk to the people — just leave all your troubles and what’s going on in the world behind and enjoy yourselves.”
Bill and Mary each sponsor a vine, and of course they have named them. “It’s Mia and Grumpy,” Mary said, “because that’s what our grandchildren call us.” The Reinhardts’ vines are petite amie grapes, which make a dry white wine. “They put your name on it and you can go visit it,” Bill said, “when you’re there for lunch or whatever and see how your grapes are growing.”
Fulchino Vineyards harvests their grapes themselves. “We are hand-harvest,” Al Fulchino said. “We have three different vineyards all within 2 miles of our winery. [Our harvest is] mostly staff. We do have some people who follow our social media page like on Facebook and they know we’re harvesting and they want to get involved. We used to pick much more on Saturdays and Sundays, but because the winery is so much more busy on the weekends we have strategized to move more toward Monday through Friday. We’ll meet up in the morning and target what we want to pick, then we’ll all sit down and have some lunch and some wine and talk. It’s kind of old-school — very simple. It’s a really nice old-fashioned way to enjoy and not rush and remember why we’re here. Oftentimes when you do it on the weekends, you have to rush a bit. We’ve picked 20 tons or so so far.”
Ted Jarvis organizes a ticketed event to get his grapes in. “We throw a big harvest fest weekend,” he said. “Last year we had over 250 people up. We have live music. We have food trucks come in. We have 20 or 30 vendors to set up their New Hampshire crafts, so people can go booth by booth and check all that stuff out. And if people want to help out, we are a family business. I’ve had people come up, families, for years come up and just want to come in and participate in the whole process of it and help pick the grapes. My boys and I set up a crush pad so folks can see how their wine became from vine to glass. They can taste the juice coming right out of the wine press to see what it tastes like just being crushed and then like if they’re having a glass of La Crescent wine, ‘This is the grape, this is how I started it, and that’s what you’re tasting is how I finished it.’
Grape Fun
• Help with the harvest at Black Bear Vineyard (289 New Road, Salisbury, 648-2811, blackbearvineyard.com). Volunteer to help with the harvesting of grapes at Black Bear Vineyard on the weekend until the harvest is in and Black Bear provides lunch and a bottle of wine, according to the vineyard’s Facebook page. Email [email protected] to volunteer and get the details.
• Bottle Your Own experience at Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline, 244-3165, averillhousevineyard.com). This is an ongoing series of events held Sundays through Nov. 10, at noon, 1 and 2 p.m. Attendees get a guided tour of the winery and vineyard and will learn directly from staff about the winemaking process. The cost is $59 per person and includes your own bottled wine to take home.
• Harvest and Stomp Festival at Appolo Vineyards (49 Lawrence Road, Derry, 421-4675, appolovineyards.com) Saturday, Sept. 28, and Sunday, Sept. 29. In addition to grape harvesting opportunities, there will be winemaking tours starting at 10 a.m., grape foot stomping and more. Tickets are $60 per person and include a catered lunch and other amenities.
• Harvest Weekend at Black Bear Vineyard (289 New Road, Salisbury, 648-2811, blackbearvineyard.com) is Saturday, Oct. 5, and Sunday, Oct. 6, noon to 6 p.m. Tickets are $18 through eventbrite.com. There will be live music, wine, food trucks, yard games, vendors selling New Hampshire products, and bringing in this year’s harvest.
Photo courtesy of LaBelle Winery.
• “Walks in the Vineyard’ wine class at LaBelle Winery Amherst (345 Route 101, Amherst, 672-9898, labellewinery.com) Sunday, Oct. 6, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Join Wine Educator & Sommelier Marie King and Senior Assistant Winemaker Melaney Shepard for an educational walk through LaBelle Winery’s vineyard and wine cellar in Amherst. Sample five LaBelle wines and learn about the winemaking process during the harvest season. Tickets are $35 through LaBelle’s website.
• The Annual Hollis Grape and Italian Festival will be Sunday, Oct. 20, noon to 6 p.m. at Monument Square in Hollis. The day will include a car show, live music, food vendors and a meatball contest, according to the event’s Facebook page. See fulchinovineyard.com.
• It’s not a local harvest but the Franco-American Centre will celebrate the French harvest with its Beaujolais Nouveau Gala dinner and dance on Saturday, Nov. 23, from 6 to 10 p.m. to celebrate the release of the 2024 Beaujolais in France. The three-course meal, with optional wine pairing with each course, will be at Oscar Barn Wedding Venue, 191 W. River Road in Hooksett. Tickets cost $115 ($90 without wine) for non-members. See facnh.com.
Wild Grapes
Joe Ross is a foraging expert and the owner of Eat the Planet (eattheplanet.org), a business that teaches students how to identify and find edible New England wild foods. According to him, there are three varieties of wild grapes we are likely to run across. “In our region, there’s three different kinds of wild grapes that are native,” Ross said in a telephone interview. “There’s the fox grape, the riverbank grape, and the frost grape.”
“The fox grape is the wild variety that’s called Concord,” Ross said, “but when they make a variety, they breed it specifically for certain traits over time. They select obviously. But if you look up Concord, it should be the same.” Ross said that all three species of wild grape have what’s called a “palmate” leaf structure. “It’s not like an oak leaf that’s got a center line all the way up the leaf with lobes on the side. The lobes can vary in what they look like.”
Ross said that while wild grapes can grow almost anywhere in New England, from the edges of swamps to deep forest, they do best on the edges of woods, where they have access to a lot of sunlight.
“Wooded edges and wetter areas are good areas to look for them; check those spots,” he advised. “Even just old fields where there’s a lot of bramble-type stuff — that’s a good spot to check because they’ll at least have a chance of popping up a vine again above everything else., so they can get to that sun.”
Sometimes older grape vines can be found deeper in the woods, Ross said, but that’s usually a situation of new trees growing up around an established vine. “Some of them are shade-tolerant,” he said, “but growing in the shade, you’re just not going to get a lot of grapes.”
Wine-Making Terms
Crush pad – Where grapes are crushed for their juice. This is usually done outside.
Meritage – A blend of two or more red “noble” Bordeaux varietals — cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, malbec, merlot, etc.
Root stock – The base of a plant that is used to graft onto a different variety. In the case of New Hampshire grapes, the root stock will be of a hardy, cold-tolerant variety, and the vine grafted onto it will have other characteristics, like improved sweetness or acidity.
Terroir – Subtle characters in the taste of a wine, dependent on unique weather and soil conditions in the vineyard where the grapes are grown. Each vineyard has its own terroir.
Varietals – How winemakers describe the types of grapes that go into their wines, instead of “varieties.”
Local varietals
A good resource for finding out more about cold-hardy grape varieties is a website by the University of Minnesota, mnhardy.umn.edu.
Whites
Frontenac Gris: A gray-skinned cold-hardy varietal used in white or rosé wines with fruity flavors, especially peach and pineapple, with hints of honey. Black Bear Vineyard (289 New Road, Salisbury, 648-2811, blackbearvineyard.com) makes a Frontenac Gris white.
Frontenac Blanc: A golden-skinned cold-hardy white wine grape. The vines produce exceptionally high yields of fruit. Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline, 244-3165, averillhousevineyard.com) uses this grape in its Fronteanna White.
Petit Amis: A green-skinned cold-hardy grape used in acidic white wines. LaBelle Winery Amherst (345 Route 101, Amherst, 672-9898, labellewinery.com) uses this grape in its Amherst Vineyard Estate White.
Cayuga: A French-American hybrid grape used in light, citrus-tinged wines that can come in a range of styles, from dry and sparkling to late-harvest dessert wines. Flag Hill Winery (297 N. River Road, Lee, 659-2949, flaghill.com) produces a Sparkling Cayuga White.
La Crescent: A very cold-hardy white grape. The wine produced from La Crescent has flavors of apricot, citrus and tropical fruit similar to that of muscat. Zorvino Vineyards (226 Main St., Sandown, 887-8463, zorvino.com) produces a La Crescent White that it describes on its website as “lively with sweet flavors of Meyer lemon and white peach.”
Reds
Frontenac: A classic bluish-black grape known for its rich, red wines. Black Bear Vineyard makes a “deep garnet”-colored Frontenac.
Marquette: Medium-bodied, dry, red wine suitable for extended maturation in oak barrels. Shara Vineyards (82 Currier Road, Concord, 836-9077, sharavineyards.com) uses this variety.
Petit Verdot: Red wine grape whose small, thick-skinned berries are valued for their depth of color. LaBelle Winery uses this grape in its Amherst Vineyard Estate Red.
Chancellor: A black-skinned cold-hardy grape used in full-bodied red wines with notes of plum and apple. Blue Heron Winery (Quinn Court, Newfields, 770-6719, blueheronwines.com) uses Chancellor grapes in its Seacoast Red.
Maréchal Foch: A cold-hardy hybrid grape that is made into deeply colored red wines with jammy, dark-fruit flavors. On its website, Flag Hill Winery describes its Maréchal Fochas having “lingering flavors of cherry and plum, with nice acidity.”
The Academy for Science and Design charter school in Nashua is one of two New Hampshire schools awarded as part of the 2024 National Blue Ribbon Schools, according to a U.S. Department of Education press release. The other is Bernice A. Ray School in the Hanover School District. The 2024 cohort has 356 schools; the recognition “highlights schools that excel in academic performance or make significant strides in closing achievement gaps among different student groups,” the press release said.
“The National Blue Ribbon Schools Award is a testament to the exceptional achievements of students and educators at each of these schools,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in the release. “The 2024 National Blue Ribbon Schools are raising the bar for our nation’s students, serving as models for effective teaching and intentional collaboration in their schools and communities. As we celebrate their achievements, let us look to these schools for inspiration as we champion education as the foundation of a brighter future for every child.”
The Academy for Science and Design Chartered Public School in Nashua describes itself as being “the state of New Hampshire’s top-performing public school and largest STEM-specialty school,” and “is aimed at expanding students’ interest and ability in STEM locally and statewide,” according to its website, asdnh.org. The school serves kids in grades 5 through 12 and will begin accepting applications for the academic year 2025-26 on Monday, Oct. 7, the website said.
Pollen count
Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon has partnered with the National Allergy Bureau to install a pollen counting station on the roof of the medical center’s power plant, according to a Dartmouth Health release. Samples collected from the station will be reported to the Bureau for inclusion in its national tracking of allergen levels, the release said. The release said that the third week of September is often considered “peak week” for emergency departments seeing allergy and asthma patients, according to the release. The new station is the only one currently operating in New England, with the next closest located in Rochester, New York, the release said.
“Pollen seasons are changing,” said DHMC allergy and clinical immunology specialist Erin L. Reigh, MD, MS, in the release. “Studies show that ragweed season is two to four weeks longer than it was in the 1990s, and we are seeing allergenic plants spread farther north with the warmer temperatures. Higher CO2 levels also cause ragweed plants to release more pollen.”
According to the press release, the DHMC pollen information will be at pollen.aaaai.org, where you can sign up to have it send updates.
Merci Boxcar
The annual commemoration of the Merci Train Boxcar will take place Sunday, Sept. 29, at 1 p.m. at the boxcar’s permanent location, 144 Reed St. in Manchester, according to a newsletter from the Franco-American Centre.
The event is organized by 40 & 8 Society, a veterans group, and will feature representatives from France and New Hampshire, the newsletter said. “This year’s event has a special meaning as it comes during the 80th anniversary year of the D-Day invasion and 200th anniversary of Lafayette’s farewell tour of the U.S.,” the newsletter said.
According to mercitrain.org: “49 French railroad box cars filled with tens of thousands of gifts of gratitude” from French citizens were sent to the U.S. in appreciation of 700 American box cars of relief goods sent to France in 1948. On the Merci Train website, you can see photos of some of the items that had been in New Hampshire’s car as well as photos of box cars and gifts that went to other states.
Butterfly results
The Second Annual Capital Area Butterfly Survey conducted on July 27 by the New Hampshire Audubon counted 981 individual butterflies from 38 distinct species, according to the NH Audubon September newsletter. “These surveys are part of a nationwide effort through the North American Butterfly Association to track butterfly populations and gain insight into how habitat and weather affect them,” the newsletter said. Six teams with a total of 36 participants spread out through the Concord area at 19 different sites, the newsletter said. “Several teams reported sightings of the delicate American Copper. … Ninety-three Crescent butterflies gathered in an open area of the Boscawen Town Forest. At the Karner Blue Conservation Area, observers were treated to sightings of six Karner Blues, along with several Edward’s Hairstreaks and a Coral Hairstreak. A few rarities were also recorded. One team encountered a Giant Swallowtail … a small team guided through the grassy areas of the Concord Airport, where they recorded a Variegated Fritillary. A Buckeye made an appearance at the Pembroke National Guard property, and a Common Sootywing was observed in the Concord Community Gardens,” the newsletter said.
Seeking volunteers
The Aviation Museum of New Hampshire (27 Navigator Road in Londonderry; aviationmuseumofnh.org, 669-4820) will hold a volunteer open house on Tuesday, Oct. 8, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. “The Aviation Museum is specifically seeking volunteers to help carry out its educational programming to young people from preschool through high school ages,” according to a museum press release. “The museum hosts field trips, school visits, and operates a popular ‘Flights of Discovery’ summer camp. In addition, the museum welcomes families with young children to participate in hands-on activities in its classroom. Volunteers can help all these programs.” Volunteers also help with special events such as the annual car show, fundraising gala and more, the release said.
Seeking essentials
The Zonta Club of Concord is asking for donations of toiletries and other essentials to be given to women at shelters and transitional housing as part of its Purse Program to be brought to the Fall Fling on Wednesday, Oct. 16, at 5:30 p.m. The event will explain more about the club and its programs, according to a Zonta Club of Concord fall newsletter. “For over 60 years, the members of our club have been making a difference in the lives of women and girls through service projects and scholarships,” according to zontaclubofconcordnh.org.
Seeking understanding
United Way of Greater Nashua (20 Broad St., Nashua, 882-4011, unitedwaynashua.org) will hold its ninth annual United We Sleep event Friday, Sept. 27, at Nashua Community College (505 Amherst St., Nashua, 578-8900, nashuacc.edu) “to raise funds to combat homelessness and support vital community services,” according to a United Way press release.
“The funds raised through United We Sleep support $400,000 in annual grants to local safety net organizations, emergency funds for homeless youth and adults (with $25,000 allocated so far this year), and programs at United Way that combat food insecurity,” the release said.
Visit fundraise.givesmart.com or text sleepout2024 to 71777 for information on how to participate or donate.
The Red, White & Brew Craft Beer and Wine Festival will take place Saturday, Sept. 28, at FunSpot in Laconia with a general admission time of noon to 4 p.m. The event benefits Veterans Count NH and will feature craft beer, wine, food, a car show, an auction, raffles, live music with The Bob Pratte Band and more. Admission includes sampling tickets and a commemorative glass, while supplies last (food is not included). Tickets cost $50 for VIP access (which starts at noon) and $35 general admission. See vetscount.org/events/red-white-brew.
Catch Highway to the Ranger Zone, the monthly open mic show featuring Andrew North & The Rangers, on Wednesday, Oct. 2, at the BNH Stage in Concord (16 S. Main St., ccanh.com) with sign-ups starting at 6:30 p.m. and the show at 6:45 p.m.
NAV Arts will feature New Hampshire Poet Laureate Jennifer Militello at the Word Search Open Mic event on Wednesday, Oct. 9, from 5 to 7 p.m. at Bookery Manchester. Militello’s new collection, Identifying the Pathogen from Tupelo Press, is slated for a 2025 release; see jennifermilitello.com. NAV Arts holds its open mics — which include poetry, music and other performers — on the second Wednesday of the month from 5 to 7 p.m.
The Nashua Choral Society is inviting new singers to join its 2024-2025 season. Check out a rehearsal — Monday evenings 7 to 9 p.m. at the Judd Gregg Auditorium, Nashua Community College, 505 Amherst St. in Nashua. Rehearsals will be open to new singers to this non-auditioned chorus with no obligations until Oct. 14. See nashuachoralsociety.org.
