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Charles Neville and June Millington headline an Expanded Music Line-Up

Local Food, Artists, Family Activities, Business Expo Celebrate Hilltown Life

HILLTOWNS ---  The Hilltown Spring Festival is back, bigger than ever, kicking off the outdoor music scene with an expanded local line-up featuring two Hilltown music greats, Charles Neville and June Millington, as headliners.  The Hilltown CDC’s 2^nd annual Spring Festival will take place on Saturday, May 10 from 10:00 am – 6:00 pm at the Cummington Fairgrounds, celebrating the music, food, arts, an educational ‘focus on sustainability’ and the ‘buy local’ business opportunities all present in the Hilltowns. Admission is free, with a $6 per car parking fee to encourage earth-friendly car pooling.  Details and directions are available at www.hilltowncdc.org. 

The Mother’s Day weekend Spring Festival presents a wide variety of local music and dance performance on three stages.  Goshen resident, June Millington, will step out with her sizzling electric guitar.  Millington hit the charts in the 1970s as a founder of ‘Fanny,’ perhaps the first all-female rock band in the U.S.. She has since recorded with the group, ‘Slammin’ Babes’ and brought the Institute for Musical Arts (IMA) to Goshen, which promotes the development of  girls and women musicians through summer rock band camps and performances by female artists.  Huntington resident, Charles Neville of the Neville Brothers, will perform on his amazing saxophone to close the festival. The Grammy-winning Neville, whose experience on saxophone includes rhythm & blues, funk, jazz, be-bop, popular and even American Indian music, has toured and recorded since the 1950s with bands including Turquoise, the Wild Tchoupitoulas, the Neville Brothers Band, and most recently with a group of his own making called Diversity. 

Festival goers can also sample a wide variety of musical styles from talented area musicians, including gypsy jazz played by ‘Swing Caravan’, afropop funk from Northampton’s own ‘Shokozoba’, bluegrass sounds from ‘Acoustic Brew’, and Celtic rock by ‘Malachite’.  Singer-songwriters Sarah Stockwell and Laura Wetzler, jazz pianist David Bartley and ‘Radio Free Earth’ round out a talented Hilltown music line-up. 

The Hilltown Spring Festival’s three performance stages will also host dance performances by the Huntington Dance Centre and Ballet Soleil, and an improv theater performance by the Hampshire High Drama students.  The May 10 Festival date was selected to include area student groups in the performance roster.  

Area eateries and fine food purveyors offering delicious local food at the Spring Festival include the Cummington Creamery and the Blue House Café of Haydenville.  Brew Masters Tavern of Williamsburg brings their locally brewed ale and Hilltown Ice Cream will offer many hand-made delights.    

Fun family activities will include the Rocky Acres petting zoo and pony rides, as well as demonstrations of horsemanship, pigeon racing and sled dog racing.  Ashfield musician, Lui Collins, director of Hilltown Music Together, will present a family music program for parents and young children, and Ashfield-based Frank Grindrod of Earthwork Programs will teach outdoor survival skills, including rope making and fire-making by friction.   

The Cummington Family Center joins other groups in offering more children’s activities.  Red Gate Farm of Buckland will demonstrate wool spinning and provide information about its summer Farm Camp for Kids. Those seeking to test their skills can try for prizes at the Festival’s new Highland Unusual Games Triathlon, a multi-generational event featuring horseshoes, egg-racing, and Frisbee golf.  

A wide variety of Hilltown artists and businesses will offer ‘buy local’ opportunities. New this year is a ‘Focus on Sustainability’ featuring environmental education on earth-friendly solutions that can be applied at home or work.  Nearly 20 organizations and businesses will participate, including Berkshire Photovoltaic, Gateway High School’s ‘Go Green’ student-led recycling group, the BagShare Project, RideBuzz.org, Berkshire Organics and several area Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms, the GCC Sustainability Program, Smith Vocational School’s solar education, Cummington’s own Hilltown Sustainability Group and more. 

The Hilltown Spring Festival is organized by the Hilltown Community Development Corporation to celebrate life in the Hilltowns.  The festival is underwritten by seventeen area business sponsors and by ten Hilltown cultural councils, which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.  For more information on the Festival, visit the HCDC website at www.hilltowncdc.org.