SAMANTHA FISH
Here is a roundup of major arts events taking place around New Jersey, through June 4.
MUSIC
• Blues-rocker Samantha Fish and New Jersey-based roots-rock band From Good Homes will co-headline the 33rd annual Crawfish Fest, which will take place at The Sussex County Fairgrounds in Augusta, May 29-31, with Fish performing last on the main stage on May 30, and From Good Homes doing so on May 31. The festival emphasizes Louisiana music as well as Louisiana food — boiled crawfish, jambalaya, po’ boy sandwiches and more.
The Joe Krown Trio +1 (featuring Papa Mali), Johnny Sansone and Amanda Shaw will perform — for campers and VIPs only — on May 29, starting at 5 p.m.
Joining Fish, Krown, Sansone and Shaw from 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the May 30 lineup are The Rebirth Brass Band, Rockin’ Dopsie Jr. & the Zydeco Twisters, The Honey Island Swamp Band and Soul Project NOLA. Starting at 8:30 p.m., Bonerama and The Nth Power will perform for campers and VIPs only.
Appearing with From Good Homes on May 31, from 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., are Kenny Neal, John “Papa” Gros, The Ocean Avenue Stompers, The Rumble (featuring Chief Joseph Boudreaux Jr.), Cowboy Mouth, Yarn and Anthony Morgan’s Inspirational Choir of Harlem. (Click HERE for a new interview with Ocean Avenue Stompers leader Ian Gray.)
An artist’s rendering of the soon-to-open Springsteen Center for American Music at Monmouth University.
• Leading up to the June 13 opening of The Springsteen Center for American Music at Monmouth University in West Long Branch will be four celebratory concerts at university venues.
May 29 at 7:30 p.m., original E Street Band drummer Vini Lopez, recent “American Idol” contestant Jake Thistle, Williams Honor, Pat Roddy, Jackson Pines, Pat Guadagno and Richie Blackwell will perform at “America 250: A Jersey Shore Celebration of the Nation’s Music Heritage,” at The Pollak Theatre.
“The Native American Music Experience” — also at The Pollak Theatre, June 3 at 7:30 p.m. — will be a free event celebrating Indigenous American music, and featuring Gary Farmer & the Dish and Spoon Band, Pura Fé, The Osceola Brothers, The Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band, and poet Joy Harjo.
Springsteen himself will participate in “Music America: The Songs That Shaped Us” — June 4 at 7:30 p.m. at The OceanFirst Bank Center — along with Kenny Chesney, Dropkick Murphys, Rosanne Cash, Trombone Shorty, Shemekia Copeland, Brian Fallon, Keb’ Mo’, Tony Trischka & Sister Sadie, Valerie June, house band The Disciples of Soul, and others.
Springsteen and The Disciples of Soul will be back for Night Two of “Music America: The Songs That Shaped Us,” June 5 at 7:30 p.m., along with Jon Bon Jovi, Jackson Browne, Darlene Love, Stevie Van Zandt, Gary Clark Jr., Dion, Mavis Staples, Public Enemy, Nils Lofgren, David Sancious and Jimmie Vaughan.
BOBBY SANABRIA
• The Jersey City Jazz Festival began on May 26 and will stretch to May 31, with shows at various Jersey City venues from May 26 to 28, and then the main festival taking place on the weekend of May 29-31, on multiple stages on the Hudson River Waterfront at Exchange Place Plaza.
Weekend performers will include Bobby Sanabria & Ascensión (May 30), The Eddie Palmieri Experience, honoring Palmieri, who died last year (May 30), The Roy Hargrove Big Band, playing the music of Hargrove, who died in 2018 (May 31), Bria Skonberg (May 31), Jeff “Tain” Watts (May 31), Nate Smith (May 29), Joe Lovano (May 30), Andromeda Turre (May 31), Ted Chubb (May 30), Winard Harper & Jeli Posse (May 29), The Charlie Sigler Organ Band (May 31) and many others.
The festival will also offer a food festival, arts vendors, and a kid-friendly “Community Zone” with arts & crafts activities (including instrument-making), bilingual storytimes, percussion classes and more.
• Kool Moe Dee — who first gained fame as a member of the New York-based hip-hop group The Treacherous Three in the ’70s, and became a popular solo artist in the ’80s and ’90s — will headline the free Rhythm and Blues by the Brook event, taking place from 1 to 6 p.m. May 30 at Cedar Brook Park in Plainfield.
Kenny Bobien, Miss Jones (with Taana Gardner and Fonda Rae), Nu Men of Soul and DJ Bookeem will also perform at the annual festival, and the day will also include a car show, a food & vendor marketplace, a Kids Zone (from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. only) and a health & wellness fair (from 1 to 4 p.m. only).
EMANUEL AX
• New Jersey Symphony will present its “Season Finale” concerts, featuring renowned pianist Emanuel Ax, June 4 at 7 p.m. at The State Theatre in New Brunswick, June 5 at 7:30 p.m. at The Richardson Auditorium at Princeton University, June 6 at 7:30 p.m. at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, and June 7 at 2 p.m. at Prudential Hall at NJPAC in Newark.
The program will include Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22; Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique; and the world premiere of Allison Loggins-Hull’s Doublespeak. Gregory McDaniel will conduct Doublespeak, while the orchestra’s music director, Xian Zhang, will conduct the works by Mozart and Berlioz.
• The opening night of The Jersey City Theater Center’s Voices International Theatre and Arts Festival — taking place at White Eagle Hall in Jersey City, June 4 at 7 p.m. — will feature artists from India (Surati Baaul Blues Band), Indonesia (Riau Rhythm), and Slovenia and Puerto Rico (Slavo Rican Assembly).
Other festival events will take place through June 26, at White Eagle Hall and other Jersey City venues. For a complete list of offerings, visit jctcenter.org.
JOAN OSBORNE
• Joan Osborne will present a show titled “Joan Osborne Sings the Songs of Bob Dylan” — though it will likely feature at least a few of her own songs, too — at The Outpost in the Burbs at First Congregational Church in Montclair, May 29 at 8 p.m. Singer-songwriter Dave Murphy will open.
Osborne has released two albums of songs written by Dylan, who turned 85 this week: 2017’s Songs of Bob Dylan and last year’s Dylanology Live. Her most recent release, in September, was a deluxe 30th anniversary reissue of her 1995 debut album Relish — an album that happened to include a Dylan cover, too (“Man in the Long Black Coat”).
• The free “Under Cover Music Fest” — taking place on the Sloan Street Parking Lot in South Orange, May 30 from 2 to 10 p.m. — will feature sets by The Local Heroes (Bruce Springsteen tribute), Workingman’s Jed (Bob Weir tribute), Chaancé Barnes (’90s and ’00s R&B tribute), Cynthia Tucker (disco tribute), Emma & the Desperados (Eagles tribute), Whiskey & Sugar (Rolling Stones tribute), Fishmarket Stew (Phish tribute) and Tenn Fold (alternative ’90s tribute).
Also at the event, local vendors will sell food and drinks, and a Kids Zone will be offered.
THEATER
• Though the German Ludwig van Beethoven and the Austrian Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were alive at the same time, no one knows for sure if they ever met. Jack Canfora’s “The Vienna Lessons” — which will have its world premiere at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch from June 4 to June 28 — is set in 1787, and imagines the confident teenage Beethoven attempting to hire the artistically mature but financially struggling, 30-ish Mozart to give him music lessons.
CONNI FREESTONE
“Proof I Was Here,” featuring photos by Conni Freestone, will run at The Ocean County Artists’ Guild in Island Heights in June.
OTHER
• Conni Freestone, a photographer who has done a lot of work on New Jersey music scene, will present her first major photo exhibition — titled “Proof I Was Here” and devoted to many different subjects (not just music) — in June at The Ocean County Artists’ Guild in Island Heights.
According to a press release, “The exhibition moves from familiar, widely recognizable images into more deliberate attempts to preserve what feels just out of reach. Bruce Springsteen and cars of the Asbury Park Circuit are set alongside the aging cars of Havana and the deserted remnants of Route 66. Self-portraiture appears throughout as an assertion of presence, grounding the work in questions of identity, memory, and what it means to be ‘here.’ ”
An opening reception, June 7 from 1 to 4 p.m., will feature music by Johnny Kasun and Timmy Basskidd Douglas.
The RiverJAM Music organization is sponsoring the exhibition, and on June 16 from 6 to 10 a.m., the gallery will host a RiverJAM featuring Kasun, Douglas, Williams Honor, Bobby Mahoney and Redbird, with an opportunity to meet Freestone.
• The Delta Hotel in Woodbridge will host The New Jersey Horror Con and Film Festival, May 29-31, with film screenings, vendors, cosplay contests, panel discussions (focusing on movies such as “Friday the 13th, Part 2,” “The Toxic Avenger” and ‘Back to the Future”) and appearances by celebrities including musicians Peter Criss (of Kiss) and Lita Ford and actors such as Kristy Swanson, Bill Moseley, Edward Furlong, Felissa Rose, Brett Wagner and Traci Lords.
• David Margolick, author of the 2025 book “When Caesar Was King: How Sid Caesar Reinvented American Comedy,” will sign copies of it, discuss the subject and show relevant film clips, at The Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee, June 2 at 7:30 p.m.
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REVIEWS
“Mrs. Christie” at Berlind Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center, Princeton. (Through May 31)
“Alexandra Schoenberg: Shifting Perspectives” at Hillside Square Gallery, Montclair. (Through June 26)
“Willem de Kooning: The Breakthrough Years, 1945–50” at Princeton University Art Museum. (Through July 26)
“Allan Rohan Crite: Neighborhood” at Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick. (Through July 31)
“Henri Matisse: Beyond Color” at Morris Museum, Morris Township. (Through Aug. 9)
“Salvador Jiménez-Flores: Raíces & Resistencias” at Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton. (Through Aug. 1, 2027)
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