Live music is back!
The first in-person “Supper & Soul” concert since the pandemic shutdown is set for Friday, July 3 (6 p.m., Imperial Avenue parking lot). The Tom Petty Project headlines the “drive-in tailgate” show, sponsored by the Westport-Weston Chamber of Commerce and the Westport Library.
Cars will be set up every other spot, in every other row (a state requirement). But with up to 5 people per car — and tailgating starting at 5 p.m., using the empty space in front of each vehicle — it should be a great (and much-needed) evening out. The Chamber says it’s the first event like this in the state.
The Tom Petty Project includes Westporters Phil LoPresti (lead guitar) and Pete Najarian (lead singer, guitar). The band wowed a Levitt Pavilion crowd last year, and have sold out shows throughout New England. They’re volunteering their time for this show, to help the Chamber while bringing live music back to town.
Tickets are $85 per car. Ten dollars from each sale will be donated to a local non-profit — to be selected by the band.
The Chamber encourages everyone to order takeout from member restaurants, and bring it to the show (click here for the list; it will also be emailed to ticket purchasers). No food or drink will be sold on site. The cost of the meals is not included in the ticket price.
A limited number of tickets goes on sale this Monday (June 22, 10 a.m.). For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.
COVID-19 canceled many Westport Woman’s Club events. There was no March fashion show, April art show, May antique appraisal day, and — this one really hurts — no June Yankee Doodle Fair.
They can’t get those fundraisers back. But the 113-year-old civic organization still awarded $40,000 in college scholarships. And though the 10 deserving Staples High School seniors did not get the public ceremony they deserved, the get this shout-out on “06880.”
Congratulations to the honorees — and thanks to the WWC, for their continued yeowomen’s work!
- Tamikah Boyer (University of New Haven, Emily Duvoisin Scholarship)
- Nicole Caiati (Georgia State University)
- Victoria Caiati (Marist College)
- Alyssa Chariot (Penn State University)
- Anna Fuori (Penn State University, Emily Fuller Scholarship)
- Audrey Kramer (California Polytechnic State University)
- Ian Kramer (Penn State University)
- Katherine Meszaros (College of the Holy Cross, Lea Ruegg Scholarship)
- Niyhive Michel (Morgan State University)
- Tomaso Scotti (University of Connecticut, “Most Active Member” Scholarship, which this year honors Mira Auxier).
Hilary Arnow Burns did it all in Staples. The 1977 graduate played in the orchestra and band. She sang in the choir. She played tennis, and was on the cheerleading team.
After Wharton came consulting work with Arthur Young and Drexel Burnham. She married, moved back to Westport, started 2 businesses, had 2 children, and got divorced.
When he was 50, she caught a glimpse of someone who did not look good. It was her — in the mirror. “What happened to me?” she wondered.
At a Staples reunion a classmate said, “You were so much fun!” Hilary thought, “I’ve become another person. I was not happy.”
She lost weight. She rediscovered “athletics, my brain, and fun.” She got her life back.
Now — after writing classes with Jessica Bram (and 7 years of revisions), and she’s written a memoir about her journey. The Second Piece of French Toast: If Marriage Was My Dream, Why Was I Numbing Myself?
It’s been called “the wake-up call I didn’t know I needed.” To order the book, click here. For her website, blog and YouTube channel, click here.
Hilary Arnow Burns
And finally … I heard this yesterday, on Juneteenth. It brought me back several decades. Sweet Honey in the Rock is as uplifting, and important, as ever.
An outdoor concert with no sound mitigation control in a residentially zoned neighborhood is inconsiderate. Btw, 100% of the net proceeds from any event held on town-owned property are required to go to charity.
Just observing that there are 8760 hours in a year. Actually 8784 this year, since we get a bonus.
Until you came to its defense, I’d nearly forgotten about the Westport Library’s involvement in this as well as the other, recently approved improper seasonal use of the Imperial lot.
So does $75 per car go to the Chamber? Leigh
The applicant wrote that it would only contribute a MAXIMUM of 10 dollars out of the 85 dollar ticket price to an as yet unnamed charity IF it managed to sell every single ticket. No further written guidance was offered.
Correction: applicant states that a MINIMUM of $10 per ticket will go to an unnamed charity – but only if it manages to sell every single ticket.
With no universal testing and no contact tracing I think we ought to be having Westport officials weigh in and take responsibility for such a large scale gathering as the Imperial Ave concert. Doesn’t this relaxation set us up for less masking, less adherence to hand-washing, and more sacrificing of the vulnerable that a resurgent outbreak will ignite?
Live music this summer is a dream come true — And we can enjoy it in a safe and socially distant way! With our INCREDIBLE town jewel, the Levitt Pavilion, closed, I thought there’d be no way we’d get to hear live music, but the Chamber has come through. Westport truly is the greatest!
I love this song. It has special memories for me, before coming to Westport as a Danish au pair in 1967, I spend a few months living on a kibbutz in Israel, by the Golan Heights, with other young Danish people, about 45 of us. We picked apples a few hours a day, and at night we would sit around with some people from the kibbutz, a few had guitars, and we would sing American folk songs, “Keep your eyes on the prize, We shall overcome, and We shall not be moved was favorites”. Wonderful memories.