2024 Festival Details

88 Porter Hill Road, Cummington, MA. Located 24 miles northwest of Northampton, MA. KlezCummington is hosted on a beautiful 14-acre piece of land cared for by Emmett Leader. It includes a beautiful 100-year-old barn (restored by Emmett as gathering space and itself a functional work!), wood-fired clay bread oven, garden, orchard, fields, woods, and a quiet brook. A short car ride away, you can go hiking and swimming at the Chesterfield Gorge and eat ice cream at the Old Creamery Coop!

We invite you to come for any portion of the festival you would like – please register in advance so we know which days of the festival you plan to attend!

We are seeking volunteers to join our crew! Please consider making a contribution by volunteering at the festival. Volunteer sign-up here!

Sharing food in community is an integral part of the KlezCummington experience! All meals are strictly vegetarian (no fish), kosher-style, and prepared with local and seasonal ingredients. There will be gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegan options available. There will be fresh homemade bagels & breads baked on site in our wood-fired clay oven. We encourage you to bring a vegetarian potluck dish to share for any of the meals you are attending! For more food options, the Old Creamery Coop (a small grocery/deli) is located a 5 minute drive away. We will eat grandly!

THURSDAY DINNER (July 4th) - Family Foods Potluck & Wood-fired Pizza Party!
We invite you to bring a dish from your family tradition—it can be a recipe that has been passed down for generations, or a recent tradition that you started last week! We are holding the words “family” and “tradition” lightly, knowing that these are complicated things! Most importantly, bring a food you are excited to share, and a story or recipe if you are excited to share it! We will also be making homemade wood-fired pizza fresh from the clay oven for all to enjoy!

FRIDAY DINNER (July 5th)
Dinner will be a vegetarian potluck (bring a dish to share!) with additional food cooked by the KlezCummington team, and challah baked in our wood-fired clay oven.

SATURDAY LUNCH (July 6th)
We will have a "deli" complete with homemade bagels made in the wood-fired clay oven and pickles from the morning Ashkenazi food workshop with Ozzy Gold-Shapiro! Bring a vegetarian bagel topping or salad to share!

SATURDAY DINNER (July 6th)
We will feast with a vegetarian potluck (bring a vegetarian dish to share!) + fresh bread baked from the cob oven, homemade borsht, & more!

KlezCummington is a labor of love, taking countless hours of preparing artistically and logistically for hundreds of people to be nourished and enriched by the music, food, & art – and we could not do this without the generous support of community members like you. That said, we are committed to ensuring that KlezCummington is financially accessible to our community by offering sliding-scale admission. We firmly believe that cultural and artistic work should be accessible to everyone, regardless of financial means. We also recognize the systemic oppression that has led to a vastly unequal distribution of resources in our communities.

With this in mind, we offer 3 sliding scale rates: “resilient”, “sustainer/true cost”, and “abundant.” Please select a rate that reflects the number of days you plan to attend, a meaningful contribution to the festival, and your own financial situation and access to resources. Please give generously within your means, and if you need to be held by community and choose a lower rate at this time, we warmly welcome you to do so. We are so grateful for the incredible support of our community, both monetarily and otherwise, that helps bring this festival to life!

Supporting indigenous-led cultural work in our area
As we do this important work of connecting to our own lineages through relationships to land, language, music, dance, and ritual, it is vital to support those communities that have stewarded this land on which our learning takes place, and to make sure they continue to have access to their land, their languages, and their lineages. We are committed to passing along a portion of the funds we raise for KlezCummington to a local land-based, indigenous-led project called the Ohketeau Cultural Center in our neighboring town of Ashfield, Massachusetts. We invite you to learn about Ohketeau and support their work directly here!

Parking space is limited—carpooling is strongly encouraged! Parking will be located on the property a short walk away from the festivities. If you would like to reserve an accessible parking spot close to the performance space, please email us at info@klezcummington.com

We welcome families to attend! On Saturday, July 6th, we offer special programming for kids of all ages, and a kids' crafting station will be available throughout the festival.

All are welcome! You don’t need to play an instrument or have previous experience in Yiddish culture. The festival will include a multi-disciplinary program of klezmer concerts as well as workshops in Yiddish dance, language, food, music and more (no prior experience necessary).

Unfortunately, we can’t accommodate folks bringing pets…however cute!

There is electricity, running water, and porta-potties (including ADA/accessible) on site. There is electricity, running water, and porta-potties (including ADA/accessible) on site. There is no wifi. There is cell phone service for most providers. There is wifi at The Old Creamery Coop, a 5 minute drive away.

Looking for/offering a ride? KlezCummington 2024 Ride Share

KlezCummington does not have capacity to provide/coordinate accommodations for attendees. Coming from out of town? We suggest that you post on the KlezCummington accommodations offer/request share (we cannot guarantee you will matched with a host); Search for local camp grounds; Reach out to friends in the area who may be able to host you; Or consider rental options.

The concerts will take place in a barn with two entrances—one entrance has two steps to the main level, and the other entrance is a narrow ramp, with uneven ground in front of it. There will be porta-potties (including some that are ADA/accessible) a short distance from the barn. The parking will be down a slight hill from the event. There will be a few accessible parking spots right next to the barn (contact us to reserve an accessible spot). There will be chairs set up all around the event for sitting down. Many of the events during the day will take place entirely outside (under big tents). In the evening, the bands will play inside the barn, and folks are welcome to listen either from inside the barn or outside the barn on the lawn. If you have specific questions regarding accessibility, please contact us at info@klezcummington.com.

KlezCummington will take place almost entirely outside! At this moment, masks are optional in both outdoor and indoor spaces. There will be free KN95 masks available at the festival. The evening concerts, art installation, and a few workshops will be inside the barn with many large open windows and doors, and good airflow. Please stay home if you have been recently exposed to COVID or are feeling sick in any way. We are closely monitoring local cases and will update attendees about our COVID safety protocols as needed.

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