News Flash

 Old Country Road is dedicated to keeping the sound of vintage or traditional country music alive. They feature songs from the Golden Age of Country, the 1950-1960’s, with some bluegrass thrown in. They'll take you back to the days of the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville, the Mother Church of Country Music, performing songs by Hank Williams, Carl Smith, Webb Pierce, Kitty Wells, Faron Young, among many others!

     Rousing, soulful, foot-stomping fun with trombone, clarinet, trumpet, banjo and tuba, playing the classic dixieland and blues of New Orleans, Chicago, and everywhere in between! You'll hear Little Brown Jug, Basin Street Blues, Panama, Just a Closer Walk with Thee, Bill Bailey, Muskrat Ramble, Camptown Races and more. They'll put an instant smile both on your face and in your heart!

2025 Summit House 

        The Friends of the Mount Holyoke Range Summit House Sunset Concert Series is supported by Kestrel Land Trust, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Hadley, South Hadley and Amherst Cultural Councils, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the rangers of Skinner State Park, and the dedicated volunteers of the Friends of the Mount Holyoke Range.

Thurs., July 17, 7:30 pm

 The Valley

Northampton

Thurs., July 24, 7:30 pm

Thurs., July 31, 7:30 pm

          The historic, 935-ft. elevation Summit House in J. A. Skinner State Park in Hadley will resonate with live local music on five Thursday evenings this summer! And weather permitting, audience members can enjoy a glorious mountaintop sunset at intermission!

Thursday, July 3, 7:30 pm

Thurs., July 10, 7:30 pm

     The Northampton Woodwind Quintet is an ensemble dedicated to the literature, voice, and multiple personalities of the woodwind quintet: clarinet, flute, oboe, bassoon and French horn. They perform selections from the great Classical canon, as well as transcriptions of works composed for other instrumentation. They've had two original pieces written for them, and have created their own unique arrangements of works by master composers, from J.S. Bach to Scott Joplin.

Pre-concert picnicking on the porch (elevation: 935 ft.!)

Woodwind Quintet

      The Valley Strummers are a banjo string band from Holyoke that began in the 1920s as the “Pizzitola Strummers” under Joseph Pizzitola, and became "The Valley Strummers” under Bob Ezold. The name and repertoire has since continued through three generations of Ezolds. Once signature artists of the Bacon and Day Banjo Company of Groton, CT, today's trio with T.J. Ezold, Jerry Ezold and Adam Braunschweig plays the same historic instruments and same jazz and blues tunes and songs from the early 20th century!

Hilltown Ham Hocks

Old Country Road

Dixieland Stomp

  At an elevation of 935 ft. overlooking the Pioneer Valley, the Summit House

was built in 1851, and its earliest visitors reads like a Who's Who of 19th-century

writers, poets, artists and dignitaries such as Charles Dickens, Jenny Lind and Thomas Cole.

Its original timbers are over a century and a half old, and the building has a warm acoustic

resonance, like an enormous vintage wooden musical instrument perched on top of a

mountain. The sunsets viewed from its porch can be the most spectacular in western

New England. And, picnicking is both welcomed and encouraged on the rolling

high grounds of J. A. Skinner State Park. It is an ideal, exhilarating place for

an evening of friends, food, music, and nature in all its summer glory!