Summer Music Festivals in Lexington, Michigan

Lexington, Michigan is a port and tourist town, population 1,100, located 18 miles north of Port Huron. There’s an old-fashioned general store and a Sixties-era drive in. The library building was new when Abe Lincoln was president. The post office is next door to a pickle factory. The marina is haunted. In the summer, there’s live music almost every weekend, and something for everyone.

The Lexington Arts Council and the Blue Water Folk Society co-sponsor Music In The Park, a series of free concerts in waterfront Tierney Park every Friday evening from mid-June through mid-August. This summer, for classical music lovers, there’s The St. Clair Community College Symphonic band. If you remember polished maple ballroom floors and last-dancing to “Moonlight Serenade,” The Rhythm Society Orchestra will re-create an era when big bands ruled. Bugs Beddow brings the gritty sound of Detroit blues to the small-town, lakeside, setting. Cruisers of Woodward or Gratiot Avenues can let Steve King and the Dittlies and doo-woppers The Reflections bring back memories of the fabulous Fifties.

Tierney Park is located at the foot of Huron Street, the main east-west street in Lexington. Free parking is available there, and at the park’s other entrance from Simons Street, one block north. Bring a picnic lunch, cooler, and lawn chairs, and arrive early to get a good spot. The old man wearing a sailor’s cap, whom visitors occasionally meet, captained a ship that sank a mile or two out in Lake Huron over a hundred years ago. His wife has also been spotted, watching for his ship, or waiting on a bench for him to return. They’re ghosts.

Septembers in the Thumb are spectacular. It’s still summer, but fall is in the air; days are comfortably warm, nights pleasantly cool. On September 2, the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, The Blue Water Folk Society sponsors Thumbfest, twelve hours of music in Tierney Park starting at 10 AM. Nationally known duo Mustard’s Retreat heads a lineup of bluegrass and traditional country bands. Bring your instruments and dancing shoes. Demonstrations, and instruction, will be offered. Music and games for children are also among the day’s attractions.

On the last weekend of calendar summer, September 14 through 17, the seventh annual Lexington Bach Festival will take place at St. Denis Church, on Main Street (M-25), two blocks north of the stoplight. Don Th. Jaeger, music director and conductor of the Bach Festival Orchestra, has conducted, taught, and performed both in the United States and in Europe for over thirty years. The Orchestra’s musicians and vocalists vary, depending on the works chosen for each year’s festival. All are seasoned professionals who’ve performed at some of the world’s most famous concert halls. It’ll be a weekend of classic Bach that really Bachs.

It’s our hope that, after you’ve heard some world-class music, checked out the shops in town, and sampled the fine fishing and boating the Blue Water region of Michigan has to offer, you’ll come Bach and see us again next summer!