Twenty-Five Years of Picking in the Green Mountains
The Jenny Brook Bluegrass Festival began in 2001 with roughly 500 people gathered at Weston Town Park in southern Vermont, held together by the vision of Candi Sawyer and the financial backing of the local Rod & Gun Club. Twenty-five years later, it has grown into one of New England’s most beloved bluegrass gatherings — not by chasing scale, but by doubling down on everything that made it special in the first place: camping, community, and the sound of instruments being played by people who genuinely cannot stop.
The 25th annual edition runs June 24-28, 2026, at the Tunbridge Fairgrounds in Tunbridge, Vermont. The festival relocated from Weston to Tunbridge in 2009 after Seth Sawyer — Candi’s partner in both life and festival production — performed at the fairgrounds and recognized its particular magic. The larger grounds accommodated bigger acts and growing crowds, which have since climbed past 1,200 attendees with a notably younger demographic joining the faithful core.
The Picking Circle Capital of New England
Jenny Brook’s reputation rests on its picking circles, and that reputation is earned nightly. After the main stage goes quiet, the campgrounds come alive with informal jam sessions that form, dissolve, and reform until the early hours. Beginners sit next to veterans. Mandolins trade leads with banjos. Someone always knows the words to the song you half-remember. This is not a scheduled activity or a curated experience — it is the organic result of putting several hundred musicians in close proximity with nothing to do but play.
The festival’s camping-included model reinforces this culture. When everyone sleeps on the same grounds, the boundary between performer and audience softens. The Seth Sawyer Band has hosted every edition of the festival, with Seth on guitar and Candi on bass, and their presence in the campground circles is part of Jenny Brook’s DNA.
A Family Affair by Design
Kids attend free, and the festival programs with families in mind without diluting the musical programming. Candi Sawyer’s inspiration for the festival traces back to her grandfather, Fernan Parker, who promoted the Weston Playhouse Concert Series for over 25 years. That multigenerational ethos runs through Jenny Brook’s identity — the idea that bluegrass is not something you age into or out of, but something that grows with you.
Workshops, band contests, and food vendors round out the daytime programming, though the real curriculum is informal. Jenny Brook teaches by immersion: sit near the stage long enough and you will hear what great bluegrass sounds like; sit in a picking circle long enough and you will start to understand how it works.
Central Vermont and the Drive
Tunbridge sits in central Vermont, roughly three hours from Albany via I-89. The fairgrounds occupy a rural valley setting that feels authentically removed from the everyday — no cell service strongholds, no nearby strip malls, just green hills and the sound of someone tuning a dobro. For Capital Region bluegrass fans, Jenny Brook represents the closest thing to a pilgrimage site: five days in the Green Mountains where the music never fully stops and the welcome never wears thin. Twenty-five years in, the Sawyers have built something that feels less like a festival and more like a tradition.