The Music Box is Closing
CRAFTSBURY – After twenty years of concerts in Craftsbury, the Music Box is closing. Music Box President Lisa Sammet says that she planned to have her final concert in May of 2020 and announce the closing then, but never got the chance.
Sammet opened the Music Box in July of 2000, holding concerts in a part of her house. She has hosted mostly bluegrass and Celtic folk musicians.
Sammet said that she is ninety-eight percent sure that the Music Box will not open again after the pandemic. “I know that if I ever open it again, it will not be for several years,” she said.
Sammet had worked in a coffeehouse and a library organizing concerts. She said this gave her connections with musicians, which helped her start the Music Box. “They knew that if I promoted a concert that I would promote it correctly, that I had the skills to do the advertising,” she said.
Sammet has spent decades supporting local and live musicians. “There’s lots [of] really good musicians,” she said. “They don’t make a lot of money. It’s really hard for them to make a living on that.” When musicians played at the Music Box, “If it was a night when there weren’t very many people that came, I always made sure they went away with $100, even though I actually never told them I was guaranteeing them anything.”
Buddy MacMaster, uncle of Natalie MacMaster, once played at the Music Box. The two MacMasters were in Vermont playing at larger venues, and Buddy “asked his friend if there was a place he could play that was small and low key,” said Sammet. “So, I did have Buddy MacMaster and I didn’t even advertise it. I just sent out a letter and invited the first 100 people.”
Other musicians who played at the Music Box include Atlantic Crossing, Banjo Dan, Robert Resnik, Lewis Franco and the Missing Cats, Will Patton, and Michele Choiniere.
Sammet does not think that someone else will take over the Music Box. “People have asked me can’t you have somebody do the same thing? The thing is, it’s in my house,” she said. “I feel sad that I won’t be able to do it, because it was just its own little special thing.”
Original story can found at the Hardwick Gazette.
