By Ruth Luse, Managing Editor
LAMBERTVILLE — From Aug. 17-19, the Friends of Lambertville Library and select galleries in New Hope will present an Artist Visions Festival event.
This summer’s festival has been celebrating the creative visions of area filmmakers, musicians, and artists — via special exhibitions and films that showcase New Hope’s and Lambertville’s rich arts history — at ACME Screening Room.
The upcoming festival event will feature a “Return to Music Mountain” photo exhibition in ACME lobby with a screening of “Lost Bohemia,” a documentary about “the eviction of artists from the famous 165 landmark Studios atop Carnegie Hall, which are being turned into offices.
”The studios have been home to some of the most significant 20th century artists and performers, including: Marilyn Monroe, Isadora Duncan, Barnett Newman, Norman Mailer, Marlon Brando, George Balanchine and Bill Cunningham,” said a spokesman.
The exhibition, “Return to Music Mountain,” will feature images and memorabilia from Lambertville’s long-lived, but now defunct summer theater and live music venue, the “Lambertville Music Circus,” which was produced with the help of a legion of locals, and Director St. John Terrell. It featured the talent of “some of the greatest artists of our time, from Barbara Streisand to Stan Getz to Stevie Wonder,” the spokesman added.
ST. JOHN TERRELL’S Lambertville Music Circus, according to a website, was a theater-in-the-round. “The in-the-round format dates to the outdoor arenas of the ancient Greeks, but in American musical theater, it became popular soon after 1949, when St. John Terrell erected a circus-style tent — with one ring rather than three — in Lambertville. He staged popular operettas and musicals, and the actors walked through the aisles, interacting with the audience. It made for a unique musical-comedy experience that quickly caught on, and similar theaters, called “music circuses,” sprang up around the country.” For more details, visit: www.lambertville-music-circus.org.
Visitors to the Artist Visions events are invited to share a copy of their own Music Mountain-related photo to add to the show’s “community wall.”
”Return to Music Mountain” will be free to the public and will be open Saturday from 6:30-10 p.m. and on Sunday from 5-7 p.m.
For show times, ticket prices and to purchase tickets, visit: www.AcmeScreeningRoom.org.
ACME Screening Room is located at 25 S. Union St., Lambertville.
Artist Visions Festival is a project of Friends of Lambertville Library, a tax-exempt nonprofit organization. Friends of Lambertville Library would like to extend special thanks to The City of Lambertville, and Wells Fargo Bank for generously providing the space to present this festival, and to River Queen Artisans Gallery for coordinating the participation of area businesses in this festival.
Funding for the festival has been made possible in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, through funds administered by the Hunterdon County Cultural & Heritage Commission.

