CENTRE HALL — Rhoneymeade Fest is gearing up to return for a fifth year, bringing experimental music, art and community to State College and Centre Hall at the Rhoneymeade Arboretum and Sculpture Garden.
The four-day festival will take place from Thursday, June 5, to Sunday, June 8, looking to present “a global sound in the heart of Pennsylvania.” According to a press release, there’s a lineup of more than 40 artists and performers touching a wide variety of genres, including folk, Indigenous, roots, ensemble orchestra, international fusion, experimental and much more.
“Each year Rhoneymeade Fest explores new themes that dive into our relationship to the arts and personal creativity through a unique lens. Rhoneymeade Fest 2025 not only showcases live performances but also fosters conversations on archival folklore traditions and the role of various media in preserving and evolving influential cultural and musical heritage,” Corey Elbin, director of Gorinto Productions, owner and operator of Manny’s and founder of Rhoneymeade Fest, shared.
“By embracing live broadcasting, podcasting and other modern mediums, the festival highlights how these traditions remain continuously influential, shaping global sounds and contemporary artistic expression.”
The festival embraces cross-cultural influences through its national partnerships, such as Barbes in New York City and Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee. Moreover, the festival provides a space to be a family-friendly event with options for late-night party goers and everything in between.
“Not surprisingly, the eclectic artistic performances and installations seem at home at Rhoneymeade,” Jim Flanagan, board member of Rhoneymeade, remarked.
“In fact, we happily leave the art on the windows all year-round. The event really highlights the ability of Rhoneymeade to be the backdrop of wonderful community connections, which is a primary mission: Rhoneymeade inspires and enriches our community as it fosters the connections between people, art and nature. Rhoneymeade and Rhoneymeade Fest blend the natural and social elements of community and we are glad to be a part of its growth.”
Featured workshops and residences at this year’s festival include:
- Sun Ra workshop — a deep dive into Afrofuturism and experimental Jazz with Paul Youngquist, the author of “A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism.”
- Mourning [A] Blkstar — A multi-generational, gender- and genre-nonconforming Afrofuturist collective out of Cleveland, Ohio that blends live soul instrumentation and hip-hop production to tell stories of the African Diaspora.
- Eléonore Biezunski — A singer and sound archivist, presenting live and recorded materials from the Max and Frieda Weinstein Archive YIVO Sound Recordings and other collections. Biezunski’s research explores how activists at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research built an archive to revive Yiddish (klezmer)music in the United States while shaping its future. She examines archives as both historical records and a dynamic ‘living space.” Discover how these musical treasures connect past, present and future.
While the rest of the lineup for this year’s Rhoneymeade Fest still has yet to be announced, the festival highlighted a few performances in the 2025 lineup, including:
- Combo Chimbita — Fusing cumbia, heavy metal, psychedelic funk, soul and Afro-Caribbean rhythms, to create “tropical futurism.”
- Messthetics — An experimental jazz-punk trio featuring Brendan Canty, Joe Lally (formerly of Fugazi) alongside Anthony Pirog. Collaborated with acclaimed jazz saxophonist James Brandon Lewis on their self-titled album.
- Bulla en el Barrio — A New York-based group that explores traditions, experiences, and lives of Colombian cantadoras (female singers) from the Urabá, Cordoba, Bolivar and Atlantico regions while focusing on the Afro-Colombian music tradition of bullerengue.
- HyperCube — Built a reputation on high-energy performances with impressive execution. The NYC-based quartet embraces the boundaries of chamber music, featuring cutting-edge works for saxophone, guitar, piano and percussion, while spanning electric and acoustic worlds.
RhoneymeadeFest also looks to provide a weekend of music, art and community. More activities surrounding this year’s festival include:
- Thursday, June 5 — The festival will kick off with a ticketed event for a taping of NPR’s “Essential Tremors” featuring Wendy Eisenberg.
- Friday, June 6 — A street festival will take place in State College with sidewalk performances, workshops and pop-ups in collaboration with Manny’s.
- Saturday, June 7 and Sunday, June 8 — The 2025 festival will take over the Rhoneymeade Arboretum and Sculpture Garden in Centre Hall, where festival goers will experience live music, art installations, collaborations with Clearwater Conservancy and more family-friendly activities that support sustainability. Some of the programming includes an Indigo Dye experience, Mending Textile Workshop, The Centre Seed (Mandala), Fish for Hope and Tracing the Labyrinth Path with Color.
- Local artists will also be displayed with pieces for sale as a pop-up shop in the Rhoneymeade Studio in addition to food vendors at the festival.
- After parties — On both Friday and Saturday night of the festival, the evening will wrap up late-night night performances at Manny’s in downtown State College.
Rhoneymeade Fest is organized by Gorinto Productions with support from State College Borough, the Downtown State College Improvement District, the Knight Fund at Centre Foundation and local businesses and individuals, including Boal City Brewing.
“Rhoneymeade Fest is a destination event celebrating art, music and nature at Rhoneymeade Arboretum and Sculpture Garden and downtown State College,” the press release from the festival explained. “Since its inception, Rhoneymeade Fest grew to including the urban sprawl of State College to incorporate all land, city and soundscapes of Central Pennsylvania. This festival offers attendees a true “Great American Getaway” — a retreat into creativity, culture and connection.”
More information and festival passes can be found online at RhoneymeadeFest.com.
