For its first three years, Lebanon Opera House’s Nexus Music and Arts Festival has specialized in bringing less-heralded acts to an Upper Valley audience.

The thinking, as opera house Executive Director Joe Clifford has explained it in years past, is that people are more willing to check out a lesser-known talent at a free outdoor festival than they would be at a ticketed event.

But this year is different, in a couple of ways. It’s the opera house’s 100th birthday, so Clifford brought in a big act, in the form of rock singer-songwriter Joan Osborne, to headline this year’s festival, which runs Friday through Sunday.

Osborne’s performance, Friday evening at the front of a rock trio, points to the evolution of a festival that Clifford started in 2021 as a way to return to original programming during the coronavirus pandemic.

"It's really the centerpiece of our LOH on Location programming," he said in an interview this week.

Osborne is someone he’s long admired. She played a concert of Bob Dylan songs at the opera house in 2018, and had an open date that aligned with Nexus.

The other big change for this year’s festival is that some of it will be inside the opera house. Clifford opted to make an accommodation to the weather forecast, which was calling for showers on Friday and Saturday when we spoke on Tuesday. (The changeableness of New England weather calls for keeping a close eye on the opera house’s website for updates.)

As of Wednesday afternoon, Friday night’s two big acts, Osborne and Jax Hollow, a younger, somewhat harder-rocking version of Osborne who fronts her own trio, will play in the opera house, with Hollow going on at 5:15 and Osborne at 8. Clifford was looking for other indoor venues for Friday’s other acts, the Kathleen Parks Band, led by the eponymous fiddler, vocalist and songwriter, and the Clement Brothers, an Americana duo and plans to announce the locations Thursday.

The indoor performances are still free, but the opera house is offering a “rain insurance policy” with a $20 premium that would allow the holder to get a 15-minute jump on seating over the general public. Seating will be first-come, first-served.

The Friday night Silent Disco, slated for 9:30, also will move into the opera house, and attendees can reserve headphones in advance through the opera house’s website.

The weather Saturday and Sunday looks more favorable for an outdoor festival, which means Nexus’ customary three stages will be up and running. Unlike most festivals, performances are consecutive, rather than concurrent, enabling attendees to circulate from one to another and to hear everyone.

On Saturday, that means the main stages behind the opera house and in Colburn Park will host the West African music and dance ensemble Jeh Kulu at 3 p.m., the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Sunny War at 5:15, Quebec traditional music trio É.T.É. at 6:45, and the Western Mass.-based Eastern European gypsy-punk-stomp collective Bella’s Bartok at 8.

Sunday ushers in Miss Emma, who writes and performs music for children and teaches music lessons in Vermont, at 1 p.m.; the Voloz Collective, the physical theater company I wrote about last week, will perform its play, “The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much,” at 3 p.m.; Nation Beat, a band that mixes New York jazz with New Orleans brass and the energy of northeastern Brazil, at 5:15; the Burlington-based soul ensemble Soul Porpoise, at 6:45; and the concluding act, The Full Cleveland, a Vermont-based yacht rock cover band, at 8.

Also during the festival, a smaller busker’s stage on the Lebanon mall will host musicians from Tuck’s Rock Dojo, the Etna-based rock school for tots and teens, and from the Upper Valley Music Center, which is just across Colburn Park.

As of this writing, the opera house has put out only a list of performers. A detailed schedule is due out on Thursday.

The ongoing 100th birthday season has been a strong one for the opera house, Clifford said. Renovations performed last winter and a busy schedule of performances have led to solid and appreciative audiences, he said.

“It’s been really good to be in the new venue,” Clifford said. But “what’s been really amazing has been the response of the community.”

A March performance by drag queen and Center for Cartoon Studies graduate Sasha Velour “was one of those big moments” in the opera house’s reopening, Clifford said. More than 600 people turned out on a Monday night.

The rest of the season includes performances from, among others, Neko Case on Sept. 25, Blues Traveller on Sept. 27, “This American Life” host Ira Glass on Oct. 12, Pink Martini on Oct. 20 and jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman and his band on Nov. 7.

Nexus is the lead-in, though, the biggest three-day stretch in the opera house’s calendar.

“At any moment you pop into downtown, some performance is happening,” Clifford said. And for the most part, it’s free.

For more information about Lebanon Opera House’s Nexus Festival, go to lebanonoperahouse.org.

Open house

If you stop by the Nexus Fest on Saturday, don’t forget to drop in on AVA Gallery and Art Center, at 11 Bank St., which is holding an open house from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., followed by a bidding party from 4 to 6:30 for “10X10,” a silent auction fundraising exhibition of 10-inch square works donated by regional artists.

Photographs in WRJ

The Zollikofer Gallery in White River Junction’s Hotel Coolidge shows photographs by Lebanon artist Larry Vanier, who is one of the best and least-heralded landscape photographers in New England.

Alex Hanson can be reached at ahanson@vnews.com or 603-727-3207.

CORRECTION: "It's really the centerpiece of our LOH on Locati on programming," Lebanon Opera House Executive Director Joe Clifford said in an interview this week about the opera house's Nexus Festival. The quotation was incorrect in a previous version of this column.