Here’s your curated mostly-Hartford (sometimes, not) event calendar for February 2025.

What makes this list? Events that I would either attend or recommend to a good friend.
Review events with the host/venue to confirm details have not changed since publication.

ADD TO CALENDAR

  • BABY GRAND JAZZ: The Chris Beaudry Quartet will be performing from 3-4 PM at the Hartford Public Library on February 2, 2025. Free.
  • LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL: A LETTER TO GAZA: There is one chance to see this film at Cinestudio: February 2, 2025 at 4 PM. The theater describes the movie: “Exiled above the arctic circle in Norway and refusing to accept the boundaries imposed by international politics & rigid bureaucracy, Palestinian filmmaker Mohamed Jabaly insists on telling heartfelt stories from his hometown Gaza. Despite his statelessness and having only limited connection to his family abroad, he manages to channel support from friends and his own creativity, adhering to his motto LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. And throughout it all, he fights for his rights with integrity, community, and a smile for the world.” Watch the trailer and buy tickets here.
  •  DRUM CIRCLE: Bring your own drum or let the hosts know you’d like to borrow one, this free event is at St. Patrick-St. Anthony Church in Hartford on February 3, 2025 at 6:30 PM. First-timers are asked to arrive at 6:15 PM.
  • Read 1984 by George Orwell
  • LEARN TO KNIT: Beginners can learn how to knit a scarf at the Camp Field branch of the Hartford Public Library on February 4, 2025 from 11 AM – 12:30 PM. Free, but you gotta register.
  • SIERRA CLUB COFFEE HOUR: Meet up for coffee and a chat at Story & Soil (Hartford) on the first three Thursdays of each month, which is February 6, 13, and 20. This is from 8:30-11 AM. Sign up in advance.
  •  MATH IN THE MUSEUM: Amistad Center educator Monica Mills will be exploring the intersection of math and art in the Amistad and Wadsworth collections. This free program is at the Wadsworth Atheneum on Thursday, February 6, 2025 at 4 PM.
  •  CITIZEN JAMES: Citizen James, or the Young Man Without a Country, set in 1948, is a play about a young James Baldwin about to leave the United States for France on a one-way ticket. Watch a performance of this play at Carriage House Theater in Hartford from February 6-16, 2025. Pay-What-You-Want tickets are available!
  • 1-800-ON-HER-OWN: This film about musician Ani DiFranco screens at the Wadsworth Atheneum at 7:30 PM on Thursday, February 6, 2025. Free admission to the movie.
  • A NIGHT OF ROMANCE & COMEDY: It’s tiiiiiime! Sea Tea Improv brings you another night of an improvised Hallmark movie, followed by a remake as how you might find it on Lifetime. That would have been enough, but they’re having Montgomery & Taggert — Connecticut’s only romance bookstore — set up a table in the lobby. Get your tickets for the show on Saturday, February 8, 2025 at 7 PM.
  •  BAD SHABBOS: Watch the trailer for this comedy, then go get your tickets. One chance to see this film at the Mandell JCC in West Hartford as part of the Hartford Jewish Film Festival on Saturday, February 8, 2025 at 7:30 PM.
  •  CHILDREN OF PEACE: This film is about Israeli and Palestinian children raised together in a village in Israel that was founded in the 1970s. Watch it at the Mandell JCC on Sunday, February 9, 2025 at 1 PM. Avi Patt and Fahoum Fahoum will be in conversation after the movie. Watch the trailer, then get your tickets.
  • BABY GRAND JAZZ: Aja Moyé will be performing from 3-4 PM at the Hartford Public Library on February 9, 2025. Free.
  •  COMPLETE STREETS TASK FORCE: Hartford’s Complete Streets Task Force meets on February 10, 2025 at noon, virtually. For non-Hartford residents frustrated with their own towns’ stagnant approaches to Vision Zero, I would suggest attending these meetings as observers. There are many things that Hartford gets wrong, but an area of success has been the improvement of our streets for pedestrians and cyclists in recent years.
  • CLIMATE ACTION RALLY: Join others with Sierra Club Connecticut on February 11, 2025 from 3-4:30 PM at Eversource headquarters, 56 Prospect Street in downtown Hartford.
  • HURRICANE:  Omar Acevedo will be in conversation with Salvador Gómez-Colón, a climate resilience advocate and author of Hurricane: My Story of Resilience, on February 12, 2025 at 7 PM at the Twain House & Museum. Get your tickets here.
  • FREE FOOD: Get a free bag of groceries from Foodshare on February 13, 2025 from 3-4 PM at the Barbour branch of the Hartford Public Library.
  •  SOUND BATH: Every other Friday, Karen Fox will be providing a free, guided meditation session at the First Presbyterian Church sanctuary (165 Capitol Avenue) from 5:30-6:30 PM, with the next dates being February 14 and 28, 2025. A sound bath features the “soothing sounds of Tibetan and crystal bowls, chimes, tuning forks and other indigenous instruments wash over you.” Just show up. If you want to lay down, bring a mat or towel, otherwise, seating is provided.

  •  DAY OF TEARS: See a free, staged reading of Day of Tears at the New Britain Museum of American Art on February 15, 2025 at 2 PM. They describe this: “On March 2 and 3, 1852, in Savannah, Georgia, the largest public sale of enslaved people in the United States took place. Four hundred plus enslaved people were paraded as chattel to the auctioneer’s block. The enslaved people referred to these times as, ‘The Weeping Time,’ for the skies opened, poured forth, and when the last person was sold, miraculously, the sky returned to its former shade of blush.” Register for this one-day event here.
  • AIDAI KALMAMATOVA: Aidai will be performing traditional music from Kyrgyzstan on komuz, jetigen, and ooz komuz. This free performance will be at the Wadsworth Atheneum on Sunday, February 16, 2025 from 1:30-2:30 PM.
  • BABY GRAND JAZZ: The Elan Mehler Trio will be performing from 3-4 PM at the Hartford Public Library on February 16, 2025. Free.
  • SAY IT LOUD: The Hartford Symphony Orchestra will give a free concert to celebrate Black History Month at the Hartford Public Library on February 18, 2025 from 6:30-7:30 PM.
  • ENVIRO LEGISLATION: Learn about Connecticut environmental legislation in 2025 in a 90-minute webinar hosted by the Interreligious Eco-Justice Network. This free session begins at 7 PM on February 18, 2025. Register to get the online sign-in.
  •  LET US DESCEND: The virtual reading group through Stowe Center meets on February 19, 2025 at 6 PM to discuss Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward, which they describe: “Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Annis leads readers through the descent, hers is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.” You don’t have to have read the book in advance to participate. Register for this free event. (If you can’t make it to this discussion, it happens to be the book chosen for the March book club at St. Patrick-St. Anthony. . .)
  •  NORTH WOODS: St. Patrick-St. Anthony’s — or as you might think of it, the hip and welcoming Catholic church in Hartford — is hosting a book club on Zoom, with the focus this month on North Woods, a novel that has earned all the attention it’s been given. This is free to attend. Email or call them to get the Zoom link for the discussion on February 20, 2025 at 7 PM.
  • AMY GALLATIN & STILLWATERS: Enjoy a bluegrass concert at the Unitarian Society of Hartford (spiderweb/spaceship building) on February 21, 2025 at 7 PM. Tickets are $20 — purchase at the door; doors open at 6:30.
  •   WASTE LAND: This is the last day to view the Vik Muniz exhibit at the New Britain Museum of American Art, and they are showing Waste Land on February 23, 2025 as well. The film begins at 2 PM. From their description: “Filmed over nearly three years, Waste Land follows renowned artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world’s largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. There he photographs an eclectic band of catadores — or garbage pickers. The catadores are the ultimate marginalized population; unemployed in any traditional sense of the word, they resort to picking valuable recyclable materials from the garbage thrown away by those in Brazil more fortunate than themselves. But they display remarkably good spirits and camaraderie in the face of their lot in life, forming friendships and, in the case of the elderly Valter, declaring the crucial and meaningful role they play in remediating the results of the modern culture of overconsumption and careless disposal. Under the leadership of the young, charismatic picker Tião, they have even created a co-operative to pool their labor and resources to maximize their income. Vik Muniz, a Brazilian artist known for using unconventional materials to create portraits of marginalized people, set out to “paint” the catadores with the garbage they spent their days sorting through. But upon meeting the amazing characters who work at the landfill, he decides to turn the project into a collaboration with the catadores themselves. He photographs the pickers individually at the landfill itself, and then projects the images he’s captured onto the floor of a massive warehouse nearby. Then he works with the catadores to gather recyclable items from the dump and use these discarded things to recreate the images on the floor. In the end, vibrant, complex, and essentially human portraits emerge, revealing both dignity and despair as the catadores begin to re-imagine their lives.” Tickets can be purchased online. 
  • BABY GRAND JAZZ: O3 featuring Zaccai Curtis will be performing from 3-4 PM at the Hartford Public Library on February 23, 2025. Free.
  • Take actions that aren’t protesting or voting
  •  THE AMEN CORNER: This staged reading of James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner, directed by taneisha duggan, will be at Immanuel Congregational in Hartford on February 23, 2025 at 3 PM. In collaboration with Charter Oak Cultural Center, they describe the play: “For years Sister Margaret Alexander has moved her Harlem congregation with a mixture of personal charisma and ferocious piety. But when Margaret’s estranged husband, a scapegrace jazz musician, comes home to die, she is in danger of losing both her standing in the church and the son she has tried to keep on the godly path. The Amen Corner is a play about faith and family, about the gulf between black men and black women and black fathers and black sons. It is a scalding, uplifting, sorrowful and exultant masterpiece of the modern American theater.” Get tickets here.
  • FREE FOOD: Get a free bag of groceries from Foodshare on February 27, 2025 from 3-4 PM at the Barbour branch of the Hartford Public Library.
  • THIN ICE: On view through mid-March, this digital animation by Joseph Smolinski can be viewed at Real Art Ways. As the artist describes it: “Fueled by automotive fetishism and masculine folly this moving image is a striking metaphor of the state of the environment.” Gallery admission is always free.

CULTURAL ASSETS

For ongoing free education, entertainment, public art, and resources — like 24/7 food pantries and libraries — in Hartford, check out this map. Zoom in and click on the icons for more information. This was last updated in January 2025: