Wilco, Big Thief, Laurie Anderson: MASS MoCA 2026 Season Gets Loud in North Adams

MASS MoCA has released its full summer 2026 lineup, and the North Adams museum is again making a strong case for building your summer calendar around it. The season runs from Memorial Day weekend through September, with music, art exhibitions, comedy, book talks, family programs, and more spread across the museum's vast galleries and grounds.

Kicking It Off

The season begins on May 21 with the Art Futures Benefit, honoring two awardees: Laurie Anderson, who has new work going up in the Robert W. Wilson Building beginning in May, and philanthropist Charlotte Cramer Wagner. The benefit raises money for MASS MoCA's Art Futures Fund, which supports commissions, exhibitions, and programming. Tickets start at $750 for the dinner; the after party—with DJs and large-scale projections by artist Pamela Hersch in Courtyard C—is $50 separately.

Anderson is one of the defining figures in American avant-garde art, and her ongoing relationship with MASS MoCA stretches back years. She was NASA's first artist-in-residence in 2002, has had work on long-term display at the museum, and has mounted major recent exhibitions at the Hirshhorn, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and SCAD. She's also among the artists selected for the 61st Venice Biennale, running this spring and fall. The new work going up at MASS MoCA adds to an explosive year of activity from the artist.

Solid Sound Is Back and Sold Out

Wilco's Solid Sound festival (June 26–28) returns, and it opens Friday night with what will be the first-ever full concert performance of songs from the Mermaid Avenue collaboration, with Billy Bragg joining the band. The Mermaid Avenue project began in 1995 when Woody Guthrie's daughter Nora Guthrie recruited Bragg to help sort through the trove of unpublished lyrics Woody left following his death in 1967. Bragg brought Wilco into the project, and the first collaborative album arrived in 1998. However, they've never performed a full show together until now. "The world needs all the Woody Guthrie it can get," Wilco Frontman Jeff Tweedy says in a Rolling Stone interview. Bragg added: "There's an abiding love out there for the Mermaid Avenue albums, so I'm really looking forward to reconnecting with Wilco to bring Woody's words to life once again."

Unfortunately Solid Sound is already sold out but passes can be found on third party ticketing sites.

The full festival lineup includes The Breeders, Gang of Four, a solo set from Bragg, Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band, L'Rain, S. G. Goodman, Sharp Pins, Rich(ard) Dawson, The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis, and Hannah Cohen, among others. Comedy programming includes John Hodgman's Comedy Cabaret, with Jo Firestone, Demi Adejuyigbe, and Jordan Klepper. 

Outdoor Concerts

Lucy Dacus plays Courtyard C on July 23. The show is part of her summer tour in support of her 2025 album Forever Is a Feeling, for which she released an expanded version last fall. For the 2026 tour, Dacus is partnering with The Ally Coalition to direct $1 from every ticket sold to organizations serving queer and trans youth.The North Adams date falls between a show at Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston the night before and a Stone Pony Summer Stage date in Asbury Park two days later. A member of the Grammy-winning supergroup boygenius alongside Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker, Dacus last played MASS MoCA at Courtney Barnett's Here and There Festival in 2022. Tickets are $60 in advance, $44.10 for members.

Big Thief follows on August 8, presented by FreshGrass. The band first played MASS MoCA after their 2016 debut Masterpiece, and their return comes a decade later in a meaningfully different configuration. Founding bassist Max Oleartchik departed in 2024, and the band—now a trio of Adrianne Lenker, guitarist Buck Meek, and drummer James Krivchenia—released Double Infinity in September 2025. The Guardian, The Independent, and Record Collector all gave it perfect scores, with critics praising Lenker's songwriting.

Bang on a Can's LOUD Weekend runs July 30 through August 1. The Bang on a Can All-Stars will perform a new arrangement of Philip Glass's Glassworks in its entirety and a new live arrangement of Terry Riley's A Rainbow in Curved Air. Also on the bill: guitarist Yasmin Williams, Conrad Tao, and a world premiere of Annie Gosfield's one-act chamber opera “Emma,” exploring the life and legacy of Emma Goldman. Three-day passes start at $169.

Comedy

Robby Hoffman comes to town July 24. Her debut Netflix special “Wake Up,” directed by John Mulaney, premiered globally in December 2025. Mulaney said of Hoffman: "No one has owned a stage like her since James Brown. I'm extremely lucky that I got to spend so much time with this brilliant lunatic." Hoffman had a breakout year in 2025: she got married in January, earned an Emmy nomination for her work on “Hacks,” and closed out the year with the special. She also hosts the podcast “Too Far with Robby Hoffman” and is developing an HBO series called “Unentitled” where she'll serve as writer, executive producer, and star. 

Jay Jurden comes August 29. The Mississippi-born, New York-based comedian is a four-time guest on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and recently released the Hulu special “Yes Ma'am.” Tickets are $34 in advance.

The Exhibitions

Newly installed works by Laurie Anderson are up in the Robert W. Wilson Building beginning in May. Chilean artist Daniela Rivera opens “Hacia cuando (To When)” on July 11. Rivera's work examines the migration of cultural objects, narratives, and myths, drawing on both political and personal histories as an immigrant from Chile. At the center of the exhibition is a fresco-inspired tiled floor, built using pre-Hispanic craft traditions, that visitors are invited to walk across. “Technologies of Relation” continues through the season, and the outdoor sculpture collection reopens May 23.

On June 13’s MASS MoCA's Community Free Day Amanda Lovelee's will open “Homecoming”—an outdoor installation built around two red oak trees: one from the southeastern U.S. and one local, both participating in an assisted plant migration residency. Custom bleachers have been designed for watching the trees grow. A Pep Rally for the Trees at 2pm features regional marching bands and kid-friendly programming. Isaac Fitzgerald, author of American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed, joins Lovelee in conversation at 4pm. All of it is free.

The Research & Development Store is hosting  “50 Years of PUNK,” opening June 26 to coincide with Solid Sound. The exhibition honors PUNK magazine and the artists, photographers, and musicians who shaped one of the 20th century's most influential creative movements.

A thick schedule of book talks runs through the season in the R&D Store too, including Jon King of Gang of Four on his memoir To Hell with Poverty! (June 26), two photo book presentations by David Katzenstein and David Ricci (July 9), and music cognition researcher Elizabeth Margulis on Transported, her book about the phenomenon of musical daydreams (July 26).

Full schedule and tickets at massmoca.org.