Arts & Culture

Martin Luther King Jr. Day has become a day of service each year, as people come together to take action and make their communities better. Here are volunteer opportunities and events taking place in the Lehigh Valley.

Celebrations are set to take place throughout the Lehigh Valley while volunteer efforts focus on forming an ongoing connection with the community.

Nkasso, a West African family-owned eatery, held a ribbon-cutting and grand opening on Friday at 44 N. 8th Street in Allentown. It offers bissap, a drink made out of the flowers of the Roselle plant (a variety of Hibiscus), along with other cultural staples.

This week, the LehighValleyNews.com digital desk handpicked three events for you to enjoy, including Easton Restaurant Week, the 'Of Portraiture & Polio' exhibition and Positively Picturesque.

The symphony is asking composers in the Lehigh Valley and surrounding area to submit works for string quartet or any combination of traditional string quartet instruments.

Sit-down dining and over-the-counter food on the menu for Easton Restaurant Week, starting Jan. 15.

Third generation Lehigh Valley resident Ashley Coleman will lead the Bradbury-Sullivan Center as it expands its programming over the next few years.

Comedian Gabriel Iglesias, best known for his Comedy Central channel specials “I’m Not Fat … I’m Fluffy,” will headline the main stage at Bethlehem's Musikfest festival in August, it was announced Monday.

Maren Morris, who has topped the country charts but may be best known for her dance music collaboration "In the Middle" with Grey and Zedd, will headline the main stage at Bethlehem's Musikfest festival in August, it was announced Monday.

Take a look at stories that ran throughout the week of which we are most proud, had a profound impact on readers or that you might want to look at again.

The 4th Annual International Cultural Festival on Saturday, Sept. 16, will feature handcrafts, performances and food from a diverse range of cultures around the globe.

Starting Friday, Sept. 15 is Halloween Haunt, a nighttime event meant to thrill and terrify in equal measure, running select nights through October 28.

The show, at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 2, will be topped by Two-time WWE World Champion A.J. Styles, considered one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, and four-time World Champion Sheamus, the first Irish world champion in WWE history.

Saturday's festival will feature cooking and beauty demos, live music and guest lectures by authors.

The eighth Martin's Guitar Wood Summit was held Thursday at Martin & Co. in Nazareth. The main topic centered on sustainability of forests that provide wood used for guitar construction.

A stage play based on music from the Saturday morning “Schoolhouse Rock” animated series – much of it written by late Lehigh Valley-area resident Bob Dorough – is set to open Friday.

Sample hundreds of new creations from sixty breweries at the buzzworthy block party happening Saturday, Sept. 9.

The Bethlehem Running Festival has added a half-marathon relay to its inaugural event on Oct. 21-22.

Allentown's 19th Street Theatre has been nominated to be on the National Register of Historic Places.

Workers battled oppressive heat while breaking down venues at the recently concluded 171st Allentown Fair on Tuesday, Final attendance figure for the six-day festival is expected to be released by next week.

Total attendance figures won't be released until later in the week, but they likely were helped by a week of splendid weather. The six-day fair started last Wednesday and wrapped up, as usual, with the demolition derby at the grandstand on Labor Day.