Cary Memorial Hall Lexington Concerts: Your Fall 2026 Guide

When you buy a ticket for a show at Cary Memorial Hall, who is putting it on? For most of this fall, the answer depends on the night. Some evenings belong to a Boston-area promoter that brings in national touring acts. Others belong to Lexington's own orchestra and a local dance school. All of them share the same stage at 1605 Massachusetts Avenue, but they don't share a box office.

From tonight's Love Letters through The Dance Inn's holiday shows on December 12, the two calendars alternate almost week by week. Looking at them side by side is the simplest way to plan a fall of evenings in Lexington Center.

One stage, two box offices

The Town's own page for the building lays out how it works. The Isaac Harris Cary Memorial Building includes the Margery Milne Battin Auditorium, Estabrook Hall and several meeting rooms. Room reservations go through the Department of Public Facilities. Concerts are a separate matter. The page says Spectacle Management hosts many concerts in Battin Hall, and it sends questions about most of those shows to Spectacle at 800-675-8774.

This arrangement isn't new. Spectacle was already presenting the Vienna Boys Choir at Cary Hall in November 2015, according to a Lexington Minuteman notice. In 2016, the Boston Globe wrote that the town's $9 million investment in the hall seemed to be paying off. The paper named Pete Lally, president of Spectacle Management, as the person booking its acts. In the hall's first year after renovation, the lineup included Livingston Taylor, Bruce Hornsby, Robert Cray and Gordon Lightfoot. Lally explained the logic to the Globe:

"Certainly there will always be shows that people will travel 50 or a hundred miles to see, but the convenience of something taking place close by brings an audience to a performance they might not consider attending if it were a longer drive."

That logic still shapes this season. The Lexington groups that use the hall work on their own schedules and sell their own tickets. This fall the two tracks are woven together more tightly than a quick look at any one listing would suggest.

The combined calendar, October 22 through December 12

Prices below are the ranges listed at the time of writing. Promoter prices and availability can change.

Spectacle's shows mostly fall on weeknights and around Thanksgiving weekend. The local performances land on Saturdays and one Sunday matinee. Judy Collins's Black Friday show is already listed as sold out. Anyone hoping to go to the holiday-season shows has only a few weeks of lead time left.

Where the local track fits

Spectacle's own Cary Memorial Hall page calls Lexington Symphony the hall's resident professional orchestra. The orchestra's music director described the relationship to The Lexington Observer in 2024. He said the Symphony moved to Cary Hall as it grew, the Town renovated the building once it recognized its value as a performance space, and the hall became intertwined with the orchestra's identity.

This fall's Lexington Symphony season puts two programs into the window. Vivid Images on November 7 pairs Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks with Debussy's La Mer. It ends with Giya Kancheli's Styx, which features the orchestra's principal violist, Emily Rideout, and the New World Chorale. Holiday POPS! on December 5 and 6 centers on Howard Blake's score for The Snowman. Regie Gibson, the first Poet Laureate of Massachusetts, narrates. Soprano Teresa Winner Blume, the Lexington High School Choruses and Santa Claus also appear. The shorter Kids Pops! runs at 4 p.m. on December 5, ahead of the evening performance.

The Dance Inn, a Lexington dance school, closes out the stretch with its 39th Annual Holiday Shows on December 12. The Cary Hall listing calls the program "'Tis The Season" and marks it "Not Available Online." For tickets, check with The Dance Inn directly.

So the local track has only four dates in eight weeks, but they're the ones with the most Lexington residents on stage. That includes the high school choruses and a dance school in its 39th holiday season. Those performers bring their own audiences of families and neighbors.

The Saturdays when Mass Ave doubles up

The two calendars also run into what's happening in the rest of the Center. On Saturday, November 7, the Symphony's Vivid Images starts at 7:30 p.m. at Cary Hall. At the same hour, a short walk up Massachusetts Avenue, Reggie Harris plays Harmony on the Green at Hancock Church, 1912 Massachusetts Ave. That's the coffeehouse series' fifth season, and Harris played its very first show. Standard tickets are $25 plus fees, with a pay-what-you-can option.

The week before, on November 1 at 4 p.m., the Master Singers of Lexington open their season with "Water: Music of Rain, Rivers, Lakes, and the Sea." That concert is at Pilgrim Congregational Church, not Cary Hall, and the Greater Boston Choral Consortium listing gives tickets at $25 to $30.

December 5 is the busiest single day at Cary Hall itself. Kids Pops! runs at 4 p.m. and Holiday POPS! at 7:30 p.m., so families with young children and evening concertgoers arrive in two separate waves.

Buying the right ticket for the right night

Because the hall has two bookers, there are several places to buy tickets.

1. Spectacle shows. Tickets for Love Letters, Juston McKinney, Andy Grammer, Judy Collins, Shaun Cassidy, the Vienna Boys Choir, The Temptations and The Irish Tenors are sold through Etix links on Spectacle's Cary Hall venue page and on caryhalllexington.com. Spectacle's event pages for Judy Collins and Shaun Cassidy say Spectacle Live members get presale access. That matters most for the shows that sell out.
2. Lexington Symphony concerts. Vivid Images, Holiday POPS! and Kids Pops! are sold through the Symphony's own ticketing, linked from its season page. The orchestra lists a single-ticket handling fee of $6 for Gold seats and $5 for White and Blue seats, youth tickets included. To reserve accessible seating, call 781-523-9009.
3. The Dance Inn. For the December 12 shows, go through The Dance Inn's event page.
4. Questions about a show. For most Battin Hall shows, the Town sends questions to Spectacle Management at 800-675-8774.

Before the curtain goes up

Through November 17, early arrivals have something to look at on the walk in. ArtWalk 2026, the Munroe Center for the Arts' annual fall show of local artists' work, fills shop and restaurant windows around Lexington Center with paintings, photography, sculpture, pottery and fiber arts, The Lexington Observer reported. Some pieces are for sale through the contact details shown beside them. That covers the November 7 Symphony concert and the November 10 Andy Grammer show, so the walk from the car to Cary Hall comes with a gallery on the way.

For parking, the Symphony's directions page lists nearby municipal lots and metered street spaces, plus free evening parking at the police station and the Town offices. On a night like December 5, with two Symphony performances a few hours apart, the 4 p.m. crowd leaving and the 7:30 p.m. crowd arriving will share those same lots.

If you're thinking about how Lexington Center fits your own calendar, whether you're settling in, relocating or deciding whether to stay, Suzie Winchester is glad to talk through the town as it actually runs week to week. Call or text Suzie for a personal market consultation.