Last year Erika Van Pelt made it to the top ten on American Idol. This meant in addition to an incredible run on national television for one of the singers of Martha’s Vineyard’s own Sultans of Swing, she spent the summer touring the country with the rest of the idols. Tonight she returns to the Vineyard to sing with her old bandmates at Dreamland in Oak Bluffs.

On Sunday, Dec. 16, beginning at 4 p.m. the 11th annual Songs of Peace and Hope and Light concert will be performed at the Hebrew Center in Vineyard Haven. Actually, performed does not do the program justice. For part of the concert the audience is invited to join in and make their own voices heard as part of a community sing.

There could be as many as 592 pipes playing at the West Tisbury Congregational Church on Sunday, Dec. 16, at the 50th anniversary celebration of the church organ beginning at 3 p.m. And among those in the audience will be the man who built the organ, Fritz Noack, of Noack Organ Company, now located in Georgetown. Mr. Noack was 25 years old then and this was his fourth original organ.

Christian McNeill and the Sea Monsters used to play Sunday nights at the Precinct in Somerville. The weekly gig was voted Best Ongoing Residency.

Recently Mr. McNeill moved to the Vineyard and this Saturday, Dec. 15, at 8 p.m. he will be playing at the Pit Stop in Oak Bluffs. This will be a mostly solo affair; the Sea Monsters will be haunting some other locale. Nina Violet opens the show.