Author: Saratoga TODAY

BENNINGTON, VT — Bennington College has received a gift of 500 works of art to benefit Art for Access, an innovative fundraising program launched in 2018. 

Art for Access goal is to expand and enhance art holdings for teaching, enrichment, and enjoyment and to raise funds for scholarships through the sale of art. 

The gifted works — including prints, photographs, paintings, drawings, sculpture — are from the collection of noted art patron and curator Melva Bucksbaum (1933-2015). 

The gift includes works by emerging and established artists from across the globe, including John Bankston, William Copley, Enrique Martínez Celaya, Douglas Gordon, Sabine Hornig, Virginia Lavado, Rosa Loy, Raul Martinez, Tracy Moffat, Aurie Ramirez, and Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, among many others. Approximately half of the works donated will be used both for teaching (Usdan Gallery curator and director Anne Thompson is teaching from some of the works in her Spring 2021 multiples class) and enrichment of the campus and the community (some 100 works are being placed in buildings throughout campus). 

Through a partnership with Stair in Hudson, NY, a leading regional auction house in the Northeast, some 250 works from this donation will be sold in a single-sale auction on Wednesday, June 2 to benefit Art for Access.  For more information about the auction, which will take place online, go to: www.stairgalleries.com/stair-auctions/6_2_21. 

CATSKILL — Upstate Diary, a niche publication featuring creative lifestyles close to nature, presents an art and design exhibition, ART+NATURE+HOME. The online and brick & mortar show, highlighting work by some of the magazine’s favorite rurally based visionaries, will be on view from May 29 through June 13 in Catskill.

ART+NATURE+HOME will feature furniture, design, functional sculpture, and art — all created from natural materials such as wood, clay, wool, and stone. Many of the objects are created exclusively for the exhibition by a select group of inspiring artists and artisans including: Jeremy Anderson, Paula Greif, Paula Hayes, Kat Howard, Christina Kruse, Kieran Kinsella, Jonathan Kline, Christopher Kurtz, Re Jin Lee, Chris Lehrecke, Jonah Meyer, Jason Middlebrook, John-Paul Philippe, Martin Puryear, Kentaro Takashina, Nicola Tyson, Joshua Vogel, and Nadia Yaron. 

ART+NATURE+HOME will take place at Foreland, a dynamic contemporary arts complex within a rehabilitated historic mill featuring galleries, artist studios, event spaces, and a restaurant. The 4,000 square foot open-concept exhibition will be installed in the building’s first floor gallery space. Reservations are required but are free of charge. 

For more information about the exhibit and to explore an online viewing room go to: upstatediary.com. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Saratoga Performing Arts Center announces that “The 2021 Adirondack Trust Company Festival of Young Artists” will return on Saturday, June 5 for an in-person celebration of live performance, poetry and art on the SPAC grounds. 

The festival will feature more than 200 local student dancers, singers, musicians, poets and visual artists performing alongside acclaimed modern dance company Pilobolus. Due to health and safety concerns around the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival has been reconfigured into a guided journey through the SPAC grounds with immersive, timed performances and scheduled arrival times for guests. The festival is free to experience, but ticket availability will be extremely limited. The general public will have the opportunity to register for tickets at: spacfoya.org. 

Conceived and directed by Pilobolus, the festival will kick-off with timed entry beginning at 10 a.m. with guided tours in and around the SPAC grounds, which will be transformed into a festive celebration inspired by the theme, “Metamorphosis.” Each guided experience is approximately 100 minutes and includes a one-mile tour. Highlighting the event are performances by Empire State Youth Orchestra, presenting classical works as well as a premiere of an original composition from student composer David Morelli; a special collaborative performance by Schenectady High School Dance Connection and Pilobolus around the Spa State Park reflecting pool; and additional presentations by Capital District Youth Chorale, Capital District Youth Pipe Band, and Northeast Ballet Company. 

The George West Mansion was purchased in 2001 by Jeffrey Wodicka and Neil Castro of Saratoga Springs and since 2002 has operated as The Mansion of Saratoga. 

Located about 7 miles in a straight line down Route 29 from downtown Saratoga Springs, the historic inn at 801 Route 29, Rock City Falls, features a full slate of high-quality concerts in an intimate outdoor setting with a light fare menu created by Executive Chef Rick Bieber, a classically trained French Chef who graduated from Le Cordon Bleu Collage of Culinary Arts. 

This season’s staged offerings include everything from singing favorites from the Great American Songbook and a musical journey through 80 years of movies and musicals, to celebrated Broadway performers and feel-good ‘90s Boy Band nostalgia 

Q: How did you find your way to the Mansion Inn? 

Jeffrey Wodicka: Neil and I bought the property after 9/11. We were driving through downtown Saratoga and one of the big Victorians was for sale and I did one of those, ‘I wonder what these things sell for,’ and looked it up. It didn’t come up, but what did was The Mansion on Route 29. We ended up owning it about three weeks later. 

What we didn’t know was that we bought the historic George West mansion. George West was a tycoon in the period from the Civil War to the turn of the century. His claim to fame was he invented the flat-bottom paper bag that we (still) use every day. Isn’t that crazy? He was so rich he had his own railroad train that would bring him to the Mansion in Rock City Falls. And if you know where to look in the weeds, between Route 29 and the Kaydeross, his station is still there.   

Q: In addition to The Stars Are Out Tonight Concert Series, which kicks off this weekend, what are some of the other happenings at the Mansion Inn? 

JW:  What we’re really focused on is being an Event Venue. That ranges from large weddings to business meetings, and private parties – from anniversary and birthday parties to special events. 

Q: How did the concert series come about? 

JW: This is our seventh or eighth year doing this. My partner and I were thinking: It’s one thing to go SPAC and see the ballet and the orchestra, or to go to Proctors and see a traveling road show, but what would be neat is to bring up some top names, some who people know, some who they probably don’t know but who are unbelievable in the degree of talent they have, and to put them in an intimate setting. There’s no more than 130 people in the house. Every seat is orchestra, so to speak. And afterwards, they actually get to meet these people, take pictures with them and mingle with them. 

So, we took the old George West carriage house and turned it into a theater. The wood is seasoned, it dates to the 1860’s, so the sound quality is phenomenal. The performers say it’s like playing inside of a violin, and we were doing that until COVID hit. 

Q: How are you safely setting things up for the 2021 season? 

JW: This year, we said: let’s change this around. Let’s operate out on the deck. It’s a huge deck and it’s tented. They key is there are no sides. It’s exterior seating, but it’s protected from the elements. If it rains, we’re covered. So we moved the stage and the sound system to the deck, and we’re doing table seating – with your own party. That’s key. You can’t go in and sit with anybody. The tables are socially distanced, and each concert will follow the latest COVID rules and regulations that are in place at the time of the event. The capacity right now is at 80 to 100, and we can probably go to 130. The Tickets range from $45 to $60, and we have a full bar and will have a light fare menu by our Executive Chef Rick Bieber. 

The shows: 

May 21: Seth Sikes – Runnin’ Wild – Great American Songbook with a Modern Twist. 

June 4: Josh Young & Emily Padgett – Broadway at the Movies. 

July 9: Boy Band Project – Under the Stars. July 11: Boy Band Project Brunch. 

July 16: Brian Charles Rooney – The Trouble Concert. 

July 23: Adam Pascal – A 20 Year Retrospective. The Original Roger on Broadway in “RENT.”

July 30: Jarrod Spector & Kelli Barrett – The Broadway Powerhouse Couple. 

Aug. 6: Jenn Colella – Comedian & Tony Nominee in Concert. 

Aug. 15: Kelli Rabke – TINY GIANTS – Petite Females with Big Voices. 

Aug. 27 & 28: Nicole Henry – The Music of Whitney Houston. 

Tickets are available via online at: themansionsaratoga.com. 

ALBANY — The Egg has announced that Joan Osborne and Madeleine Peyroux will perform on Thursday, Sept. 9 as part of the American Roots & Branches concert series. Show time is 7 p.m.

Joan Osborne’s career reaches back to Relish, which racked up seven Grammy Award Nominations and featured her signature songs “One of Us” and “St. Theresa.” Madeleine Peyroux plays her 2004 multiplatinum release, Careless Love, with her jazz inflected interpretations of music by Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Hank Williams and Elliot Smith.

Tickets range from $39.50 to $69.50 and are on sale at The Egg Box Office at the Empire State Plaza, by telephone at 518-473-1845 and online at www.theegg.org. 

In addition, the following concerts have been rescheduled: Garth Fagan Dance: From March 27 to May 29; SFJAZZ Collective: From April 2 to July 7; The Fab Faux: From April 18 to August 8; DeVotchKa: From April 10 to September 25; Mutts Gone Nuts: From April 5 to October 4; Shawn Colvin: From May 12 to April 1. 

The scuffle of footsteps mate with emergency sirens and the honks of car horns. Snippets of conversation jarred by the warning bleats of trucks moving backwards and mix with sonic wind-blown harmonies that cling to the air. 

Glens Falls native Karl Bertrand performs and produces for Air Bertr&.  Instruments include, guitars, pianos, organs, synthesizers, and sometimes drums. Field recordings are often utilized as well. Mix in Connor Dunn of Ballston Spa, whose saxophonist is featured on a new piece, “City Walk,” to be released May 28.   

How did this project form?

“I began to get into ambient music in 2018, initially as a listener. The music eased my mind as I wrestled with insomnia and anxiety. I’d already been writing and recording songs for years by then, so it was pretty natural for me to start making ambient music myself,” Bertrand writes. 

Not surprisingly, the band’s influences include ambient artists such as Brian Eno, and Harold Budd. 

Local music aficionados will recognize Bertrand and Dunn as founding members of Saratoga Springs based indie rock jam band Let’s Be Leonard.

“City Walk” was recorded on a handheld cassette recorder during a walk from Manhattan’s upper east side to midtown. An improvised electric piano was later added to the field recording with the sounds of the saxophone layered across the top. The piece clocks in at 27 minutes. “A nice meditative amount of time,” Bertrand says. 

For more information, go to: Where: Spotify – distrokid.com/hyperfollow/airbertrand/city-walk-feat-connor-dunn, and Bandcamp – airbertrand.bandcamp.com.