BOLTON LANDING — The Sembrich continues its 20/20: Virtual Visionaries summer festival with “Quiet City: A Reverie for New York in the time of COVID-19.” This new presentation, celebrating the persistent and strong spirit of New York, is highlighted with a new essay by music critic and scholar Thomas Larson and Aaron Copland’s iconic work Quiet City featuring trumpet player Chris Coletti and members of The Philadelphia Orchestra. 

“We wanted something special to mark this time – a token for this unprecedented summer of COVID-19. Copland’s Quiet City seemed a natural choice, the evocative title taking on an added resonance during this time. To be able to realize this idea with such phenomenal musicians has been a real pleasure! Larson’s new essay, entitled Quieted America, has made this project even more rewarding. It’s been thirty years now since I first arrived at The Sembrich and this is one the projects that I’m most proud of,” Artistic Director Richard Wargo said in a statement.

Thomas Larson is an acclaimed journalist, book/music critic, and memoirist known for his books The Saddest Music Ever Written: The Story of Samuel Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings’ (Pegasus Press) and Spirituality and the Writer: A Personal Inquiry (Swallow Press). He has presented several lectures at The Sembrich in recent years.

Internationally acclaimed trumpeter Chris Coletti is a soloist, chamber music and orchestral musician.  Famous for his work with Canadian Brass (2009-2019), Coletti is also Assistant Professor of Trumpet at Ithaca College School of Music. 

This is the final presentation in The Sembrich’s 20/20: Virtual Visionaries summer festival and its four-part Alfred Z. Solomon Innovator Series. This project and performance are made possible through generous support from the Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust. The Sembrich is located at 4800 Lake Shore Drive, Bolton Landing.  To view this presentation, visit TheSembrich.org/online/copland.

BALLSTON SPA — The Saratoga County Historical Society at Brookside Museum is reinventing itself as the Saratoga County History Center. 

For nearly 60 years, the organization has focused primarily on Brookside Museum, a 1792 summer boarding house in Ballston Spa, catering to local history enthusiasts and genealogy hunters.  On the brink of closing in 2019, a “Save Brookside” campaign was launched, ultimately raising over $90,000. 

Rather than concentrating exclusively on Ballston Spa locals and museum walk-ins, the organization now endeavors to represent all the diverse populations and histories of Saratoga County as a whole through a variety of online and in-person exhibits, programs, and events.  Thus, rebranding as the Saratoga County History Center with a vision to “share history to promote community.” 

As Saratoga County’s History Center, “Brookside” will act as the nerve center, clearinghouse, and repository for use throughout the county.  It will be a resource for local historians, libraries, and governments, as well as those around the globe seeking information about Saratoga County and its environs.  It will also be a member-driven organization, reliant upon member dues, donations, and participation.  Memberships are being sought throughout the county and beyond.  A sizable membership will create a dependable revenue stream and identify stakeholders regardless of location. 

The transition to Saratoga County History Center is anticipated to become official after approval by its chartering entity, the Board of Regents of the State Education Department.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College has announced a new collaboration that addresses the current pandemic and protests. The initiative highlights artist Nicole Cherubini, and MASKS4PEOPLE, an organization based in Catskill, that was founded in response to COVID-19 by regional artists to create and distribute masks free to the community.

The Tang collaboration is an edition of 500 unique masks based on Cherubini’s exhibition “Shaking the Trees” that will be distributed to Skidmore students and other college community members, as well as regional community groups taking part in the Tang’s educational outreach initiatives. 

“Since the public can’t come to the Museum, the masks are a way for the Museum to come to the public,” said Cherubini, in a statement. The artist divides her time between Hudson and Brooklyn, and is known for her boundary-breaking ceramic work and whose exhibition has transformed the Tang’s mezzanine into a community space with glazed tiles, woven chairs, ceramic sculpture, potted plants, and historical works from the Tang collection. “Working on this mask project helped me understand more about how to make a new kind of space.”

The masks are made of multiple elements that ensure no two are the same. The front of each mask has one of two silkscreen patterns that were hand-printed by Mark Hayden of Upstate Ink, a printing company in Catskill. One pattern is based on the tiles in Cherubini’s Tang installation and the other is based on a line drawing of the exhibition by Tang Designer Jean Tschanz-Egger. The inside of each mask has one of eight quotes about using one’s voice and racial injustice, such as Mother Ann Lee’s “Now in my mouth I hold… pure and burnished gold;” Angela Davis’s “We have to talk about liberating minds;” James Baldwin’s “Nothing can be changed until it is faced;” and Rebecca Solnit’s “There are voices raised in the absence
of listeners.”

MASKS4PEOPLE started making masks in March, and have made over 7,500 masks for 175 organizations, including hospitals, healthcare centers, and community groups. M4P masks are made by a team of artists based in the Hudson Valley.

LAKE GEORGE — The Courthouse Gallery will host an online event in conjunction with a new solo exhibition featuring the work of D. Jack Solomon. The online talk with the artist takes place 4 p.m. Sept. 26. 

D. Jack Solomon’s vibrant paintings are a complex mix of imagery, often whimsical, with rich colors and surfaces. Working from a red undercoat creates luminous eye-popping effects where the red paint is exposed. It also serves to unify the contrasting forms weaving through the painting’s intricate space. Solomon draws from many sources, including early modernism, surrealism, abstract expressionism, pop art and cartoon imagery, to name a few.  But Solomon finds inspiration everywhere. 

“There is not a day that goes by that I am not inspired by something or someone.  I’m very grateful for this,” said Solomon, who lives in Hudson. Finding inspiration from so many places has led to a prolific painting career spanning many decades. 

The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George.  Hours during exhibitions are Wednesday through Friday 12 – 5 p.m., Saturday 12 – 4 p.m., and all other times by appointment. The exhibition will be installed in the gallery, and available for public to view. For more information and how to join the discussion, please go to: lakegeorgearts.org. 

BALLSTON SPA — The community of Saratoga Springs welcomes the Youth Ballet (SSYB) non-profit aimed at providing quality professional dance training to pre-professional students. 

Cristiane Santos and Joan K Anderson started their non-profit this year after working together for eight-years. The two professional dancers decided to open their own ballet school to focus on proper ballet training and technique.

“We have been working together for quite some time and the two of us have a similar vision on how we think a good ballet and dance training ought to be,” K Anderson said. 

Santos added: “We wanted to have a dance school that can bring something back to the community. Not just about us teaching the students, we want to offer services to the community besides the dance classes…we also would like to build a scholarship fund to eventually offer a scholarship for a students who doesn’t have access to dance education.”

Through SSYB, students can achieve their potential as dancers and artists while learning in a collaborative environment. A focus is put on building self-confidence and maturity in a nurturing atmosphere and SSYB places an emphasis on performance and positive reinforcement. Dancers learn the value of hard work and garner an appreciation and love for the arts.

The non-profit offers classes in ballet, pointe, modern, contemporary, and conditioning for dancers ages three to adult.

“Our youngest student is three-years-old,” K Anderson said. “[We] offer a few open classes to adults and older teens who perhaps don’t want to do the rigorous schedule, but they just want come in and do a contemporary class.”

Any interested student needs to register and pay in advance to help SSYB social distance. Any dancer coming into the building will have their temperature checked parents will not be allowed in to the building. There is a registration limit. 

“In person classes, for the younger age group the max is eight [dancers] for the older students its ten [dancers],” Santos said. “The classes that we are doing hybrid, some in the classroom some virtual, we are only going to accept four-kids for the virtual class if we have ten-in person.”

Classes will begin Sept. 14 and run through June 2021. Santos and Kilgore-Anderson said they hope to offer a 2021 summer camp. Interest community members can register and find more information on their website at www.saratogaspringsyouthballet.org.

K Anderson first danced professionally with Cedar Lake II and went on to dance with Philadanco, the Philadelphia Dance Company, where she was a senior member and toured extensively both nationally and internationally. She performed many ballet and modern classics as well as contemporary and new works by renowned choreographers from around the world.

Cristiane Santos Founder, Co-Artistic Director Santos danced and taught ballet and tap for seven years at Ballet Vera Bublitz in Brazil. She was accepted to Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) school with a full scholarship and joined the company’s Dancing Through Barriers Ensemble through which she performed in lecture demonstrations at public schools around the country, taught movement classes in NYC public schools, and performed with DTH during its 30th anniversary season.

SSYB is located at 418 Geyser Rd., Ballston Spa, and can be reached at info@saratogaspringsyouthballet.org.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — A sleek 1951 Nash-Healey Series 25 Roadster – the first post-war sports car from a major American manufacturer, a classy 1931 Ford Model A – which features a classic “Ah-Oo-Gah” horn, and a 1958 red-and-white body hardtop which famously performed on the silver screen will be among the hundreds of cars at the fourth annual Saratoga Auto Auction in mid-September.      

Billed as “an auction experience unlike any other,” the 2020 Saratoga Motorcar Auction takes place the Saratoga Automobile Museum Sept. 19. 

“We’re going to have between 250 and 300 cars, and there will be three different bidding platforms,” says Bill Windham, auction director for the museum.

Perhaps the most notable, if not the most outright notorious is the 1958 Red and white two-door Plymouth Fury hardtop with automatic transmission and red vinyl and cloth interiors. 

“Christine. The movie car,” Windham says, simply. 

Bearing “her” famous CQB 241 license plate, Christine is burned into the memory of millions of cinephiles and book-lovers alike – screaming across street corners, battering architecture to fiery structures of rubble, and coming back from the dead in the 1983 film directed by John Carpenter, and the Stephen King novel that bears her name. In both book and film, she is vengeful, doesn’t take kindly to being disrespected and in every way lives up to her “Fury” name. 

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“This here is the best car I ever owned. Bought her in September 1957,” says Roland D. LeBay, an old man with a bad back introducing himself as a character in King’s novel, while reminiscing about the first time he laid eyes on Christine.  “Brand-new, she was…red as a fire-engine on the inside.” 

When Carpenter set out to make the film and match the vehicle King had placed as the lead character of his book, he reportedly placed ads across California searching for models of the car, eventually securing more than a dozen.   

“With a lot of movie cars, depending on the shot and how it’s being utilized in the movie, it may just give the appearance of being the same car,” Windham explains. “Depending on the stunt it may have roll bars in it, it may not even have an interior in it – but this car is, inside and out, the real car. It is thoroughly documented as being one of the movie cars. The director of the movie used this car to go back and forth to the set, and it was used in some of the shots.”   

Previous auction years by the Saratoga Automobile Museum have featured two-day bidding events, with staging at Saratoga Performing Arts Center. This year, vehicle check-in and on-site bidder registration begins Sept. 15. Preview day is Sept. 18, and the auction itself will take place during one, long, single-day event, which will run from 9:30 am until 6 or 7 p.m., and take place at the Saratoga Automobile Museum on Saturday, Sept. 19. 

Bidding may be done in-person, by phone, or online. 

The event will be streamed live so people may watch online via the Saratoga Automobile Museum website. All proceeds go to the museum in what is the largest generator of revenue the museum directs during the year. 

For more information about the auction and how to register to bid go to: www.saratogaautomuseum.org. 

NORTH HUDSON — This Labor Day Weekend, join Adirondack Jellystone to make strides against Breast Cancer. In celebration of the event, on Saturday, Sept. 5, the venue will open its doors to the public. 

For $15 per person your families may enjoy all of the amenities Adirondack Jellystone Camping Resort has to offer including: Pedal Carts, Gemstone mining, Jumping pillow, Tubing on the Schroon River, Volleyball court, 18-hole mini-golf, Playground and more. Special events on Saturday include a 50-50 raffle, basket auction and Park Lane Jewelry Party.

All fundraising proceeds will benefit Saratoga Mollie Wilmot Radiation Oncology Center. 

Adirondack Jellystone is located at 4035 Blue Ridge Rd, North Hudson. For questions, call Gina at 518-532-7493.  Anyone interested in donating, contact Kathleen O’Neill at: 518-538-1697. 

BOLTON LANDING — The Sembrich has launched “Stravinsky and the Premiere of the Century,” the seventh presentation in its 20/20: Virtual Visionaries summer festival. 

The latest installment of the Alfred Z. Solomon Innovator Series transports The Sembrich audience back to the night of May 29, 1913, the groundbreaking premiere of The Rite of Spring with vintage images, video clips, and an article on the auspicious night by distinguished Stravinsky scholar, Charles Joseph. 

The program features an article adapted from a chapter of Joseph’s 2011 book Stravinsky’s Ballets. Charles M. Joseph is Professor Emeritus of Music and the former Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Skidmore College. He is the author of two other books, Stravinsky and Balanchine, the winner of an ASCAP Award in Biography, and Stravinsky Inside Out. He lives in Saratoga Springs.

The program also includes the eleven-minute opening segment of the 2009 film Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, which re-creates The Rite of Spring premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. 

“This re-enactment, with its sweeping camera angles and multiple perspectives from stage, audience and orchestra pit alike, conveys the energy and excitement of that first performance,” says The Sembrich’s Artistic Director Richard Wargo. “And is as close as we can come to imagining ourselves as eyewitness to the momentous event. We’re truly grateful to film producer Claudie Ossard and to author Charles Joseph for sharing this wealth of material with us, allowing for this latest exciting entry in our Alfred Z. Solomon Innovator Series.”

“Stravinsky and the Premiere of the Century” can be found online at TheSembrich.org/online. The Sembrich is located at 4800 Lake Shore Drive, Bolton Landing. For more information, visit www.TheSembrich.org or call 518-644-2431 or email: Office@TheSembrich.org

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Saratoga Performing Arts Center announces “SPAC @ Home: Concert Series,” featuring performances by violinist Joshua Bell alongside pianist Peter Dugan – on Sept. 12, and genre crossing ensemble Time for Three, Sept. 19. 

Shot on the grounds of SPAC and at Skidmore College’s Arthur Zankel Music Center, each presentation will feature an exclusive program and will include greetings and commentary by the artists as well as interviews about the challenges and creative opportunities in the time of COVID-19. 

 The “SPAC @ Home: Concert Series” is the latest addition to Spac Reimagined, following the recent Beethoven 2020 Festival that featured exclusive concerts, lectures and a new online platform throughout the month of August. 

“When we first began to dream about artists we could bring to our grounds to create a unique concert experience without our amphitheater stage, Joshua Bell and Time For Three immediately came to mind. I have been privileged to work with all of them in my pre-SPAC lives at IMG and Universal.  Both Joshua and Time For Three possess fresh, creative approaches to music-making — and both have close and special connections to SPAC,” says Elizabeth Sobol, President and CEO of Saratoga Performing Arts Center.” 

 On Saturday, Sept. 12, violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Peter Dugan will be featured in a recital filmed at Arthur Zankel Music Center at Skidmore College followed by a Q&A with Sobol, and Dayton Director of The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College Ian Berry. 

Tickets for this premiere event are $10 and can be purchased at spac.org. Ticket buyers will be directed to the exclusive stream, available to view Sept. 12-19. 

On Saturday, Sept. 19, SPAC and Caffè Lena present Time For Three in a concert that was filmed throughout the SPAC grounds in August. This trio of classically trained musicians – Nicolas “Nick” Kendall (violin, vocals); Charles Yang (violin, vocals) and Ranaan Meyer (double bass, vocals) – got together for the first time post-quarantine to create a program that intersects Americana, modern pop and classical music, bringing their uncommon mix of virtuosity and showmanship to performances of their signature arrangements of classical works, originals and covers. This concert is presented in lieu of Time For Three’s scheduled return to SPAC this season, following the trio’s sold-out appearance at SPAC for the inaugural season of “SPAC on Stage” in 2017.   

The concert will be available to stream for free on Sept. 19 – at 8 p.m. on Caffè Lena’s YouTube and accessible through spac.org and SPAC’s Facebook page until Oct. 19.

LAKE GEORGE — In lieu of the not being able to meet at the lake this year, Lake George Jazz Weekend has been reimagined as an online festival. Every Thursday night in September, organizers will present a Jazz Weekend Virtual Series – curated and hosted by LGAP’s Jazz Curator, Daniel Kelly. These live streamed online events will deliver renowned Jazz musicians through a series of 4 hybrid events that combine live performances, time for discussion and audience questions. They will be available to watch via stream on Stream on Facebook, YouTube Channel, and the Lake George Arts Project “Stream Now” page. 

LINEUP:
7 p.m. • Thursday, Sept. 3 – Nicole Zuraitis & Dan Pugach.
7 p.m. • Thursday, Sept. 10 – Frederick Johnson & Michael Ross.
7 p.m. • Thursday, Sept. 17 – Dan Tepfer.
7 p.m. • Thursday, Sept. 24 – Sarah Elizabeth Charles & Jarrett Cherner. Live from the Soapbox Gallery in Brooklyn. 

For more information, go to: www.lakegeorgearts.org.