WASHINGTON COUNTY — Artists and artisans are invited to participate in a weekend celebrating the talent in Washington County.
The sixth annual Artisan Trails in Washington County – a weekend of open studios and mini vendor fairs – will take place 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on July 13-14.
Artists and artisans are invited to apply by May 15, online at www.artisan-trails.org.
New this year, “hubs,” such as breweries, galleries, shops, etc. will host multiple artisans and artists at their location on the open studios tour, along with live demonstrations, plein aire painting and workshops.
The event is organized by Karen and Steve Mattison with Kris Gregson Moss, who co-founded the Artisan Trails in Washington County in 2018 with Susan Whiting.
The tour typically includes studios of painters, textile artists, metal sculpturists, stained glass artists, photographers, potters, furniture makers, beekeepers, blacksmiths, farms, cider houses, breweries and more. The event itself is free and open to the public.
More information is available at artisan-trails.org.
ALBANY — The Theatre Program of the University at Albany’s Department of Music and Theatre presents its upcoming Fresh Acts: A Festival of New Plays, now in its sixth year.
This year’s festival is a collaboration involving more than 40 students, with five performances from April 10 through 13, at the UAlbany Performing Arts Center on the uptown University at Albany campus. The schedule includes shows on Wednesday & Thursday, April 10 & 11 at 8 p.m.; Friday, April 12 at 3 p.m. and Saturday, April 13 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Fresh Acts presents readings of six one-act plays written, directed, stage managed and performed by students under the mentorship of Fresh Acts artistic director Kate Walat, associate professor and playwright-in-residence in the Theatre Program. The plays were chosen from a competitive, blind submission process. The final selections were made by Brooklyn-based playwright Amina Henry, whose own play Little Rapes will be presented in the Authors Theatre reading series in collaboration with the New York State Writers Institute on Tuesday, April 2.
Advance tickets are $8 for the general public and $5 for students, senior citizens and UAlbany faculty-staff.Tickets purchased on the day of the show are $13 for the general public and $10 for students, seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff.All tickets must be purchased on-line from the UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s site at www.albany.edu/pac/tickets.Information and assistance can be obtained by contacting the UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s main office at 518-442-3995 or pac@albany.edu
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Historian and author Donald Miller will be featured in a program at 7 p.m. on April 30 at the Spa Little Theater in Saratoga Springs.
The Friends of the Saratoga Springs Public Library’s Saratoga Book Festival, in partnership with Literary Arts@SPAC and the Saratoga County Veterans Peer Connection program, will present the event: “Masters of the Air: An Evening with Donald L. Miller.”
Miller’s book, “Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany,” (Simon & Schuster), is the inspiration behind the Apple TV streaming series Masters of the Air. The series is produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
The book tells the story of the American Eighth Air Force in World War II and the young pilots who flew the bombers that helped defeat the Nazis and liberate Europe.
“Miller’s interviews of more than 100 surviving airmen as well as civilians who were victims of the bombing campaigns in Great Britain and Europe, shed new insights into what was essentially an entirely new form of warfare,” Ellen Beal, Co-Chair and Founder of the Saratoga Book Festival said in a statement.
Miller has authored 10 books and has hosted, co-produced, or served as historical consultant for more than 30 television documentaries. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications.
The Saratoga Book Festival is an annual citywide book festival and literary marketplace that showcases acclaimed writers and debut authors, workshops, programs for children and teens, and other events. This year’s Saratoga Book Festival will be held Oct. 5-6, 2024 in Saratoga Springs. Most events and all youth programs offer free admission. For more information, go to: saratogabookfestival.org.
Tyson Rogers & David Greenberger, live at The Tang April 12. Photo courtesy of the artists.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The world premiere of David Greenberger and Tyson Rogers’s How Vowels Endure Winter will be presented by the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 12. The event is the inaugural commission and performance in the Adirondack Trust New Works Series at the Tang Museum.
How Vowels Endure Winter features a series of monologues with piano created in response to work by the artist Joachim Schmid that occupies an entire wall in the Tang exhibition Studio/Archive.
Greenberger and Rogers’s new compositions for voice and piano respond to Schmid’s works with short tales about collecting, creating, organizing, and memory. Greenberger, who lives and works in Greenwich, Washington County, is known for audio works and performances based on conversations with nursing home residents. He created The Duplex Planet publication in 1979 based on his conversations with nursing home residents.
His drawings and compositions were featured in the 2014 Tang exhibition David Greenberger: One Upon, which included a one-seat theater in which Greenberger and his band A Strong Dog performed one two-minute composition for one audience member at a time.
Rogers toured extensively with bluesman Tony Joe White and country legend Don Williams, playing on his Grammy-nominated duet with Alison Krauss, “I Just Come Here for the Music.” Rogers’s original music has been featured by National Geographic, Tokyo Olympics, CBS television, The North Face, and Tom’s Shoes.
The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Tang Visitors Services Desk at 518-580-8080 or visit https://tang.skidmore.edu. The Tang Museum is open to the public Tuesday–Sunday, noon – 5 p.m., with extended hours until 9 p.m. on Thursdays.
SARATOGA SPRINGS —In the Round Series returns to Universal Preservation Hall Friday, April 19 with a show by New Zealand-born pop star Kimbra.
Kimbra’s 2011 debut, “Vows,” was certified platinum in Australia and New Zealand. Kimbra exploded that same year with “Somebody That I Used To Know,” a duet with Gotye that topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in 2012 and was the best-selling song of that year in the U.S. In 2014 she released the highly acclaimed album, “The Golden Echo,” recruiting artists as diverse as Thundercat, Omar-Rodriguez Lopez of The Mars Volta, Bilal and John Legend to highlight her eclectic musical style.
Next, UPH welcomes homegrown artists Jocelyn & Chris with special guest Sydney Worthley 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 17. Jocelyn & Chris, along with their band, charted five consecutive commercial radio singles in the Billboard AAA Top 40. The siblings have recorded eight albums and toured coast to coast.
Also announced is Shayna Steele and Buggy Jive at 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 14. Steele will be featuring her third album “Watch Me Fly,” offering six self-penned originals and four select classics ranging from soul via blues and gospel and crossing over to retro R&B and jazz. Joining her is Buggy Jive, a soul rock singer-songwriter from Upstate New York.
Tickets on sale through the Box Office at Proctors in-person, via phone at 518-346-6204 Monday-Saturday 10 a.m.-6 p.m. or online visit atuph.org.
HUDSON FALLS —The Strand Theatre will host the Smoky Greene Scholarship Concert – with performances running from 12:30 p.m. – 6 p.m. on Sunday, April 7.
Honoring Smokey Greene’s legacy, the scholarship concert supports Schuylerville School aspiring musicians. Proceeds benefit a Schuylerville student pursuing studies in the arts.
Performances will be staged by The Gibson Brothers, The Green Brothers, Al and Kathy Bain, The Stony Creek Band, Kevin McKrell and Friends, and the Seth Sawyer Band.
Tickets are $30/general admission, $15/seniors and veterans in advance. $35/20 on day of show. Tickets are available at the Strand Box Office; cash or check only. For more info, visit www.mystrandtheatre.org.
The Strand Theatre is located at 210 Main St., Hudson Falls.
Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Brahms will be presented July 14 as part of this summer’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, in Saratoga Springs. Photo provided.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) returns to the Spa Little Theater for its summer residency, starting on Bloomsday.
Saratoga Performing Arts Center welcomes CMS from June 16-Aug. 18. Part of its year-round presence in Saratoga Springs, the six-concert summer season follows its spring series, which will culminate on May 11 with Wu Han, David Finckel and Chad Hoopes.
“Opening the Spa Little Theater doors for our community to experience world-class chamber music – now year-round — is an important part of our expanded mission,” SPAC President and CEO Elizabeth Sobol said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing this new tradition with our partners at CMS under the brilliant direction of Wu Han and David Finckel.”
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s summer season opens with “Romantic Masterpieces,” showcasing works from Brahms and Arensky (June 16), followed by “Musical Mosaics” featuring Mozart, Puccini, Brahms and Dvořák (June 23); “Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Brahms” with the Escher String Quartet (July 14); an “Enchanting Winds” program (July 21); and “Beethoven, Ravel, and Schumann” (August 11). The season closes with “The Carnival of the Animals” (August 18), in its original instrumentation for chamber ensemble.
Anchored by Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Artistic Directors Wu Han (piano) and David Finckel (cello), this season’s guest artists also include violinists Bella Hristova, Chad Hoopes, Kristin Lee, Adam Barnett-Hart, Brendan Speltz, Danbi Um, and Francisco Fullana; violists Paul Neubauer, Pierre Lapointe, Matthew Lipman, and Guillermo Figueroa; cellists Dmitri Atapine, Brook Speltz, Nicholas Canellakis, and Sterling Elliott; double bassist Nina Bernat; pianists Wu Qian, Anna Geniushene, Evren Ozel, and Michael Stephen Brown; clarinetists Romie de Guise-Langlois and David Shifrin; flutists Demarre McGill and Sooyun Kim; Hugo Valverde on horn; bassoonist Peter Kolkay; harpist Bridget Kibbey; percussionists Ian David Rosenblum and Ayano Kataoka, and The Escher String Quartet.
The summer season follows two previously announced spring concerts offered by CMS. The final spring performance is slated for May 11 with pianist Wu Han, violinist Chad Hoopes, and cellist David Finckel featuring works by Mozart, Mendelssohn and Smetana.
All summer 2024 CMS events will take place at the Spa Little Theatre – 19 Roosevelt Drive, Saratoga Springs. There is one performance of each program at 3 p.m. Doors open at 2 p.m. and the house opens at 2:30 p.m. Visit spac.org for more information.
Subscriptions to all six summer programs will be available to purchase at spac.org. Subscription packages will be $198 – $378 depending on seating location. Single performance tickets will be available to purchase beginning on March 20 for members (tiered by level) and March 22 for the general public and will be $38 – $68 each.
ALBANY — Poet and rhyme-master Nas will perform Friday, July 19 at the Palace Theatre.
Nas delivered his first full-length album Illmatic in 1994 and went on to release 14 subsequent albums, 8 of which are multi-platinum and platinum including: Nastradamus, Stillmatic, God’s Son, and Street’s Disciple.
Most recently, Nas released the third installment of the King’s Disease series, and Nas and Hit-Boy released Magic 3, featuring 15 brand new tracks marking the final chapter of the legendary run for the prolific rapper-producer duo.
Magic 3 serves as the duo’s sixth album together in the last 3 years and serves as the third installment to the Magic series.
Tickets range from $59.50 – $199.50 and are available via Ticketmaster at ticketmaster.com. Tickets are also available for purchase at the Palace Theatre Box Office, located at 19 Clinton Ave.
SARATOGA SPRINGS —John Fogerty, who first grew to international acclaim leading Creedence Clearwater Revival with his songs “Proud Mary,” “Down on the Corner,” “Fortunate Son,” “Bad Moon Rising,” and “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” – note he’s also the only musician to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, for his song, “Centerfield” – will return to Saratoga Performing Arts Center in June.
Fogerty will headline a show June 12 at SPAC with support provided by George Thorogood and The Destroyers, and Hearty Har – which features two of Fogerty’s sons. Tickets: livenation.com
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Universal Preservation Hall announces the performance lineup for the 2024 Capital Region Thomas Edison Music Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on March 25.
The ceremony celebrates the careers of eight individuals with Capital Region ties: the late Jackie Alper, the late Nick Brignola, George Guarino, David Alan Miller, the late Pauline Oliveros, Margie Rosenkranz, Billy Waring and Don Wilcock.
Performing at the event are folk artists Wanda Fischer and Kate Blain, who will perform works to honor Alper and Rosenkranz, respectively; jazz artists David Calarco, Mike Holober and Rich Syracuse will come together to honor Brignola; and Camtron5000 will perform a song penned by Waring for Kurtis Blow, the first rapper signed to a major record label.
The ceremony is open to the public and in addition to musical performances, there will be a social hour, videos on the musical career of each inductee and acceptance speeches. A plaque honoring each individual will also be unveiled. With this sixth class, the Hall of Fame recognizes the music careers of 40 inductees with local connections.
Tickets are on sale now through the Box Office at Proctors either in-person, via phone at 518-346-6204 from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday or online by visiting atuph.org. More information on the Eddies Music Hall of Fame is available at theeddiesawards.com.
