Photo of Jay Rogoff by Penny Howell Jolly, via Rogoff’s website.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Saratoga Springs Mayor John Safford officially appointed Jay Rogoff as the next Saratoga Springs poet laureate at the Sept. 16 city council meeting. Rogoff’s two-year term will begin in January, when he will succeed Joseph Bruchac, the city’s first poet laureate.
Rogoff will promote arts enrichment, conduct writing workshops for adults and children, write poems to commemorate city events and celebrations, and encourage people of all ages, perspectives, and skill levels to see the shared human experience in poetry.
The author of seven books of poems, Rogoff has also published widely as a reviewer of poetry and dance, including coverage of the New York City Ballet for WAMC Radio. He is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize for poetry and the Lewis P. Simpson Award for criticism. His poems have appeared in leading national journals such as the “Kenyon Review,” “Ploughshares,” and the “Yale Review.” His poems have also been published internationally in “POEM,” “Poetry London,” and “Poetry Review.” For many years, Rogoff taught at Skidmore College.
“I’ll be proud to continue the tradition Joe Bruchac has so enthusiastically begun,” Rogoff said in a statement released by the mayor’s office. “Especially in a divisive time like ours, poetry can offer a view into the workings of our minds and hearts, furthering our mutual understanding. In particular, as we anticipate the 250th anniversaries of the Declaration of Independence and the Battle of Saratoga, we can explore together how poetry can unite us by embodying the American ideal of free expression.”
“I cannot think of anyone better qualified to be the next Poet Laureate of Saratoga Springs than Jay Rogoff,” said Bruchac. “Considering the fact that Saratoga is the home of literally dozens of excellent, well-published poets, that is saying something. Jay is not just a gifted poet, but also a person widely at home in the world of the performing arts. His warm personality makes him an engaging reader of his poetry. As an ambassador for poetry and his hometown, I have no doubt that Jay will be exceptional.”
Langston Hughes, 2025 Yaddo Artist Medal honoree. Photo by Carl Van Vechten, Library of Congress, and provided by Yaddo.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Yaddo will host its annual Artist Medal celebration on Wednesday, Oct. 22 at The Edison Ballroom in Manhattan, honoring choreographer Sidra Bell, visual artist Jill Viney, and writer Langston Hughes.
Hughes (1902–1967) was a pioneering American poet, novelist, playwright, and social activist, best known as a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance—a cultural movement celebrating African American artistic expression in the 1920s and ‘30s. Hughes was a writer in residence at Yaddo in 1942 and 1943. His work is celebrated for its vibrant, jazz-inflected rhythms and its honest portrayal of Black life in America. A prolific writer, Hughes published numerous volumes of poetry, short stories, plays, essays, and novels, including the Simple stories, which chronicled the everyday lives and struggles of working-class Black Americans.
Bell is a renowned choreographer, dancer, performance artist, and the founder and artistic director of Sidra Bell Dance New York, an internationally recognized company known for progressive dance theater. She first came to Yaddo in 2022. With a career spanning over two decades, Bell has created more than 100 original works for major companies and institutions, including Ailey II, ODC/Dance, The Juilliard School, and New York City Ballet— where she made history as the first Black woman to choreograph for the company.
Viney is a sculptor and visual artist who lives in New York City. Her work, shown in the 2016 Sarah Lawrence College show and catalogue, as well as in New York City by Trans Hudson and Joyce Goldstein galleries, was included in “Fabricated Nature” organized by the Boise Museum of Art. In “Form and Space” at New Jersey’s Hunterdon Museum Viney’s sculpture, “Baja” was singled out in The New York Times by art critic Barry Schwabsky. Viney is a Yaddo artist and member of the board.
The Yaddo Artist Medal, designed by James Siena, honors lives and work that embody artistic brilliance, generosity of spirit, and the enduring force of art.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Stephen Soucy, a filmmaker who grew up in Ballston Lake and Saratoga Springs, will unveil “Merchant Ivory: The Documentary” on Saturday, Sept. 20 at 7 p.m. at Scene One Wilton Mall Cinemas. The event is presented by the Saratoga Book Festival, in collaboration with Saratoga Arts and the 518 Film Network.
The screening will be followed by a discussion and audience Q&A with both Soucy and the film’s Saratoga-based composer Ryan Homsey. Moderating the discussion will be Spencer Sherry, president of the 518 Film Network and community outreach and grants coordinator for Saratoga Arts.
In addition to the documentary, Soucy will also discuss a narrative feature production that he plans to base in Upstate New York in 2026, with James Ivory executive producing.
“Merchant Ivory” is the first definitive feature documentary to lend new and compelling perspectives on the partnership, both professional and personal, of director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant, and their primary associates: writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and composer Richard Robbins. Footage from more than 50 interviews, clips, and archival material gives voice to the family of actors and technicians who helped define Merchant Ivory’s Academy Award-winning work.
Tickets for the event can be purchased at saratoga-arts.org/event-6282124.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Daniel Donato is like a Quentin Tarantino movie.
The musician referenced Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” in our interview, and the film serves as something of a shortcut to explaining Donato’s unique sound. The movie is assuredly a Western, filled with genre conventions and set a decade after the Civil War. But it’s also a 21st century Tarantino flick, stuffed with the maestro’s signature dialogue and exaggerated violence.
Similarly, Donato is a traditional country artist in the vein of Marty Robbins or Merle Haggard. But he’s also unconventional and improvisational like the Grateful Dead. It’s a recipe of musical flavors that demands its own category; one that Donato has labeled “cosmic country.”
This swirl of Stetson and psychedelia can quickly become addictive to those receptive to its sound, creating some buzz around Donato that’s similar in many respects to the rising popularity of Billy Strings, a bluegrass traditionalist/jam bander who will headline a concert in Albany later this year.
Donato’s cosmic voyage will pass through Saratoga Springs, where he’s scheduled to play at Putnam Place on Sept. 25. It’ll be the artist’s second Spa City performance following a 2022 co-headlining show at Putnam with the Kitchen Dwellers.
Ahead of the concert, Saratoga TODAY spoke with the artist about his new album “Horizons” (released less than a month ago), his upbringing, and his fanbase. That conversation is presented here in Q&A format, with some light editing for length and clarity.
Saratoga TODAY: When you start working on a new album, is there something specific you want to achieve with that album, like a certain sound, or are you trying to explore certain ideas? And if so, what was your objective with “Horizons”?
Daniel Donato: Well, ideas can take form and they can be personalized in many forms. Ideas can be personalized in the form of sounds, lyrics, and composition, at least musically speaking, and arrangement. So, the whole thing really is an idea. With “Horizons,” I wanted to have a message of faith on an individual level of people, not like on a collective, dogmatic level. But just on the individual level of really righteously trying to show up for life and truly experience what’s going on. The whole record goes through varying levels of that. There’s some deeper songs and there’s songs that you don’t have to dig as deep. So that’s kind of the idea. Really, it’s an album of faith, but just on an individual level.
ST: Do you feel like this album was a little bit more in the direction of traditional country? I’ve seen other people describe it that way, but I was curious if you felt that the album had that sound.
DD: I think parts of it does, yeah. If you watch “The Hateful Eight” by Tarantino, there’s elements of that movie that are very traditional and Western, but then there are elements of it as well that are also horrific and modern in terms of the props and the violence that is conveyed in that as well. So, I think it starts in a traditional place. It starts in a country place, and it ends in a cosmic place.
ST: That’s a great movie, by the way, very underrated in my opinion.
DD: Oh my God, yeah.
ST: Nowadays, it seems like there’s so much emphasis on touring and live shows. How important are albums to you? Do you see a studio album as, “This is the reason why I’m a musician?” Or is it more 50/50 between that and live shows?
DD: The reason why I believe I’m a musician is that is my purpose, to add service into the world, to bring service to the world. Hopefully in other forms too; I’d love to be a father. But that is my main form of service to the world, is music. And so music can happen in the form of video. It can happen at a live show. It could happen on an album. Whatever form it is that I’m being called to do at that present moment, the forms are more or less secondary, as the service in itself is happening in any of the forms. The service is primary, and the forms are secondary. It’s not really up to me to decide which form is the preferred modality of any single listener. It’s really just my job to make sure that we have opportunities set up for people to experience cosmic country, whatever form it is; whether it be live, whether it be on our archival releases, whether it be on an album, could be anything. Cosmic country also can be experienced in the storytelling that we have with our posters that we do for every tour as well, and all kinds of things like that.
ST: Obviously, Nashville has had such a strong influence on you, but I saw that you started out in Atlantic City. That combination, going from New Jersey to Nashville, what kind of influence do you think that had on you?
DD: My parents are from Jersey. People in Nashville don’t really understand that. In Tennessee, everyone’s like, “Oh, you’re from the Northeast.” And it’s like, yeah, but Long Island is different than Philly, and Philly is different than Atlantic City, and Atlantic City is different than North Jersey. My dad’s from East Brunswick and my mom’s from Atlantic City. Those are both tough and rough places to grow up, economically and socially. You have that influence and then you also have that general modality of the Northeast, which is you have to keep your nose to the grindstone and work hard every day. The South has that but in different ways. So, the way that Jersey affected me really was through my parents and my household, and then growing up in Nashville was just part of the cosmic design of my life because it really didn’t make any contextual sense for anyone in our family to move to Tennessee. Nobody in my family had ever thought about living in Tennessee, let alone ever actually doing it. So, I’m grateful that both of those things happened.
ST: I’m curious about the demographics of people you find coming to your shows. Are there a lot of people who are into the Dead or Phish who are saying, “Oh, maybe I like country music a little bit more than I thought I did?” Or do you find that it’s more people who love country music who are embracing the jam and the improvisational aspect of it?
DD: There’s people coming to our shows that are discovering country music that I just assumed everybody knew and loved. And then there’s people coming to our shows that already know country music and that are discovering the types of music that, like Widespread Panic and Phish and the Dead have curated, that I thought everybody would just know. So, the secondary blessing of what we’re doing is we’re getting to reveal a tapestry of influence and deliver people an experience of discovery, which is such a righteous gift.
BALLSTON SPA — Actor and filmmaker Robert Redford passed away Tuesday morning at the age of 89 at his home in Utah.
Redford’s illustrious career once brought him to the Village of Ballston Spa, where he filmed a scene on Front Street for “The Way We Were,” a romantic drama directed by Sydney Pollack and released in 1973. The film was a box office hit and won 2 Academy Awards for Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Original Song.
The Ballston Spa scene features Redord’s character beckoning Barbra Streisand’s character to cross the street and chat with him. They have a conversation near a restaurant built for the movie in front of the present-day Medberry Inn & Spa.
Redford’s many well-known acting credits include “The Natural,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “The Sting,” “Barefoot in the Park,” “All the President’s Men,” “Out of Africa,” “Three Days of the Condor,” and “Avengers: Endgame.”
As a director, he helmed “Ordinary People” (which won an Academy Award for Best Picture), “A River Runs Through It,” “The Horse Whisperer,” “Quiz Show,” and “The Legend of Bagger Vance.” He also co-founded the famed Sundance Film Festival.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga Springs Heritage Area Visitor Center, in partnership with the Saratoga Springs History Museum/Canfield Casino, announced this week the return of the Ghosts of Saratoga Guided Trolley Tour—a 90-minute ride through the city’s most storied sites, just in time for the Halloween season.
Led by trained guides, the tour draws on research from noted ghost hunter David Pitkin and other paranormal investigators, weaving together accounts that have made Saratoga Springs a portal of alleged paranormal activity.
With overwhelming demand for last year’s Ghosts of Saratoga Trolley Tours, the 2025 season will expand to feature two tours operating simultaneously on each date. Guests may choose to begin their adventure at either the Saratoga Springs Visitor Center or the Saratoga Springs History Museum/Canfield Casino. If one starting point is sold out, simply check the other—both offer the same experience.
The tours will occur on Thursdays, Oct. 2, 9, 16, and 23 between 7 and 8:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at: www.discoversaratoga.org/saratoga-springs-visitor-center/services/tours/.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Schenectady-Saratoga Symphony Orchestra (SSSO) will kick off its 92nd season, titled “In Other Words,” with appearances at both the Zankel Music Center at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs and the MainStage at Proctors in Schenectady.
This season of SSSO features music inspired by literary greats like Arthur Conan Doyle, Martin Luther King, Jr., William Shakespeare, and more. The first concert, “Fate & Turmoil,” will be 7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 11, at Zankel and 3 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 12, at Proctors.
Beethoven’s “Overture to Egmont” will set the stage with heroic intensity, while Strauss’ “Macbeth” will bring Shakespeare’s tragic character to life in dramatic orchestral form. The program concludes when SSSO is joined by guest pianist Philip Edward Fisher for Leonard Bernstein’s “Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety,” a jazz-infused journey inspired by W. H. Auden’s epic poem.
Before each performance, patrons are invited to join Artistic Director and Conductor Glen Cortese for a free pre-concert talk. The talk for this first performance will be 6 p.m. at Zankel Music Center and 2 p.m. at Proctors
Tickets are available through the Box Office at Proctors in person, by phone at (518) 346-6204, or online at sssony.org.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Summer 2025 just ended but plans for summer 2026 have already begun.
Country music star Riley Green is the first artist to be officially booked to perform at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) for the 2026 season. He’ll take the stage on Friday, June 19 during his “Cowboy As It Gets” tour. Openers will include Justin Moore and Drake White & Hannah McFarland.
Green has charted four top-20 Billboard country hits, including “Half of Me,” “Different ‘Round Here,” and “There Was This Girl.” He won an Academy of Country Music Award in 2020 for Top New Male Vocalist. Last year, he was awarded Musical Event of the Year for “You Look Like You Love Me” (featuring Ella Langley) by the Country Music Association.
Front cover of “Cooper’s Campervan Adventures: Montana” provided by author Bridget Farry.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Local author Bridget Farry has released her debut children’s book, “Cooper’s Campervan Adventures: Montana,” illustrated by DFG Illustration and published by Saratoga Springs Publishing.
The book is inspired by the real-life journeys of Farry’s rescue dog, Cooper. From paddleboarding on glacial waters to spotting wildlife and enjoying outdoor concerts, Cooper’s adventures celebrate the beauty and magic of Big Sky Country, all while leaving no trace behind. A portion of every purchase will support animal rescue organizations and climate change initiatives.
“I wrote this book to inspire kids to be curious about the world,” Farry said in a news release. “I think every adventure, big or small, can teach us something new, build confidence, and spark imagination. My hope is that young readers will eagerly take those first steps into a new adventure with excitement and wonder.”
“Cooper’s Campervan Adventures: Montana” is available in local stores, including Impressions of Saratoga, G. Willikers Toys, Saratoga Outdoors, and Saratoga Springs Publishing. It can also be purchased online at the author’s website: https://www.pawprintbks.com/.
SARATOGA SPRINGS – The Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) announced this week that the popular “Caffè Lena @ SPAC” festival will return for a free day-long concert on Saturday, Oct. 4 from noon to 5:30 p.m. Taking place on SPAC’s Charles R. Wood Stage, the festival will feature five bands (Misty Blues, Tom Chapin, Chatham County Line, Farah Siraj, and Aleksi Campagne) that explore roots, global, bluegrass, pop, and indie-folk music.
“Each year, this festival reaffirms how powerful collaboration can be. By joining forces with Caffè Lena, we’re able to present world-class artists across genres in a way that is welcoming and free to all — reflecting our shared commitment to art, nature, and community,” said Elizabeth Sobol, CEO of SPAC.
“This festival embodies what makes our partnership with SPAC so meaningful: we share a belief that music should be accessible, joyful, and woven into the fabric of community life. Every year, people show up ready to celebrate that spirit, and it’s a gift for all of us,” said Sarah Craig, executive director of Caffè Lena.
The collaboration between SPAC and Caffè Lena first launched in 2017, encompassing jointly curated and presented programs at both venues.
Guests are welcome to bring in food, drink, blankets, and lawn chairs for the concerts. Food concessions will also be available. The concerts will take place rain or shine. Visit spac.org and caffelena.org for additional details.
