SARATOGA SPRINGS —Frederick Allen Elks Lodge #609 hosts its annual Jazz BBQ from 2 – 6 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 14.
The lodge, located at 69 Beeman St., promises an afternoon of some sizzlin’ good food, provided by Saratoga’s Dizzy Chicken Barbecue, and some smokin’ good music.
Tickets are $50 and seating is limited. Purchase tickets online at www.frederickallenlodge.org/jazz-bbq/#tickets. Or call to reserve at: 518-691-2499.
GLENS FALLS —The Glens Falls Symphony 40th Anniversary returns to the Glens Falls High School Auditorium with its season-opening “Musical Adventure” at 4 p.m. on Oct. 8.
Opening Night features Opening Night features mezzo-soprano MaryAnn McCormick, and the works Short Ride in a Fast Machine/ John Adams, Sea Pictures/Edward Elgar, Symphonic Dances/ Sergei Rachmaninoff.
“Autumn,” on Nov. 12, features Michael Emery, concertmaster; violin and music by Argentinian composer Astor Piazzola, as well as Le Tombeau de Couperin by famed French composer Maurice Ravel. “Holiday Pops” will be staged Dec. 10.
The season continues to May 5, 2024. For a full schedule and more information, go to: theglensfallsymphony.org.
SARATOGA SPRINGS —In scenic Saratoga Springs, ghosts of a dark capitalist past awaken and challenge a young woman’s powers.
Thus kicks off the enticing invitation to Lale Davidson’s newest book, Beyond Sight.
Add to this, the inaugural foray into the world of novels by M.G. Bell – Cursed Towns of Jericho.
An in-person speaking and book-signing event featuring both authors will be staged at 6 p.m. on Oct. 5 at Northshire Bookstore, 424 Broadway in Saratoga Springs.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Caffè Lena @ SPAC Returns for a free festival with music from Noon – 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 7.
The day of live music on the Charles R. Wood Gazebo Stage at SPAC featuring a variety of American folk artists.
The Lineup:
12-12:45 p.m. -The Clements Brothers
1:10-1:55 p.m. -Amythyst Kiah
2:20-3:05 p.m. -Soggy Po’ Boys
3:30-4:15 p.m. -Los Sugar Kings
4:40-5:25 p.m. – Upstate
Gates Open at 11:30 a.m. No tickets required, to RSVP/ register, visit: caffelena.org.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The third annual Friends’ Saratoga Book Festival will take place Oct. 12-15, bringing together more than 60 authors for a celebration of reading.
The multi-day festival features staged presentations and workshops, Literary Marketplace, Local Author Showcase, KidZone, an in-school performance held in more than seven venues in downtown Saratoga Springs.
Some Highlights:
• Author Wally Lamb, who will read from his soon-to-be published new book The River is Waiting at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 12 at the Spa Little Theatre.
• Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman, will speak about his new book Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge from Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13 at Universal Preservation Hall.
• Dani Shapiro, author and host and creator of the popular podcast Family Secrets will speak about her most recent novel, Signal Fires, in a literary conversation with author Jonathan Santlofer at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 14 at the Saratoga Springs City Center.
Additional author appearances include Meghan O’Rourke/ The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness – 10:30 a.m. and Paul Tremblay/ The Beast You Are – 2:30 p.m. both of which take place Oct. 14 at Saratoga Springs Public Library.
A number of upstate New York authors will be in attendance and events also include a Local Author Showcase, KidZone, and exhibitors, including a Popup Cafe 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 14 at the Saratoga Springs City Center Main Hall.
For a complete lineup and more information, go to: saratogabookfestival.org.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Universal Preservation Hall (UPH) in Saratoga Springs announced its Christmas programming is on sale to prepare for the holiday season.
Coming to UPH in November is “Jim Brickman Hits Live with A Little Bit of Christmas” 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 17. Jim Brickman is the best-selling solo pianist of our time, earning 21 number-one albums, 32 Top 20 radio hits, and two GRAMMY nominations. He will get up close and personal in this intimate setting with his hit songs “Love of My Life” “Valentine” and “Angel Eyes” plus a few holiday favorites like “The Gift.” Brickman warms the heart as his sweet sounds and stories bring family and friends together.
Natalie, Donnell and the MacMaster-Leahy kids take to the stage for “A Celtic Family Christmas,” 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 1.
Continuing her monthly all-female “Women Aren’t Funny” series, Erin Harkes brings the laughs to the holidays 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 6. The comedian for this performance hasn’t been announced but previous female comedians have included Jaye McBride and Karen Rontowski.
“It’s a Jazzy Christmas” will be in the Great Hall 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 15. This septet features favorite holiday songs wrapped in the theme of a 1940s radio drama featuring the music of Vince Guaraldi from the Peanuts holiday specials.
Tickets are available through the Box Office at Proctors in-person, via phone at 518-346-6204 Monday-Saturday 10 a.m.-6 p.m. or online at universalpreservationhall.org.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — “Hi, I’m Stephen King,” author James Patterson said to the audience, packed the inside the Saratoga Springs City Center Sunday afternoon.
“And I’m Mich Albom,” added longtime Daily News sportswriter and novelist Mike Lupica.
Lupica and Patterson were in town celebrating the release of their novel “12 Months To Live,” in an event sponsored by Northshire Bookstore Saratoga.
A brief interview with WAMC’s In Conversation host Joe Donahue was followed by a session during which the two authors answered questions solicited from the audience.
“This is fantastic,” Donohue said. “This is better than football.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Ten works line the wall inside Dining Room Gallery of the new Saratoga Senior Center. Gaze upon them intensely, for they seem to trick the eye. Or do they? They boast appearances of multi-dimensional proportion. They look alive.
“Renewal,” says Terri-Lynn Pellegri. “Once-living energy, repurposed.”
Love Compost Saratoga Collaborative depicts 10 new original works captured by Pellegri’s camera eye. The exhibition, on display at the new Saratoga Senior Center, opens with an artists’ reception on Sunday.
“Composting is really pretty simple,” Pellegri says. “Nature knows what to do. For me, it’s the breakdown of once-living matter – food waste, vegetables, tea bags, eggshells – and the natural decomposition of that which then aids and nourishes soil. For me, it’s identifying living/ non-living. Of the earth/ not of the earth. I saw the difference between living and non-living matter.”
The photographer’s passion for her composted subjects began in earnest on a spring day in 2014 during a seemingly random moment alongside her kitchen sink, where a batch of collected peels and scraps sat in a small compost container.
“I remember the light shining through, and I had this moment. I saw something and it just stopped me. I thought: Oh, there’s something here that looks beautiful,” Pellegri says. “For me, photographing is about seeing, about being absorbed in the moment. I got lost in that moment, looking into my compost, into this food waste. I was stunned. I went and got my camera and started photographing.”
She has learned to look at the by-product of what we consume; We eat the eggs, for example, but dispose of the eggshells, the gnarly ends of broccoli and render the nubby parts of carrots as simple discard.
“It’s about the light and it’s about allowing yourself to have that moment,” Pellegri says. “To be in the moment without judging it, without analyzing it; Just giving myself that moment To Be. To see.”
“We put in one big bundle anything that is not useful to us anymore. Trash. We don’t want to see it. It all goes in a bag and off to the landfill,” Pellegri says. “I just couldn’t put any more in the landfill, so I started composting. And I really fell in love with it. It’s hard to explain. Just watching these things go back to the earth, where it had come from.”
She began showcasing her composting photography work in 2019, visiting area businesses that were composting – Caffe Lena, Saratoga Tea & Honey, and Four Seasons among them – and creating compositions with the materials presented.
“It’s allowed me to shift my thinking. It has totally changed my relationship with food, and with waste,” she says.
This past spring, Saratoga Arts announced Pellegri was awarded a grant as part of a NYSCA regrant program for LOVE COMPOST Saratoga Collaborative, to include 10 new pieces of photographic artwork – Compost COMPOSiTions – featuring five works that honor and celebrate entities and businesses that have a compost program in place, and five works of her own, all with companion narratives.
“Skidmore College has an amazing program, Lily and The Rose, The Mouzon House, Hattie’s and Corina Contemporary Jewelry in Ballston Spa – even though she’s a jewelry shop, she takes food waste from other businesses and composts. So many things are interwoven and what I really want to share is the feeling of connectedness: what we do, who we are as people, what we do in our community, and how we communicate with one another,” Pellegri says. “The thread of commonality between the businesses, all taking food waste and compostable material and creating something.”
Across the ten works there are unlikely pairings. Tea bags collaborate with pistachio shells, clementine peels become dance partners with dried irises, scraps of carrot, and the paper casing of garlic cloves – all colorfully captured and repurposed even as they fluctuate through the varied points of their own natural decay.
“My attempt was to bring them together, to life,” Pellegri says, “to celebrate them in this visual expression.
An Artist’s Reception will take place 2-4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 24 in the Dining Room Gallery of the new Saratoga Senior Center, located at 290 West Ave., adjacent to the Y.
GREENFIELD CENTER — The 2023 Ndakinna Harvest Celebration will take place this Saturday, Sept. 23 from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Ndakinna Education Center, 23 Middle Grove Rd., Greenfield Center.
The celebration will feature a Traditional Haudenosaunee Opening Ceremony by Tom Porter, native vendors, performances by the Haudenosaunee Singers and Dancers. The event will also feature storytelling by Kay Ionataiewas Olan, along with Ndakinna’s own James, Jesse, and Joseph Bruchac. Tom Porter will finish the afternoon off with a Traditional Haudenosaunee Closing Ceremony.
Fun for all ages, space will be limited, and reservations are recommended. The event has a suggested donation of $10 per adult or $15 per family.
Funded in part by the MDOCS Co-Creation Initiative and the Mellon Foundation.
Saratoga Arts made this program possible through the Community Arts Regrant Program, funded by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — A screening of short experimental films in conjunction with the new exhibition “Unset Texts” will take place 6:30 pm Tuesday, Sept. 26 at the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College.
The event – Whole Grain: Moving Words – explores the relationship between text and image. Paul Benzon, who co-curated the exhibition, will introduce the screening and lead a discussion afterward.
Unset Texts, an exhibition that explores books as objects, opened earlier this month and is on view through Dec. 30.
Unset Texts presents sculpture, photographs, collage, painting, prints, and artist’s books from the Tang collection and Scribner Library’s Special Collections that explore printed material in creative and critical ways.
Books are often thought of as containers for language, narrative, and thought. But what happens when we view them as aesthetic objects as well? Books can take on new and expanded meanings in the hands of artists such as Nayland Blake, Julie Chen, Robert Gober, Guerrilla Girls, Martine Gutierrez, Leslie Hewitt, David Hammons, Yoko Ono, Tim Rollins and K.O.S., and Kara Walker.
All events are free and open to the public. More information is available at the Tang Visitors Services Desk by phone at 518-580-8080 or email at tang@skidmore.edu, or visit tang.skidmore.edu.
