SARATOGA SPRINGS — A documentary about Blotto, a rock band with its origins at Saratoga’s 17 Maple Ave nightspot (later the Metro, now the Night Owl), will screen at Putnam Place on March 19.
The award-winning “Hello, My Name Is Blotto: The Movie” is described as an inside look at the “curious arc of the beloved laugh-rock band Blotto,” whose story serves as a case study in the highs and lows of the music business.
Blotto’s hits included “Metal Head,” “Goodbye Mr. Bond,” “My Baby’s the Star of a Drivers Ed Movie,” and “I Wanna Be a Lifeguard.” The band’s live shows celebrated “the feelgood vibe of the 80’s music and party scene,” according to a press release.
The screening is scheduled for 7 p.m. Band members and the film’s director will be in attendance. A warmup mix-meet-mingle hour is hosted by acoustic Americana trio Lost Radio Rounders, which includes Bowtie Blotto. Admission is $20 at the door or $10 in advance via the Putnam Place website.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Ithaca-based writer Christopher Gonzales will read from and discuss his new memoir, “Return of the Lost Son: Memories of a Wayward Father” at the Northshire Bookstore on Thursday, March 19 at 6 p.m. The event, moderated by Saratoga Springs Poet Laureate Jay Rogoff, is free and open to the public. A book signing will follow.
Gonzales’ book seeks to discover and understand his father, who left his Mexican-American family and strove to make his life a work of art. The memoir recalls Gonzales’ early memories, before the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease erased much of his father’s memory.
Gonzales recounts his travels to Texas, Mexico, and elsewhere, as well as his research into reconstructing this mysterious man’s surprising biography. Along the way, he makes discoveries about his father, his family, his ethnic heritage, and himself.
Gonzales, who grew up outside of Saratoga Springs, said that “A key theme of my book is carving out a Latino identity in Saratoga Springs. Nearly half of the chapters include some aspect of this theme, and several of my sources and literary influences also have ties to Saratoga. And, of course, a major thrust of the book is understanding my father’s life and why he chose to move to this area.”
Also coming soon to Northshire: Eileen Flanagan, who will be speaking at the bookstore on April 15 while on a national tour for her new book, “Common Ground: How the Crisis of the Earth is Saving Us from Our Illusion of Separation.”
One of the stories included in “Common Ground” is about how New York State achieved one of the strictest climate laws in the country, partly spurred by coalition building that occurred after Hurricane Sandy. Another story is about the protection of the Adirondack Park in the late nineteenth century, which includes lessons that could be relevant to readers today.
Flanagan is a Philadelphia-based author whose daughter graduated from Skidmore College.
For more information about these and other Northshire events, visit www.northshire.com/upcoming-events.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Schick Art Gallery will unveil “Earthbound,” an exhibition of ceramic work by 11 contemporary artists, with an opening reception from 5 to 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 19.
An artists’ talk will take place at 5:30 p.m., and the exhibition will remain on view through April 19.
The full list of artists includes Bekah Bliss, Pattie Chalmers, Judy Fox, Brett Freund, Arthur Gonzalez, Brian Harper, Benjie Heu, Kyle Johns, Linda Lopez, Chris Staley, and Shoko Teruyama. Fox and Heu will visit campus to participate in the artists’ talk.
The Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery is concurrently featuring the work of ceramics artist Kathy Butterly through July 26.
All Schick Art Gallery exhibitions and events are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday through Sunday.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — “Henry Knox: Resolve Forged by Revolution,” a 30-minute film produced by the Campaign for Saratoga 250, made its broadcast premiere Tuesday night on local PBS station WMHT.
The film prominently features a number of locals, including Saratoga County Historian Lauren Roberts, Town of Saratoga Historian Sean Kelleher, and Siena University History Professor Jennifer Dorsey.
A mix of interviews, archival material, and filmed recreations retold the tale of General Henry Knox’s dramatic Noble Train of Artillery, which passed through Lake George, Glens Falls, Schuylerville, Saratoga, and Albany.
Additional footage highlighted the Campaign for Saratoga 250’s collaborations with WSWHE BOCES students, who recreated the sleds Knox used hundreds of years ago, and Stewart’s Shops, which will rename one of their ice cream flavors after Knox. Scenes were also shot at Knox Fest, which took place at Fort Hardy Park in Schuylerville.
Those who missed the broadcast premiere can view the film on either the WMHT PBS Media App or on the Saratoga 250 YouTube channel, which will upload the film this weekend.
Image provided by the Saratoga Springs History Museum.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga Springs History Museum will present “A Song of Yaddo: Music of Katrina Trask,” a special musical program celebrating the life and creative legacy of Yaddo founder Katrina Trask.
The performance—scheduled for March 19 at 7 p.m. at the Canfield Casino—will feature soprano Eileen Egan Mack and pianist Michael Clement, who will present a program highlighting Trask’s musical work as a composer and lyricist. While widely known as a philanthropist and cultural patron, Trask was also an accomplished writer and musician whose artistic contributions are less recognized.
The evening’s program will include several songs written by Trask, as well as works created through collaborations with composers of her era. In many of these collaborations, Trask served as lyricist for musical settings composed by fellow musicians, including R. Nathaniel Dett, a pioneering Black composer and musical innovator. The program will also feature music by Trask’s contemporaries, including Victor Herbert and Sergei Rachmaninoff, providing context for the musical landscape of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Interwoven throughout the performance will be biographical reflections on Trask’s life and artistic circle, offering audiences a deeper understanding of the beliefs and personal experiences that shaped her work.
The program is made possible through the research of Rumara Jewett, whose work has uncovered a wealth of historical material about Katrina Trask’s musical contributions.
The performance will last approximately 50–60 minutes.
For tickets and additional information, visit: https://www.saratogahistory.org/events/a-song-of-yaddo-music-of-katrina-trask-with-eileen-mack-and-michael-clement.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Two tribute bands, Brit Floyd and Get the Led Out, will perform back-to-back at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) on Saturday, Aug. 1.
Since their formation, Brit Floyd has put on more than 1,500 shows in more than 40 countries, bolstering their claim to be the definitive live Pink Floyd experience. Accompanied by a light show, lasers, video projections, inflatables, and theatrical staging, “The Moon, The Wall and Beyond” is being billed as Brit Floyd’s “most ambitious and immersive production to date.”
Get the Led Out consists of six veteran musicians who utilize multi-instrumentalists to re-create songs with studio overdubs that Led Zeppelin themselves never performed live.
Tickets will go on sale Friday, March 13 at 10 a.m. at LiveNation.com.
New Saratoga Film Forum logo provided by Spencer Sherry.
Photo of Saratoga Arts’ newly renovated theater via the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga Film Forum is being revived and will return to Saratoga Arts on April 9.
This means that for the first time since the early days of the pandemic, locals will be able to munch popcorn and gaze at independent films here in the Spa City. They’ll do it inside a newly-renovated theater replete with an updated projector and sound system. They might even, to paraphrase Nicole Kidman’s famous AMC ad, witness dazzling images on a silver screen with sound they can feel.
Every Thursday night for at least 12 weeks, an independent film will be screened inside Saratoga Arts’ 110-seat theater. One of the first films will be A24’s “Sorry, Baby,” the Sundance-premiering, Golden Globe-nominated tale of a reclusive college professor that was helmed by, written by, and stars Eva Victor.
“I heard stories about the [Saratoga Film Forum] and people were kind of clamoring for it,” said Spencer Sherry, who works at Saratoga Arts, runs the Saratoga Film Showcase, and presides over the 518 Film Network. “Ever since working [at Saratoga Arts], I’d get questions about it all the time, then decided to figure out how to get it back up and running with a structure that works and makes sense.”
The first iteration of the Saratoga Film Forum began in 1993, when an alliance of Saratogians decided their hometown needed a theater that would screen harder-to-find indie flicks not already viewable at multiplexes. Today, with Hollywood forever altered by the rise of streaming services, enticing moviegoers to actually leave their homes can be a tall order. But the success of the recent Saratoga Film Showcase (also held at Saratoga Arts) proved there’s an appetite for both independent films and locally produced work.
One unique way the revamped Film Forum will hope to sell tickets is by collaborating with Joseph Masher, the CEO of Scene One Entertainment, which owns the movie theater inside the Wilton Mall. Sherry described Masher as a “friend” who has been “really, really good to the local film scene.” Scene One will be a promotional partner with the Film Forum, Sherry said. The two cinemas will advertise each other’s screenings, and at each Film Forum event, two free tickets to Scene One will be raffled off. The partnership works, in part, because the two theaters will screen different types of films.
“We both agree that we have kind of different audiences between the mall and downtown,” Sherry said. “So, if there’s any way that we can help each other get each other’s audiences to maybe favor Scene One over AMC, make that little extra trek and support someone local instead of a giant chain, then [I’d] just love to help any way I can.”
In addition to Sherry and Masher, some of the other local film fans working behind the scenes to resurrect the Forum include Amy Godine, who served on the Forum’s board from 1993 to 2016; Field Horne, an acting director/curator for the Saratoga County History Center; Amy Bloom, executive director of Saratoga Arts; and Susan Bokan, who made a sizeable donation.
“The support seemed to really be there, and we had a team of people that were saying, ‘We’ll form a programming committee. We will volunteer on the day. We’ll do the popcorn.’ So, it felt like we had enough support to give it a swing,” Sherry said.
With a team and theater in place, expect to see an array of narrative films, foreign flicks, documentaries, and perhaps locally made shorts. The Film Forum will also aim to book in-person appearances, from either people who worked on the films being screened, or from experts and academics who can speak about the topic of a documentary being screened.
Those interested in the Film Forum’s offerings can purchase a $100 membership pass that’ll be good for the first 12 films/weeks of programming. Individual tickets for each screening will be $10 apiece. For these tickets and future film announcements, keep an eye on the Saratoga Arts website and Facebook page.
“I think that this is a huge step in service of bringing back a film culture here, making this a really great place to live and to see independent stuff,” Sherry said.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — RallySound, a nonprofit working to empower community through music, will host “Songwriters in the Round – An Evening of Music and Storytelling” on Thursday, April 16 at The Anthony “Skip” Scirocco Music Hall in Saratoga Springs.
A pay-what-you-can event, the evening will feature Adam Ezra, Margo Macero, and Melanie Krahmer & Rich Libutti of Sirsy performing some of their favorite songs and sharing the stories behind them. All are donating their time and talent to the event to raise funds for veterans. Money raised will benefit The Ramble music festival—another pay-what-you-can event held annually on the last Saturday of August.
The Ramble, run by the all-volunteer Ramble Army, is funded through donations from attendees, generous supporters, and sponsors. For every $1,000 raised, The Ramble—working in partnership with The New England Center and Home for Veterans—provides the resources needed for one veteran to transition off the streets and into safe, dignified housing. RallySound donated $161,000 to the mission last year and has donated more than $750,000 over the past 13 years.
“Songwriters in the Round” will be held in the music hall at Saratoga Springs City Hall (third floor) from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. (doors at 6 p.m.).
For more information, to reserve tickets, and to donate, visit Rallysound.org/songwriters-in-the-round.
Saxophonist Branford Marsalis performing at the Universal Preservation Hall on Feb. 27.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Master of sax Branford Marsalis brought his quartet to the Spa City last Friday night, tearing his way through a set that spanned sonically from melodious to an almost-violent composition by bassist Eric Revis that Marsalis called a “2 a.m. with handcuffs” kind of love song.
The Grammy-winning Marsalis has many claims to fame, including collaborations with the Grateful Dead, Sting, Dave Matthews, Spike Lee, Public Enemy, and Phil Collins. From 1992 to 1995, he was the leader of the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” band.
But in 2026, at 65 years young, Marsalis took the UPH audience on a journey that spanned from the Depression-era Jimmy McHugh tune “Sunny Side of the Street” (which Marsalis called “a wonderful song of American optimism”); the 1928 hit by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, “There Ain’t No Sweet Man That’ Worth the Salt of My Tears”; the 1960-recorded John Coltrane tune “26-2”; and 1974’s “Long As You Know You’re Living Yours,” a Keith Jarrett cover. Also performed was an audience-led rendition of “Happy Birthday,” sung in honor of pianist/birthday boy Joey Calderazzo.
A highlight was the encore “Nikaste,” an original composition by bassist Eric Revis. After some on-stage back-and-forth as to whether the song would be played towards the end of the set or during the encore, Marsalis’ quartet erupted with the unconventional love song. “You tell me what kind of ‘love’ you think this is,” Marsalis quipped before his drummer Justin Faulkner practically committed a violent crime upon his kit. Faulkner also displayed his grin-inducing habit of exclaiming “Aaahhh” every time he seemed to be enjoying himself.
This year, as Marsalis pointed out before playing “26-2”, is John Coltrane’s centennial. Saratogians can celebrate 100 years of the pioneering saxophonist at the forthcoming Saratoga Jazz Festival, which will include a salute to Coltrane by the Skidmore Jazz Institute Faculty All-Stars.
Dancer Itzkan Barbosa. Photo by Gabriel Bienczycki, provided by SPAC.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) announced Wednesday that BalletX, Philadelphia’s premier contemporary ballet company, will present the SPAC premiere of “The Four Seasons Reimagined” in a special one-night, pavilion-only performance on Thursday, June 11.
The immersive, evening-length work marks BalletX’s first full-company, headlining engagement on the SPAC Amphitheater stage and arrives just days after its world premiere. The company previously performed in the Spa Little Theater and appeared as a guest with The Philadelphia Orchestra on the main stage.
“This season at SPAC, we are reflecting on The Four Seasons—an idea that resonates deeply with our home in Saratoga Spa State Park and with SPAC’s evolution as a vibrant, year-round organization,” said Elizabeth Sobol, CEO of SPAC. “We are proud to have supported the creation of this bold and ambitious work, which beautifully reflects our commitment to environmental awareness and sustainability, inspiring audiences to consider both the majesty and fragility of the natural world that surrounds us. We are also thrilled to welcome regional organizations dedicated to conservation and sustainability, offering them the opportunity to share their work with our audiences and join us for this shared artistic experience.”
“The Four Seasons Reimagined” is a new production that ushers audiences into an immersive landscape shaped by sound, movement, light, and design. Composer and electronic musician Dan Deacon creates and performs an original score live on stage with his nine-member band. Four choreographers—Morgann Runacre-Temple (Summer), Penny Saunders (Fall), Jamar Roberts (Winter), and Trey McIntyre (Spring)—each bring a distinct season to life, revealing nature as the driving force at the heart of the story: fragile, fierce, and magnificently alive.
“We are so grateful to work on this larger-than-life project with Saratoga Performing Arts Center,” said BalletX Artistic and Executive Director Christine Cox. “The Four Seasons Reimagined” is a celebration two years in the making and we’re honored to premiere it as part of America250. Creating alongside Dan Deacon, Penny Saunders, Jamar Roberts, Trey McIntyre, Morgann Runacre-Temple, Emma Kingsbury, Christopher Ash and our company of dancers has been the experience of a lifetime and the result is truly unique – four world premieres, one epic score, one beautiful love letter to Mother Nature.”
At the heart of the project is a newly commissioned score by Deacon. Known for his genre-defying sound and epic-scale live performances, Deacon will reinterpret Vivaldi’s iconic work with an avant-garde, modern edge. Performed live alongside his nine-piece ensemble of musicians, several taking on multiple instruments, the score reflects the shifting seasons and our relationship with the natural world.
Scenic and costume design is by designer Emma Kingsbury, whose work spans theater, dance, opera, and film, including collaborations with Opera Australia and La Scala. Lighting is brought to life by Christopher Ash, whose work has been seen at The Met, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Canadian Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and across numerous Broadway productions.
Extending this commitment beyond the stage, SPAC has invited regional organizations dedicated to conservation and sustainability to attend and engage with audiences prior to the performance. Participating partners include the Agricultural Stewardship Association, Albany Pine Bush Preserve, Mohawk Hudson Land Conservation District, New York State Parks & Historic Preservation, Pitney Meadows Community Farm, Saratoga PLAN, SoBro Conservancy, Southern Adirondack Audubon Society, Spa City Farmers’ Market, Sustainable Saratoga, Wilton Wildlife Preserve & Park, and Capital Region PRISM.
Tickets will be available beginning March 6 at 10 a.m. for members (tiered by level) and on March 12 at 10 a.m. for the general public. All tickets for this performance are pavilion only and start at $29. Visit spac.org for details.
