SARATOGA SPRINGS — More than $3.5 million was raised as a result of two benefit concerts at SPAC by Phish to aid flood recovery efforts in Vermont and Upstate New York.
Staged Aug. 25 – 26, both shows featured special pre-show acoustic sets with Phish’s Page McConnell and Trey Anastasio, while the Saturday, Aug. 26 performance saw Phish joined on stage by a surprise appearance from guitarist Derek Trucks.
The two concerts were additionally webcast for free at LivePhish.com and Phish’s YouTube channel, allowing fans around the world the opportunity to donate directly to The WaterWheel Foundation’s 2023 Flood Recovery Fund.
Monies raised from both events include 100% of net proceeds from all ticket revenues and merchandise sales, as well as individual donations. Individuals can still donate to WaterWheel through PayPal at: http://waterwheelfoundation.org.
SARATOGA SPRINGS —Caffe Lena celebrates 20 years of Poetry Open Mic with a 4-hour open reading, hosted by the legendary Capital Region poet Mary Panza.
All poets and spoken word artists are welcome to share their work, and each reader will have five minutes at the mic. Pre-registration required.
Cassandra Kubinski in Concert: The Saratoga Sessions EP Release, on Wednesday Sept. 27, at 7 p.m.
Singer-songwriter Martin Sexton performs two shows – at 4 p.m. and at 7 p.m., on Sunday, Sept. 24.
Singer/Songwriter/Climate Activist Vienna Teng performs at 8 p.m. on Friday Sept. 29 & Saturday Sept. 30, and at 7 p.m. on Sunday Oct. 1
ALBANY — Legendary guitarist and 10-time Grammy-winning global icon Carlos Santana will be feature in a new documentary screening this month.
The film launches in theaters with a three-day premiere event – CARLOS: The Santana Journey Global Premiere Sept. 23, 24 & 27. The Global Premiere screenings include the CARLOS documentary plus exclusive introductory content featuring Santana and and two-time Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Rudy Valdez (The Sentence, We Are: The Brooklyn Saints), plus music industry luminaries.
Santana has been a frequent performer at Saratoga Performing Arts Center – sharing stage billing with Eric Clapton (1975), Phish (1992), Bob Dylan (1993), the Allman Brothers band (2012), as well as numerous featured appearances as the sole headliner dating back several decades.
As per current theatre listings, Spa City fans interested in attending the screening of the film will have to travel to Albany, however. Local theaters showing the new documentary are Regal Colonie Center, Regal Crossgates, and Landmark Spectrum 8, according to listings.
For more information, the most up-to-date information about participating theaters worldwide, and to purchase tickets, go to: www.carlosfilm.com.
Texas artist Adam Knoche will be featured in a new exhibition at Saratoga Clay Arts. Photo provided.
SCHUYLERVILLE — Saratoga Clay Arts Center’s Schacht Gallery presents DENATURED, a solo exhibition featuring the sculptural vessels of Texas artist Adam Knoche.
This body of artwork is representational of nature, but it is not natural; the work is a simulacrum of natural objects through abstraction. DENATURED: Adam Knoche will run Aug. 26 – Sept. 30, with an opening reception 5-7 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 26. Light refreshments will be served. Admission is free.
“I have developed my aesthetic from travels abroad in Europe, Asia, and Australia and my time living in New York City,” Knoche said in a statement. “I derive my conceptual ideas from environmental and political landscapes and respond to my surroundings in whichever setting I find myself in, both physically and mentally.”
Saratoga Clay Arts Center is located at 167 Hayes Road, Schuylerville. Visit www.saratogaclayarts.org call 518-581-2529 or email info@saratogaclayarts.org for more information.
Sawyer Fredericks, who will return to Saratoga Springs Sept. 2 & 3, pictured on stage at Saratoga Performing Arts Center June 2015. Photo by Thomas Dimopoulos.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Sawyer Fredericks will be performing two solo shows at Caffe Lena – at 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 3.
The shows mark the 10th Anniversary of Fredericks playing the hallowed club, with his first performance as a 13-year-old playing on Open Mic night.
His most recent release, The Golden Tree EP, was issued earlier this year. The self-released, self-produced album is Fredericks’ first new album of music since 2020’s Flowers For You.
For more information and tickets for the Labor Day weekend shows in Saratoga Springs, go to: caffelena.org.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Phish has announced free webcasts of their two special shows at Saratoga Performing Arts Center Aug. 25 and 26.
The webcast will be available for free at LivePhish.com and Phish’s YouTube channel.
Fans watching will be given opportunities to donate directly, and 100% of all donations will be directed to the WaterWheel Foundation’s Flood Recovery Fund. The Flood Recovery concerts will benefit Vermont and Upstate New York flood recovery efforts. Communities throughout the region were inundated earlier this month with historic levels of rain and major flooding.
Jon Pousette-Dart performs at Caffe Lena Aug. 31. (Photo provided: live in Rockport 2011).
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Acclaimed singer-songwriter Jon Pousette-Dart will be performing in his acoustic duo format in Saratoga Springs on Aug. 31 at Caffe Lena.
Active as a performer/recording artist for over 40 years and counting, Jon founded The Pousette-Dart Band and carved a place in the landscape of American music in the 1970s. The band went on to record a series of albums for Capitol Records, two of which (Amnesia and Pousette-Dart Band 3) made the Billboard album chart.
While the original group disbanded in the early 80s, Jon kept performing with original drummer Eric Parker and continued writing and producing into the 90s, when he returned to Nashville to begin recording again on his own. He’s turned out five solo albums and currently tours in many incarnations.
For tickets and more information, go to: caffelena.org.
ALBANY — The UAlbany Performing Arts Center has announced its guest artists for the 2023-24 season.
The Prime Performances schedule includes a multi-disciplinary performance addressing global sustainability, shows that spotlight local artists, events celebrating the 70th anniversary of a dystopian novel and other diverse performances by regional, national and international touring artists.
Kicking off the series on Sept. 24 is a free performance of Rising Tide: The Crossroads Project, a program fusing original music with art, imagery and science which confronts a planet under siege and a future in peril while inspiring audiences to change course. With an original score by composer Laura Kaminsky, live musical performance by the Fry Street Quartet, lecture by physicist/climate educator Robert Davies and imagery by painter Rebecca Allen and environmental photographer Garth Lenz, the program provides hope as well as a path toward meaningful response. The performers will also offer a high school matinee. Both performances are presented in association with UAlbany’s Office of Sustainability.
Commemorating 70 years since it was published, Fahrenheit 451 will be the focus of activity in October through a collaboration with the New York State Writers Institute. Ray Bradbury’s work of science fiction imagined a future where all books are outlawed, and “firemen” tossed hidden tomes into bonfires. Two versions of the film will be screened – the 1966 film on Oct. 13 and the more recent movie from 2018 on Oct. 20. Literature to Life’s verbatim stage adaptation will be performed on Oct. 26 by Rich Orlow who tells the story from the perspective of the protagonist and seamlessly transitions between the five other primary characters. Book giveaways will take place during these events. There will also be multiple performances of the play for high school student groups.
Tickets for the events with admission charges can be purchased through the UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s web site at https://www.albany.edu/pac/tickets. Educators wishing to bring groups to any of the 10am morning matinees can do so by contacting the UAlbany Performing Arts Center office at 518- 442-3995 or PAC@albany.edu. Admission is free but reservations are required.
“Lexington: The Extraordinary Life and Turbulent Times of America’s Legendary Racehorse,” published in July.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Set against the background of the Civil War and filled with a cast of characters that includes a formerly enslaved Black trainer and a half-blind horse, “Lexington” provides a dramatic true story of the thoroughbred from which the book is named.
The book was released in July and its author, Kim Wickens, will be visiting Northshire Bookstore Saratoga at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 24.
Wickens, a lawyer and dressage rider who grew up in Dallas, Texas, became fascinated by the legendary horse when she learned 12 of Thoroughbred racing’s 13 Triple Crown winners descended from Lexington.
“Lexington: The Extraordinary Life and Turbulent Times of America’s Legendary Racehorse,” ($28.99, Ballantine Books) is a story of the champion who gained international fame in the tumultuous Civil War-era South and became the most successful sire in American racing history.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Northshire Bookstore and Yaddo present an evening with author and journalist Yepoka Yeebo who shares the never-before-told story of how an audacious Ghanaian con artist pulled off one of the 20th century’s longest-running and most spectacular frauds.
Yeebo will discuss the book with Kristy Davis. “Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World” published this month by Bloomsbury Publishing.
Some background: When Ghana won its independence from Britain in 1957, it instantly became a target for home-grown opportunists and rapacious Western interests determined to snatch any assets that colonialism hadn’t already stripped.
A CIA-funded military junta ousted the new nation’s inspiring president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of hiding the country’s gold overseas. Into this big lie stepped one of history’s most charismatic scammers, a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi. Born into poverty in Ghana and trained in the United States, John Ackah Blay-Miezah declared himself custodian of an alleged Nkrumah trust fund worth billions.
In “Anansi’s Gold,” Yepoka Yeebo chases Blay-Miezah’s ever-wilder trail and discovers, at long last, what really happened to Ghana’s missing wealth.
The conversation takes place at Northshire Bookstore Saratoga, 424 Broadway, at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 29.
