SARATOGA SPRINGS — Schick Art Gallery presents the Juried Skidmore Student Exhibition, a perennial favorite showcasing the imagination and skill of Skidmore College art students, with an opening reception from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 6, AND remaining on display through March 4.

Each year, students submit works in a range of materials –– including prints, photographs, graphic design, painting, drawing, animation, fibers, jewelry, and ceramics –– for consideration by a juror unaffiliated with the Skidmore Art Department. The final exhibition features a selection of works from over 250 submissions. 

The 2025 student exhibition juror is Wassaic Project Director of Artistic Programming Will Hutnick.  Hutnick received his master’s degree in fine art from Pratt Institute in 2011. His work has been featured in The New York Times, among other publications, and he has been an artist-in-residence at Yaddo. 

The Schick Art Gallery is located on the second floor of Saisselin Art Building, and is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday through Sunday.  

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Dave Matthews Band announced their 2025 Spring/Summer Tour, including a stop at Saratoga Performing Arts Center on July 18 and 19.

The tour kicks off April 27 at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest, plays regionally at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts on May 24, Boston Calling Festival May 25 and Amphitheater at Lakeview in Syracuse on May 27. 

This summer, Dave Matthews Band continues its long-term partnerships with The Nature Conservancy and REVERB. Since 2005, Dave Matthews Band and REVERB have partnered to make the band’s tours more sustainable and empower fans to take action for people and the planet at shows. 

Additionally, in conjunction with their return to Southern California, Dave Matthews Band has pledged $500,000 to support California wildfire relief efforts through their Bama Works nonprofit. 

An online ticket presale for members of the DMB Warehouse Fan Association began Jan. 28 (davematthewsband.com/warehouse). General onsale for tickets begins Friday, Feb. 21, at 10 a.m.

LAKE GEORGE — The Shepard Park Amphitheater project is progressing with a goal to complete design and engineering work by early spring 2025, enabling the Village of Lake George to bid the project out for a fall 2025 construction start, and a spring 2026 completion.

A fire destroyed the popular Shepard Park amphitheater last June. 

The transformative initiative aims to create a dynamic performance and community space, offering residents and visitors a premier venue for artistic performances, cultural events, and communal gatherings. 

Additionally, the project includes broader improvements to the Shepard Park area, such as a new playground and enhanced accessibility features to ensure the park is welcoming to all. 

Community input has been and continues to be a cornerstone of this project. 

A workshop will take place 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 30 at The Carriage House – Fort William Henry, 48 Canada St. – that will provide an overview of the progress to date, present the design, gather feedback and discuss next steps and project timelines. 

All are welcome to attend, and community members are encouraged to share their insights and ideas. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Area legend David Greenberger staged a performance at Universal Preservation Hall on Jan. 19, and he brought a quartet of musicians – collectively called The Huckleberries, along with him.  

Perhaps best known for his 32 years of publishing The Duplex Planet – a periodical borne out of his Greenberger’s conversations with nursing home residents, the conversations have spawned a plethora of recordings and performances of monologues and music.  

At UPH, attendees were treated to a 90-minute showcase during which Greenberger, wearing a black suit and blue suede shoes, spoke the snippets – word thoughts, conversations, and linguistic interactions of humans engaging with one another, many of them local to the Saratoga and Ballston Spa territories, and heard onstage for the first time. For the record, some of the monologues were based on conversations held specifically at the Senior Center, and Home of the Good Shepherd.   

Backed by music and told in first-person style, by each song’s end one could imagine the spirit of the soul who first spoke them drifting up the vintage theater’s balcony staircase and taking refuge among the long wooden church-like pews, listening in succession to the next story in line, and greeting one another in the haze of the veranda’s mist. 

The quartet of Huckleberries – Peter Davis, James Gascoyne, Chris Carey and Sam Zucchini – accompanied Greenberger in a variety of ways: keyboards, a drum kit, a stand-up bass with dual f-hole cutaways, electric guitar, electric bass, saxophone, and an assortment of string-and-strum noisemakers with odd shapes, among their arsenal.  

“You may be wondering why they’re called the Huckleberries,” Greenberger told the crowd, in between pieces that related the storytelling standing of one person named Gilbert, and another named Jitterbug Frank, “Well as a kid I loved Huckleberry Hound,” he said, recalling the animated TV series with the protagonist dog. “I was in the fan club and everything.” 

SARATOGA SPRINGS  — The band Styx, and Kevin Cronin – the voice and writer behind REO Speedwagon’s greatest hits, join forces for their “Brotherhood of Rock” tour, that will kick off May 28 in South Carolina and stage a show at Saratoga Performing Arts Center Aug.  12.  

Special guest Don Felder, a former lead guitarist for the Eagles, will also appear. 

Styx and Kevin Cronin (as part of REO Speedwagon) first toured together in 2000 and in 2001.  

Cronin can recall first seeing Styx singer Tommy Shaw performing with his seven-piece funk/rock band at the Rush Up club in Chicago during the the mid-‘70s REO hiatus, and subsequently bumping into him at O’Hare Airport a few weeks later.

“In no time I was back in REO Speedwagon and Tommy had become the newest member of Styx,” says Cronin, who began fronting REO Speedwagon in 1972. “REO and Styx dominated the Billboard charts in 1981 with “Hi Infidelity” and “Paradise Theatre,” but for reasons unknown we had never toured together. So, in the year 2000, Tommy and I decided to give it a shot…now, here we are 25 years later.”

For more information and tickets, go to: LiveNation.com.

SARATOGA SPRINGS —Kyiv, Ukraine “ethno-chaos” ensemble DakhaBrakha will make its Saratoga debut 7:30 p.m. on March 14 at the Spa Little Theater in a show co-resented by Saratoga Performing Arts Center and Caffè Lena. 

The groundbreaking quartet is known for their hypnotic blend of folk traditions, dub, hip-hop and global influences. 

“Caffè Lena has a long history of presenting not only American folk music, but Traditional music from other cultures, said Sarah Craig, executive director of Caffè Lena.  “It’s a thrill to work with this band that has introduced so many people around the world to the roots of Ukrainian music with a contemporary twist that’s exciting and compelling,” 

DakhaBrakha, meaning “give/take” in the old Ukrainian language, was created by avant-garde theater director Vladyslav Troitskyi at the Kyiv Center of Contemporary Art “DAKH” in 2004. Accompanied by Indian, Arabic, African, and Ukrainian traditional instrumentation, the quartet’s vocal range creates a trans-national sound rooted in Ukrainian culture. 

DhakaBraka has performed at major festivals across Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America. The ensemble features Marko Halanevych (vocals, darbuka, table, accordion), Iryna Kovalenko (vocals, djembe, bass drums, accordion, percussion, bugay, zgaleyka, piano), Olena Tsybulska (vocals, bass drums, percussion, garmoshka), and Nina Garenetska (vocals, cello, bass drum). 

“It’s important to show the world Ukraine, and to show Ukrainians that we don’t need to have an inferiority complex, Halanevych said in a statement. “There are a lot of wonderful, creative people here, people who are now striving for freedom, for a more civilized way of life, and are ready to stand up for it.” 

DakhaBrakha’s appearance at Spa Little Theater is part of a unique and ongoing collaboration between SPAC and Caffè Lena first launched in 2017 and encompassing jointly curated and presented programs at both venues, highlighted by their annual “Caffè Lena @ SPAC” fall festival. To sample live clips of the ensemble in vision and sound, go to: https://www.dakhabrakha.com.ua/en/video/. 

Tickets for DakhaBrakha at Spa Little Theater cost $40-$55. Visit spac.org for details.