ALBANY — The Egg has announced that Del Amitri (April 16) and Crash Test Dummies (May 13) will be performing as part of the Rhythm International concert series.

Tickets are on sale online at www.theegg.org or by telephone at 518-473-1845.

Del Amitri, the Scottish alternative rock band have been a force on the global pop music scene for over 40 years, selling over six million albums. Best known for their top 40 hits “Roll to Me,” “Always the Last to Know,” and “Kiss This Thing Goodbye,” the band performs in support of their 2021 release Fatal Mistakes. Saturday, APRIL 16. $39.50, $34.50, $29.50

Crash Test Dummies. It’s been 30 years since the Crash Test Dummies recorded their debut album, The Ghosts That Haunt Me that included the hit, “Superman’s Song,” Grammy nominations for Best New Artist, Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group, Best Alternative Music Album and a Juno Award for Group of the Year.  Success continued throughout the 1990s with songs such as “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm,” “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead,” “Swimming in Your Ocean,” “Afternoons & Coffeespoons” and others. The group parted ways to pursue solo projects but reunited for a sold out 25th Anniversary Tour and are now back again with original members Brad Roberts, Ellen Reid, Dan Roberts, and Mitch Dorge. Friday, May 13. $39.50, $34.50

WASHINGTON COUNTY — A Drive-Thru Holiday Lights Experience is being offered this year at the Washington County Fairgrounds. The exhibition features over one mile of lighted displays through Dec. 23. Cost is $25 per car.  For more information and tickets, go to: washingtoncountyfairgrounds.com  or call 518-692-2464. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga Automobile Museum is partnering with the Naples Chapter of the Ferrari Club of America and St. Matthew’s House to host a premier motorcar auction that will take place early in the new year. 

The Naples Automotive Experience will be held, February 3-6, and the Motorcar Auction will be held Friday, Feb. 4, at Ultimate Garages of Naples. In addition to the Motorcar Auction, The Naples Automotive Experience will include a reception at Naples Airport’s Elite Jets Hangar and the 18th Annual Cars on 5th Concours.

Auction proceeds will benefit the non-profit organizations, St. Matthew’s House of Naples, and the Saratoga Automobile Museum of Saratoga Springs. 

To consign a vehicle for the First Annual Naples Motorcar Auctions, visit naplesmotorcarauctions.org or contact Dan Ritopecki at 518-369-1000 or by email at dan@saratogaautomuseum.org. To learn more about the Saratoga Automobile Museum, go to: saratogaautomuseum.org

SARATOGA — Stephen Conroy has lived his entire life in the Capital Region. He has just published his debut novel, incorporating some local ties within the story, which he says began to form while listening to his dad tell campfire stories during the family’s summer vacations.

“Panic Through the Pines,” a 180-page psychological thriller, was published by Austin Macauley this week. 

“Watching the fog rise off the lake simultaneously with steam rising from the coffee was my once beloved morning ritual. I look out onto the lake and ask myself a simple question: What do I do next? It was a gradual transition, from being motivated to remain sociable and pleasant throughout the course of the days and weeks then the once joyous cheers by the nightly fire turned slowly into a new level of solitude and anger.”

Protagonist James Marshall rides an exciting rollercoaster through life, and his journey comes with many a twist and turns and dark tunnels. The view of the mountains and tall pines nestled in the heart of the Adirondacks become a permanent second home to create countless memories and family joy. Life in the woods brings challenges, excitement, and even murder.

For more information about “Panic Through The Pines,” go to: www.austinmacauley.com/us/book/panic-through-pines. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Writer, actor, and comedian, John Mulaney will appear at Saratoga Performing Arts Center June 10 as part of 33-city tour in 2022. 

In 2018, Mulaney traveled the U.S. with sold out Kid Gorgeous tour, which was later released as a Netflix stand-up special and won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Variety Special; in 2015, he released The Comeback Kid, and in 2012, his Comedy Central special New In Town. 

Solidifying himself as a fan favorite, John Mulaney has been invited to host Saturday Night Live four times. He began writing for SNL in 2008 and created memorable characters such as ‘Stefon’ with Bill Hader and appeared as a “Weekend Update” correspondent. He has written for IFC’s Documentary Now! and Netflix’s Big Mouth, on which he voices the character of Andrew.

In December 2019, the critically acclaimed and Emmy nominated musical variety special John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch debuted on Netflix. It was recently announced that festivities will continue with a pair of holiday themed Sack Lunch Bunch specials coming to Comedy Central in the near future.

Tickets on sale via Ticketmaster.com.

LAKE GEORGE — The Lake George Arts Project invites regional, national, emerging and established artists to submit exhibition proposals to the Courthouse Gallery. Preference is given to experimental or non-traditional work created in the last two years. 

We welcome proposals for special exhibitions, installations, mixed media presentations, and performance art. 

The postmark deadline is Jan. 31, 2022. Please visit: www.lakegeorgearts.org/annual-call.htm for guidelines. Questions? call LGAP at 518-323-5499, or laura@lakegeorgearts.org

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Dispatch and O.A.R will hit the road together this summer for a 37-stop North American co-headline tour, which is scheduled to kick off on July 15 in Arizona and conclude Sept. 10 in Texas. 

The bands will stage a show at Saratoga Performing Arts Center Aug. 21, when they will be joined by G. Love. 

Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday, December 10. 

“Dispatch has always been a name on our white-board wish-list for bands we wanted to tour with,” said O.A.R.’s sax player Jerry DePizzo, in a prepared statement. “It’s almost as if we’ve existed in parallel universes. We both came up through the ranks and cut our teeth playing colleges and small clubs throughout the Northeast and Midwest. It’s taken a few years, but the stars have finally aligned. We’re looking forward to this because we feel both audiences will be excited as well. We should have done this a long time ago.”

Dispatch was formed by Chadwick Stokes and Brad Corrigan while in college in Vermont. The band has gone on to become one of biggest success stories in independent music history, selling out three nights at Madison Square Garden and drawing over 100,000 fans to a massive outdoor show in their adopted hometown of Boston without any traditional radio or major label support. The band recently released their eighth studio album, “Break Our Fall.”

O.A.R, who hail from Rockville, Maryland, has sold out Madison Square Garden multiple times, filled Red Rocks Amphitheater on countless nights, earned platinum and gold plaques across 11-full-length albums and lit up the Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Saratoga Jewish Community Arts, presents a zoom discussion of the 2000 film Kippur by Israeli director Amos Gitai, at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 12. 

The film is both a blood-churning war movie and a mind-stirring antiwar movie, focusing not on guts and glory, but on the stark realities of real battlefield experience. 

The classic Hollywood war film establishes one side’s mastery over the other, a formula often represented as gaining control of terrain. Gitai served in the 1973 Yom Kippur war as a member of a helicopter rescue unit and was badly wounded when his copter was hit by a Syrian missile. Kippur is drawn from his experiences.

The precipitous war from the Israeli perspective began when Syria and Egypt attacked Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. 

“Newspapers and public officials,” said Phyllis Wang, Coordinator of SJCA, “represent war in terms of nations, movements, maneuvers, and negotiations. It’s the systemic dehumanizing of violent conflict that we require to proceed with our daily lives.  Gitai humanizes in clever and unexpected ways, using cinematic language, relying on light, silence, and space. His attention to the awfulness of war is the film’s great strength. However, the numbing horror of it all may also shut down our emotions and may leave us detached.”

The film is available on Prime Video and YouTube. The program was made possible with a generous grant from the Jewish Federation of Northeastern NY and sponsored by Temple Sinai. Registration is required. Go to: sjca.sjcf@gmail.com.   

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Saratoga Performing Arts Center announced Dec. 9 that it has once again partnered with Pitney Meadows Community Farm to bring back the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for its annual Saratoga Springs residency in 2022. 

Slated for Sunday, June 12, through Sunday, Aug. 21, the popular “CMS at the Meadows” series will return for six programs and twelve performances in Pitney Meadows Community Farm’s beautiful, open-air High Tunnel greenhouse. 

“One of the highlights of this past summer’s programming was the glorious confluence of stunning music-making in a magnificent natural setting as CMS took the stage in the High Tunnel at Pitney Farm. Thanks to our partners at The Farm, we are excited to be going back there for the summer 2022 season,” SPAC President and CEO Elizabeth Sobol said, in a prepared statement. 

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s 2022 season at SPAC (June 12- Aug. 21) will feature masterpieces from Beethoven’s “Archduke” Trio to Dvořák’s “American” Quintet, to lesser known gems of the chamber repertoire by an international cast of composers such as Reicha, Schoenfield, Poulenc, and Dohnányi. In addition, a special Juneteenth concert will feature SPAC debuts by BIPOC composers Jessie Montgomery, Florence Price, and William Grant Still. 

Artists appearing include Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Co-Artistic Directors David Finckel and Wu Han, and the acclaimed Escher String Quartet. 

Subscriptions to all six programs, at either 3 p.m. or 7 p.m., will be available to purchase at spac.org beginning on Dec. 10 for SPAC members. Member presales are tiered by level, and members will receive their presale start time via email. Subscriptions will be available to the general public beginning December 17. Subscription packages will be $300-$360 depending on seating location. Single performance tickets will be available to purchase in early March, and will be $55-$65 each.

The series will take place rain or shine at Pitney Meadows Community Farm, under the High Tunnel greenhouse, a large outdoor event space. Performances will all be 90 minutes long with no intermission. Visit spac.org for additional show details. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Opera Saratoga and Proctors Collaborative will present a free concert on New Year’s Eve at Universal Preservation Hall. 

The show features opera star Zachary James with pianist Laurie Rogers and will place at 7 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 31. The presentation will include a variety of popular, Broadway, and classical favorites.

Bass Baritone Zachary James recently performed in the title role in Opera Saratoga’s production of Man of La Mancha on the SPAC Amphitheater Stage.

Rogers has served as associate conductor with LA Opera and has prepared productions for San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, among others.

Tickets are free, but seating is limited, and advance reservations are highly recommended.

They are available online at www.operasaratoga.org or www.universalpreservationhall.org. All attendees will be required to show proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 to enter UPH and must remain masked at all times in the venue, which is located on Washington Street, downtown Saratoga Springs.

Opera Saratoga, formerly known as Lake George Opera, began with a production of Die Fledermaus at the Diamond Point Theatre on July 5, 1962. The company now calls Saratoga Springs home and performs for more than 25,000 people annually.