The Rogovoy Report: Berkshire & Hudson Valley Cultural Preview

Feb 22-25, 2024

Feb 20, 2024

With so much going on culturally speaking in our greater Berkshires/Hudson Valley region, this is my highly selective, curated snapshot of some of the most promising upcoming events …

Gary Lucas (photo Paolo Soriani/courtesy SAAC)

GARY LUCAS BRINGS GUITAR STYLINGS to SPENCERTOWN

Grammy Award-nominated guitarist and songwriter Gary Lucas brings an eclectic program of music ranging from 1930 Chinese pop to Captain Beefheart to Jeff Buckley to Spencertown Academy Arts Center in Spencertown, N.Y., on Saturday, February 24, at 7:30pm. Lucas has veritably created his own guitar language and applied it to original songs, blues, works by Wagner and the Rolling Stones, electronic soundscapes, and more. Lucas has performed and collaborated with the likes of Leonard Bernstein, Lou Reed, John Cale, Patti Smith, Chris Cornell, Bryan Ferry, Nona Hendryx, Bob Weir, Nick Cave, Thurston Moore, and many others. He has also recorded over 50 albums to date in his own right in a variety of genres — including jazz, rock, classical, folk, blues, avant-garde, and world music — and has performed in over 40 countries. Lucas will perform solo on acoustic and electric guitars. (Sat, Feb 24)

JOHANNA HEDVA DEBUTS NEW AVANT-GARDE WORKS at MASS MoCA

Johanna Hedva will debut songs from their upcoming, in-progress album, Fist, in Club B10 at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass., on Saturday, February 24, at 8pm. Written on a haunted acoustic guitar that disappeared for ten years and then returned in the winter of 2023, the songs from Fist materialize as “hag blues, succubus folk, and bog-witch lullabies.” Hedva’s trademark voice, trained in both classical opera and Korean P’ansori, “finds an uncanny other place in croaking, screeching, growling, and screaming, while slouching toward a serenade.” (Sat, Feb 24)

Geneva Lewis (photo Matthew Holler/courtesy CRC)

VIOLIN-PIANO DUO BRINGS ENGLISH COMPOSERS to UNION COLLEGE

New Zealand-born violinist Geneva Lewis and pianist Janice Carissa perform works by Handel, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Poldowski, Coleridge-Taylor, and Elgar’s E-minor Sonata at Union College’s Memorial Chapel on Sunday, February 25, at 3pm, in a concert presented by Capitol Region Classical. Lewis is the recipient of a 2022 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and Grand Prize winner of the 2020 Concert Artists Guild Competition. (Sun, Feb 25)

CELLIST FEATURED with NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA of UKRAINE in TROY, N.Y.

The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine brings a mix of works by Ukrainian composers plus compositions by Haydn and Sibelius to Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Troy, N.Y., on Thursday, February 22, at 7:30pm. The program features cellist Natalia Khoma, a native of Ukraine, in Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major. (Thu, Feb 22)

Kateryna Kukhar and Oleksandr Stoianov in Giselle by the Grand Kyiv Ballet (courtesy GKB)

GRAND KYIV BALLET BRINGS ‘GISELLE’ to ALBANY

The Grand Kyiv Ballet presents the Albany premiere of its Giselle at The Egg on Saturday, February 24, at 7pm, and at the Palace Theatre on Wednesday, February 28, at 7pm. The production, featuring music composed by Adolf Adan, showcases the mesmerizing talents of the Grand Kyiv principal dancers Kateryna Kukhar and Oleksandr Stoianov, both hailing from the National Opera of Ukraine. The 19th-century classical ballet filled with romance, ghosts, tragedy, and betrayal is considered a masterwork of the genre. (Sat, Feb 24; Wed, Feb 28)

Also of note:

Ladysmith Black Mambazo brings its South African male choral group singing in the local vocal styles of isicathamiyaand mbube to the Colony in Woodstock, N.Y., on Thursday, February 22, at 8pm.

Mary Fahl, formerly of October Project, brings her new music and her new band to the Towne Crier Café in Beacon, N.Y., on Friday, February 23.

Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue bring their Shortygras Tour featuring their jazzy funk-rock to UPAC in Kingston, N.Y., on Friday, February 23 at 8pm.

Ice Rasta and Father Hotep bring their mixed- and multi-media sounds to The Clark in Williamstown, Mass., on Saturday, February 24, at 7pm.

Hungarian pianist Gabor Csalog performs works by Hungarian composers, most notably Bartok, plus compositions by Ligeti, Liszt, and Schumann, in a salon concert in a private home in Hudson, N.Y., presented by the Hudson Festival Orchestra on Friday, February 23, at 3pm.

The Hot Club of New England pays tribute to Duke Ellington, performing renditions of his works in the “Gypsy jazz” style of Django Reinhardt, at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Mass., on Saturday, February 24, at 7:30pm, in a presentation by Berkshires Jazz.

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