The Rogovoy Report: Berkshire & Hudson Valley Cultural Preview
Jan 24-Feb 1, 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 …
PIANIST SOPHIA SUBBAYYA VASTEK BRINGS DREAMSCAPES to TROY
Pianist-composer Sophia Subbayya Vastek performs at Troy [N.Y.] Savings Bank Music Hall on Wednesday, January 24, at 6pm, as part of the Lift Series of performances of new, independent music featuring regional performers. For over fifteen years, Vastek has developed an intuitive, dynamic playing style that is rooted in both improvisational exploration and her classical training. The resulting music is ethereal and cinematic, blossoming into neoclassical/ambient-inspired soundscapes that range from whisper-soft echoes to expressive cascades. During live performances, Vastek, in collaboration with Sam Torres at the mixing board, creates an experiential space for listening through intentional, carefully crafted sound design. The result is a spacious performance that feels equal parts communal and intimate. (Wed, Jan 24)
MARK MORRIS DANCE BRINGS NEW WORKS to THE EGG
Mark Morris Dance Group will perform a program of new works and Morris classics, including Excursions, Candleflowerdance, A Wooden Tree, and Water, performed to both live and pre-recorded music, at the Egg in Albany, N.Y., on Thursday, January 25, at 7:30pm. The Morris company was founded in New York City in 1980. (Thu, Jan 25)
ALBANY EXHIBIT FEATURES FILM DESIGN WORK by CARL SPRAGUE
Carl Sprague: Setting the Stage, an exhibition featuring design sketches, models and watercolors for film and theater by the award-winning designer Carl Sprague, a native of Stockbridge, Mass., is on view at Opalka Gallery at Russell Sage College in Albany, N.Y., now through Friday, February 23. Carl Sprague’s career as a designer spans stage and screen. He has worked in the art departments of more than 40 films, which between them have a combined total of 35 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave. Though he has worked with Martin Scorsese (The Age of Innocence), Steven Spielberg (Amistad), and Damien Chazelle (La La Land), the most enduring collaboration has been with Wes Anderson. Anderson, known for his attention to detail, chose Sprague to lead the art department on the 2001 cult classic The Royal Tenenbaums, for which his turn as art director on that film garnered a nomination for an Art Director’s Guild award. Since then, Sprague has worked in the art departments of many more of Anderson’s best-loved films, including The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch, and Asteroid City. (now through Fri, Feb 23)
PHILLIP SCHWARTZ’S ‘MEDITATION on the HOLOCAUST’ EXHIBIT in HUDSON
Visual artist Phillip Schwartz’s Shoah: A Meditation on The Holocaust opens at Christ Church Episcopal in Hudson, N.Y., on Saturday, January 27, at 5-7pm, and remains on view through Sunday, February 11. Schwartz’s exhibition is inspired by the Stations of the Cross, the story of the Passion of the Christ told through visual art that has been used for centuries in Christian prayer and meditation. The installation is a combination of egg tempera paintings, icons, and textile works. Many of the images in these works are based on open-source photographs housed in the collection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. Schwartz is a Hudson-based artist and iconographer whose work has been shown locally and internationally. The exhibit’s opening falls on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a date that is observed as a day of Holocaust remembrance internationally. (opening Sat, Jan 27; runs through Sun, Feb 11)
AUTHOR MADISON MARGOLIN to DISCUSS HIDDEN CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PSYCHEDELICS and HASIDIC MYSTICISM
Author and journalist Madison Margolin will discuss her new book, Exile & Ecstasy: Growing Up with Ram Dass & Coming of Age in the Jewish Psychedelic Underground, in conversation with journalist Noah Eckstein, at Time and Space in Hudson, N.Y., on Wednesday, January 31, at 7pm. Through the perspective of having grown up in the community surrounding Ram Dass, author of Be Here Now, and in the cannabis legalization movement, Margolin takes readers on a journey inside New York’s Jewish counterculture and the Hasidic underground, reconciling her roots, tackling ancestral Jewish trauma, and finding intersectionality between the Jewish and psychedelic experience. Bridging the polar ends of the Jewish and psychedelic worlds, while buttressing the experience with expert reportage, Madison prods at Be Here Now to find its relevance in the context of our roots and religious identities and its utility to a new generation facing trying times. (Wed, Jan 31)
JILL SOBULE BRINGS CONFESSIONAL FOLK to EGREMONT BARN
Singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, who made history in 1995 when her song “I Kissed a Girl” became the first openly queer-themed Billboard Top 20 single, brings her extensive catalog of highly personal, confessional new-folk songs to the Egremont Barn in South Egremont, Mass., on Thursday, February 1, at 7:30pm. Sobule entertains, amuses, provokes, and more often than not, takes her audiences on an emotional roller coaster, from comedy to pathos in a few bars of music, often within the same song. Sobule’s satirical song “Supermodel” was featured in the the hit teen-comedy movie Clueless. Addressing the legacy of the Holocaust, Sobule’s song “Attic” asks that essential question: “Would you have hidden me in your attic … or pack me on that awful train?” Sobule costars with former Saturday Night Live cast member Julia Sweeney in The Jill and Julia Show and has performed with Neil Young, Cyndi Lauper, Billy Bragg, Steve Earle, Warren Zevon, Tom Morello, and John Doe. Ellis Paul warms up the crowd for Sobule. (Thu, Feb 1)
Also of note:
Doom Dogs, an improvising trio featuring David Bowie sideman Reeves Gabrels, is at Colony Café in Woodstock, N.Y., on Friday, January 26, at 8pm.
Pianist Tristan Geary brings his hard-swinging jazz trio to Time and Space in Hudson, N.Y., on Saturday, January 27, at 8pm.
Winds in the Wilderness Concerts features a chamber ensemble comprised of Sharon Powers flute; Judith Dansker, oboe; Ronald Gorevic, violin; John Myers, guitar; Pete Toigo, bass; and Allan Dean, trumpet, to perform classical and jazz works at Church of St. John in the Wilderness in Copake Falls, N.Y., on Sunday, January 28, at 3pm. The program includes works by Villa-Lobos, Piazzolla, Bach, Jobim, Miles Davis, and George Harrison.
Jeff Zinn, director, writer, actor, producer, and founder of Wellfleet Harbor Actor’s Theater, will be in conversation with Great Barrington Public Theater artistic director Jim Frangione at St. James Place in Great Barrington, Mass., on Monday, January 29, at 6pm.
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Seth Rogovoy
Editor, The Rogovoy Report
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