Connor Kennedy.
Classic films inevitably show the ritual of New Year’s Eve with the outgoing year as an old man and the incoming year as a babe, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. The Bearsville Theater certainly has the latter part of the equation in place, as a youth movement featuring the Lindsey Webster Band with guitarist Connor Kennedy ushers in 2012.
Billed as a Studio 54-style New Year’s Eve dance party, the live-music show will be followed by a deejay spinning dancefloor classics in a hall that has been decked out in decadent disco style. But the night, perhaps, will belong to Kennedy and Webster, a 23-year-old singer/songwriter earning accolades ordinarily reserved for artists much further along in their careers. She has sung on Grammy-nominated albums (Not Just Another Polka by the Jimmy Sturr Orchestra) and performed the Carnegie Hall and Brooklyn Bowl stages. Equally at home singing the R & B, funk and fusion of her own band, as well as polka with Sturr, Webster is a gifted cellist and songwriter who is nearing the finish line with her own solo debut LP.
The New Year’s Eve performance will also include another young musician who has combined natural talent and hard work to make a name for himself: Kennedy, one of the area’s finest blues guitarists, has followed a similar trajectory to Webster in that he has played with everyone, fronts his own band and isn’t likely to stop until he’s known the world over.
The Bearsville Theater is around 100 miles and a few decades from the original Studio 54: the place to be for New York City’s disco-era Bacchanalian excess. But the promise of a taste of that for one night might be too good to pass up for New Year’s revelers. There are two options for those wishing to join the party of the year (you decide which year): Tickets to the concert and dance party are $20 in advance, $25 at the door. For more information, call (845) 679-4406 or log on to www.bearsvilletheater.com.