The Bearsville Theater’s pastoral streamside backyard lawn will heat up the summer season with live music in the newly renovated lounge bar, as Lizzie Vann presents the Americana Barbecue Music Series. The series will take place on Saturdays through Labor Day from 12 to 6 p.m. for continuous live music featuring the best in Americana and bluegrass music from the Catskill region and beyond.
New shows have been scheduled featuring Patti Smith, Dispatch, David Sedaris, and Trombone Shorty. They join previously rescheduled shows by Brit Floyd, Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, Mavericks, and Celtic Woman.
Had a global pandemic not upended all plans for summer cultural programming in 2020, “Nadia Boulanger and Her World” would have been the theme for the 31st annual Bard Music Festival – the first time that the annual extravaganza ever spotlighted a woman composer. It didn’t happen, of course. All the programming planned for last year’s Bard SummerScape was punted to 2021. And now it’s all finally coming together, beginning on July 8, with tickets going on sale Wednesday, June 2.
Saturday, June 5: It is a special show for at least three reasons. First, the great Dylan is 80 and still at it. Second, the concert falls in this liminal, uncertain period as we transition back to limited-capacity indoor culture, testing the waters in a lavishly remodeled Bearsville Theater that was dark throughout its first year of new ownership. Finally, the show features an incomparable lineup of performers, including Happy Traum, Cindy Cashdollar, Dave Mansfield; and Marshall Crenshaw.
Four local New Paltz students will see a mural they created on display at the Peace Park.
In another true sign larger entertainment venues are finally awakening from a long slumber forced by a global pandemic, Bearsville Theater hosted its first concert with an in-person audience May 21 and Bearsville Center plans many long-overdue upgrades.
Since its inception in 1982, the Woodstock-New Paltz Art & Crafts Fair has bookended the summer season in the Hudson Valley. But it has been nearly two years since juried artists and makers from the Hudson Valley and beyond gathered underneath the Shawangunk Ridge in New Paltz to share their creations with the public. After 76 shows (and one unexpected pandemic), the fair returns this Memorial Day weekend. Hours are Saturday, and Sunday, May 29 and 30 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Monday, May 31 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Planned events include outdoor concerts and a movie series.
The Hudson Valley Spring Faire, organized by Mystik Bazaar Events, took place on May 15-16 at Cantine Field in Saugerties. The festival featured food, theater and an original play written by fair organizer Cheryl Olsen, loosely based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The list of vendors included craftspeople, food and an assortment of products.
The event will take place from 6-8 p.m. on Tuesday, May 11. It will be hosted by Simi Stone, and will feature performances by Stone; Robin the Hammer; the Matthew Finck Quartet, featuring Tristan Napoli, Adam Cote and Bram Kincheloe; and the Energy Dance Company. Complimentary tickets are available, but for those who can’t make it in person there will be a live stream of the event online as well.
