Sunday, July 14: Founded by master drummer Hiro Kurashima, Taiko Masala performs a combination of dance, martial arts and extremely percussive music on huge handmade drums and other traditional Japanese instruments: shakuhachi, fue, koto.
July 15-28: Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Summer Jazz Academy, a two-week residential high school summer institute for advanced study in jazz performance, takes place at Bard College and offers locals a number of opportunities to hear great jazz performed by both the Jedis and the Padawans.
The Knaus Gallery & Wine Bar will exhibit a number of Penzato’s paintings from July 13 through 27. Its hours of operation are Wednesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 9 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 10 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 9 p.m. The opening reception on Saturday, July 13 will be a fond farewell party.
The somewhat-reclusive master was friends with the biggest names of the day – Rothko, de Kooning et cetera – but had little use for the spotlight of New York City. In 1967, Guston moved his family to the “arts colony” known as Woodstock and remained there, working and commuting to teach in New York.
Pete Mauney lives in Tivoli, watches the night sky, and makes art out of the sort of wonderings so many of us have each summer. His solo exhibition opening at the Kleinert/James Arts Center this week, Pete Mauney: Nocturnal Transmissions, captures that moment when fireflies appear to morph into stars; the vivid visual arrays some of us take our kids to see, when very young, at airports; as well as that special beauty which occurs when we closely watch a singular stretch of landscape for a long time.
July 8-26: Combining a packed schedule of performances, competitions and open master classes, a positively grueling training regimen for a small group of well-vetted aspirants and, one imagines, a few pretty high-end cocktail parties, PianoSummer at SUNY-New Paltz returns for another season of celebrating the continued vitality of the 88 keys and the centuries’ worth of brilliant music written for them.
On Thursdays in July and August, Bard opens the fabulous Spiegeltent to the curatorially adventurous Catskill Jazz factory. It is a lineup of shows not to missed. The Catskill Jazz Factory has been an especially stellar and opulent example of a jazz incubator and advocacy organization dedicated to nurturing young talent, sustaining jazz’s great careers and advancing jazz appreciation worldwide.
Saturday, July 6: To call Kingston “instrumental” in the national launch of the Brooklyn/Los Angeles band Lucius would be a bit of an embellishment of the kind we should leave to realtors, gentry-baiting developers and their pocket scribes. But one thing is for certain: The second of their two shows at BSP – in February of 2013, months after their O+ debut – happened to coincide with the exact instant of their national liftoff. I am still scarred by the afterburners.
Saturday, July 6: The Stonewall Riots in Manhattan, which sparked a national groundswell of activism for LGBTQ rights, are among the history-making events of 1969 whose 50th anniversaries are being remembered this year. The 260+-member New York City Gay Men’s Chorus has put together a commemorative program and it’s coming to an arts venue near you – namely, the Lumberyard in Catskill.
Saturday, July 6: This edgy, experimental event brings together five poetry-based bands in the astounding environment of the Widow Jane Mine for a concert benefiting the Century House, curated by Chris Funkhouser, host of WGXC’s Poet Ray’d Yo.
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