A highly selective preview of cultural events taking place this weekend in the greater Hudson, N.Y. region, including a bluegrass festival; a prince of folk-rock; a piano virtuoso; literary readings; chamber music; and a whole lot more.
Tony Trischka
TONY TRISCHKA HEADLINES HILLSDALE ROOTS MUSIC FESTIVAL
(NORTH HILLSDALE, N.Y.) – Innovative banjoist Tony Trischka, the Foghorn Stringband, Danny Paisley & Southern Grass, Bruce Molsky with Molsky’s Mountain Drifters, featuring banjoist Allison de Groot and guitarist Stash Wyslouch, and “Six Feet Under”’s Lauren Ambrose headline the second annual Oldtone Roots Music Festival, at Cool Whisper Farm from Thursday, September 8, through Sunday, September 11.
Other performers include fast-rising New Orleans brass and banjo band Tuba Skinny, Two Man Gentleman Band, Brad Lee Folk & Bluegrass Playboys, Jesse Lege & Bayou Brew, Mike Compton, Michael Daves, Raya Brass Band, Run Mountain, Lucky Five, Mail the Horse, The Hayrollers, the Russet Trio, Mountain Laurel, the Farwells, Bear Minimum, Bash Bish Bluegrass Band, and Easy Ridin Papas.
Lydia Conklin
MARK BAUMER, LYDIA CONKLIN, and SHANE JONES to READ at SPOTTY DOG
(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Authors Mark Baumer, Lydia Conklin and Shane Jones will read from their works at Spotty Dog Books & Ale on Saturday, September 10, at 7pm, as part of Volume, the free monthly reading and music series every second Saturday of the month. The readings will be followed by booksinging and a set by DJ Hallie Goodman.
Jeremy Denk (photo Michael Wilson)
JEREMY DENK to PLAY BACH, SCHUBERT, LIGETI and the BEATLES at BARD
(ANNANDALE-on-HUDSON, N.Y.) – Pianist Jeremy Denk will take listeners on a 7,000-year journey through Western music in a solo concert including works by Bach, Schubert, Ligeti and the Beatles in the Sosnoff Theater of the Fisher Center of the Performing Arts at Bard College on Sunday, September 11, at 3pm.
Denk, whose playing was lauded by the New York Times as “bracing, effortlessly virtuosic and utterly joyous,” will create a time-lapse through seven centuries of Western music, from the 1300s to the present day. Denk describes the program saying, “In a series of 25 short pieces, it will trace the evolution of the musical language, the soundscape — an epic story of human thought and ideals, of what we have found important to express in tones.”
Justin Townes Earle (photo Joshua Black Wilkins)
JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE TO BRING ORIGINAL FOLK-ROCK TO CLUB HELSINKI HUDSON
(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Americana music scion Justin Townes Earle – the son of Steve Earle – will bring his country-inflected brand of folk-rock to Club Helsinki Hudson on Friday, September 9, at 9pm. Singer-songwriter Anthony D’Amato warms up the crowd for Earle.
Tonia Ko
CHAMBER CONCERT FEATURES WORLD PREMIERE by TONIA KO
(HILLSDALE, N.Y.) – Clarion Concerts features works by Beethoven, Brahms, Schoenfield, and a world premiere by composer Tonia Ko in the first of its Leaf Peeper Concert Series this fall at Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School in Ghent, N.Y., on Saturday, September 10, at 7:30pm. Performers are Edward Arron, cello; Tessa Lark, violin; Jeewon Park, piano; and Paul Green, clarinet.
The concert, “Autumn Echoes,” opens with Beethoven’s sprightly clarinet trio in B-Flat and ends with Brahms’s sublime piano trio in B Major. In between these two 19th-century classics are two modern works: Paul Schoenfield’s scintillating “Café Music” and the world premiere of the Clarion-commissioned “Elegy for Cello and Piano” by young composer Tonia Ko.
Tenor Jon Morrell
CHATHAM CAMERATA PLAYS MAHLER’S ‘SONG of the EARTH’
(CHATHAM, N.Y.) – The Chatham Camerata, a new collective of professional musicians based in Columbia County, will present an evening of Gustav Mahler’s Das lied von der Erde (“The Song of the Earth”) at St. James Church on Saturday, September 10, at 7:30 pm.
The work will be performed by an 18-piece chamber orchestra conducted by Thomas Carlo Bo. Featuring tenor Jon Morrell, known locally for leading roles in the Concerts in the Village in Kinderhook, N.Y., and mezzo soprano Elizabeth Russo, this performance of Mahler’s “Song of the Earth” is the first in a series of major chamber performances scheduled from fall through spring.