Bettye LaVette
BETTYE LAVETTE BRINGS HER DISTINCTIVE SOUL-ROCK to HELSINKI HUDSON
(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Soul singer Bettye LaVette, the self-described “overnight sensation after 50 years in the music business,” brings her impassioned, elastic vocals and her dynamic R&B remakes of pop and rock hits by the likes of the Who, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, the Animals, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Lucinda Williams and Sinead O’Connor to Club Helsinki Hudson on Friday, July 24, at 9pm.
Ashley Bathgate
CELLIST ASHLEY BATHGATE and ACCORDIONIST GUY KLUCEVSEK in WEEKEND of VIRTUOSO DUOS at PS21
(CHATHAM, N.Y.) –Accordion virtuoso Guy Klucevsek and Bang on a Can cellist Ashley Bathgate perform back-to-back duo concerts at PS21 on Saturday, July 25, at 8pm and on Sunday, July 26, at 2pm, respectively.
Alex Meixner joins Guy Klucevsek for a program of “Accordion Solos and Duos” on Saturday. Klucevsek is one of the world’s most versatile and highly respected accordionists, and is considered a major contributor to the accordion renaissance of the last 25 years. His style and repertoire connects the dots between the ballroom, the beer garden, and the concert hall, fusing elements of regional accordion styles with jazz and avant-garde music.
Ashley Bathgate performs with pianist Karl Larson on Sunday. A native of nearby Saratoga Springs, Bathgate attended Skidmore College, Bard College, and the Yale University School of Music. Bathgate’s concerts draw from a range of musical genres, from traditional compositions from the masters to new music by today’s composers. Her afternoon program will feature works by J.S. Bach, Ken Thomson and Brahms.
Scene from ‘The Wreckers’
FIRST FULL U.S. STAGING of ETHEL SMYTH’S OPERA ‘THE WRECKERS’ at BARD SUMMERSCAPE
(ANNANDALE-on-HUDSON, N.Y.) – The first fully-staged American production of “The Wreckers” (1902-4) by Dame Ethel Smyth opens in the Fisher Center at Bard College as part of the Bard SummerScape festival on Friday, July 24, and runs for five performances through August 2, 2015. As a Victorian-born Englishwoman, and a bisexual suffragette at that, Smyth has been too often marginalized by the classical community. Although she remains the only female composer whose work has ever been produced at the Metropolitan Opera, “The Wreckers” – her greatest contribution to the genre – has yet to be staged in the United States.
Mark Wunderlich
POET MARK WUNDERLICH and HARPSICHORDIST ANDREW APPEL to PERFORM as DUO at CR10 ARTS
(LINLITHGO, N.Y.) – Prayers, Pastorals & Pagans, a duet program featuring music and poetry by harpsichordist Andrew Appel and poet Mark Wunderlich, takes place at CR10 Arts on Saturday, July 25, at 5pm. Appel and Wunderlich, both of the Hudson Valley, consider themselves a mutual admiration society. They join forces to offer this duo recital of recent work, featuring poems by Wunderlich and music of Couperin played by Appel.
Scene from ‘The Light Years’ (photo © Vassar & New York Stage and Film / Buck Lewis)
CHICAGO WORLD’S FAIRS SETTING for DEBATE SOCIETY’S ‘LIGHT YEARS’ at VASSAR’s POWERHOUSE THEATER
(POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y.) – The award-winning play-making company The Debate Society returns to Vassar & New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Theater’s Mainstage with their haunted love story, The Light Years, with performances from Thursday, July 23, through Sunday, August 2. Presented as an Inside Look Workshop in 2014, The Light Years was written by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen and is again being directed by Oliver Butler. Set at the Chicago World’s Fairs of 1893 and 1933, The Light Years revolves around Steele MacKaye, a forgotten theatrical impresario commissioned to design and build the Spectatorium, a 12,000 seat theater at the 1893 fair. His audacious vision, and its life-changing consequences, paints a spectacularly vivid world of forgotten futures and the indomitable spirt of invention.