A highly selective look at upcoming cultural events in the region, including Donna the Buffalo at Club Helsinki Hudson; live jazz and Charlie Chaplin films at Spotty Dog; Lincoln author Todd Brewster at Hudson Opera House; and “Orange Is the New Black” author Piper Kerman at Vassar College.

 

Donna The Buffalo to Bring Jam-Friendly Roots-Rock to Helsinki Hudson

(HUDSON, N.Y.) –  Folk-rock quintet Donna the Buffalo helps Club Helsinki Hudson celebrate its 20th anniversary with a program of its original folk-roots jams on Thursday, February 4, at 8pm.  When Donna the Buffalo began performing at folk and roots-music festivals in 1989, there wasn’t even a genre called “Americana.” The group’s easygoing, jam-friendly brand of rock with roots influences in zydeco, country, blues, folk and Appalachian music anticipated much of today’s trendy Americana sounds while still appealing to a fanatically loyal base of followers called “The Herd.” Anyone who has ever enjoyed grooving to the rhythms of the Grateful Dead, Los Lobos or the Band will immediately appreciate the organic grooves of Donna the Buffalo, still led after all these years by founding songwriter-vocalists and multi-instrumentalists Jeb Puryear and Tara Nevins.

 

 

 

Musical Tribute to Charlie Chaplin at Spotty Dog

(HUDSON, N.Y.) – An all-star jazz quartet comprised of top regional talent, including pianist Tony Kieraldo, drummer Otto Hauser, bassist Terrence Murren and flutist Stuart Quimby, will pay tribute to the works of Charlie Chaplin, the filmmaker who was also a jazz-influenced composer, in “Modern Times: Live Jazz and Moving Images,” at Spotty Dog Books & Ale on Friday, February 5, at 8pm. The concert, which will include works by Chaplin, other music expressive of its time, and Valentine’s Day-appropriate love songs, will be accompanied by a screening of Chaplin’s film, “Modern Times,” on the 80^th anniversary of its release.

 

 

Lincoln Author Discusses the Emancipation Proclamation

(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Author Todd Brewster will read from and discuss his most recent book, “Lincoln’s Gamble: The Tumultuous Six Months That Gave America the Emancipation Proclamation and Changed the Course of the Civil War,” at the Hudson Opera House on Saturday, February 6, at 4pm. The event is free and open to the public. “Lincoln’s Gamble” (Scribner) is a riveting account of the 180 days leading up to the signing of one of America’s most historic documents, as seen through the eyes of Abraham Lincoln.

 

 

 

 

 

‘Orange Is the New Black’ Author to Speak at Vassar

(POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y.) – Piper Kerman, the best-selling author whose memoir, “Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison,” is the basis for the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning original series for Netflix, will deliver the Alex Krieger ’95 Memorial Lecture in the Students’ Building at Vassar College on Tuesday, February 9, at 8pm. “Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison” chronicles what the author calls her “crucible experience”— the 13 months she spent in the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Conn.