A highly selective preview of cultural events taking place this weekend in the greater Hudson, N.Y., region, including a festival of drone-based music; a living legend of modern folk music; a symphonic classic; a cutting-edge art installation about the surveillance society; and a whole lot more.
Lee Ranaldo (photo Sage Ranaldo)
3RD ANNUAL DRONE-FEST LANDS at BASILICA HUDSON
(HUDSON, N.Y.) – 24-Hour Drone: Experiments in Sound and Music, the annual immersive music and art festival celebrating the beauty and community of the drone, returns to Basilica Hudson on Saturday, April 29, through Sunday, April 30, from noon to noon. This year’s festival includes performances by guitarist Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth; experimental violinist/vocalist Iva Bittova; Phil Kline, composer, guitarist, and fixture of New York’s downtown scene; singer and harmonium player Shilpa Ray; and dozens of other international artists.
“Drone” is more than just a single, monotonous tone. The drone is at the heart of music and sound as varied as Gregorian chant; primitive blues; Irish folk; proto rock ‘n’ roll; modal jazz; Indian raga as exemplified by Ravi Shankar and adopted by the Beatles for songs including “Tomorrow Never Knows”; classical Minimalism (Steve Reich, Philip Glass); the experiments of LaMonte Young that found expression in the music of the Velvet Underground; Brian Eno’s ambient music; David Bowie’s electronic experiments; the downtown rock of Glenn Branca that influenced Sonic Youth; and more.
Greg Brown (photo Sandy Dyas)
GREG BROWN to BRING GRAMMY-NOMINATED ROOTS-FOLK to HELSINKI HUDSON
(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Grammy Award-nominated singer-songwriter Greg Brown brings his roots-oriented original songs to Club Helsinki Hudson on Friday, April 28, at 9pm. Brown is one of the titans of the new-folk movement of the early-mid 1980s, a mostly acoustic, back-to-the-roots scene that rebelled against the slick folk-rock of the previous decade, while anticipating the explosion of the Americana music scene of the 21st century.
Helen Karloski (photo Josh South)
HUDSON VALLEY PHILHARMONIC BRINGS DOWN CURTAIN on SEASON with BEETHOVEN’S NINTH at UPAC
(KINGSTON, N.Y.) – The Hudson Valley Philharmonic concludes its 57th season with a program entitled “The Ninth,” conducted by longtime HVP Music Director Randall Craig Fleischer, the Ulster Performing Arts Center (UPAC) on Saturday, April 29, at 8pm. The performances includes Cappella Festiva, Vassar Choir (Choral Director Christine Howlett) and soloists Rachael Rosales, Joshua Blue, Philip Cutlip and Helen Karloski. The program will also include a rendition of Haydn’s Symphony 100, G major.
Big Art Group, Opacity
LIVE ARTWORKS on SURVEILLANCE at BARD FISHER CENTER
(ANNANDALE-on-HUDSON, N.Y.) — “WE’RE WATCHING,” the first major survey of performances by contemporary American artists exploring surveillance and its impact on our identities, takes place at the Fisher Center at Bard College over four days, Thursday, April 27, through Sunday, April 30. Artists include Big Art Group; Annie Dorsen; Hasan Elahi; Michelle Ellsworth; Homi K. Bhabha and Claudia Rankine; John Lucas; Will Rawls; Samuel Miller; and Alexandro Segade.
Traversing an array of 21st-century phenomena such as police body cameras, Reddit comments, facial recognition software, Google Street View, and inscrutable digital interfaces, the seven works in WE’RE WATCHING chronicle current (and sometimes speculative) surveillance technologies and their transformative effect on security, privacy, civil liberties, the ways we form relationships and communities, and our sense of ourselves as citizens.
Edward Avedisian, Untitled 033, c. 1980 68 x 84 inches, acrylic on canvas
NEW CARRIE HADDAD EXHIBIT EXPLORES ABSTRACT TENSIONS in PAINTING
(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Interlock, an exhibit that explores the tensions of color and contrast in minimal abstraction, featuring contemporary paintings by artists Donise English, Paul Katz, and Ralph Stout, as well as paintings on canvas and paper from the estates of Edward Avedisian and Stephen Brophy, will be on view at Carrie Haddad Gallery from Wednesday, March 22, through Sunday, April 30.