Film: Monica

(Rated R, 1 hour, 46 minutes)

Friday, June 9 through Sunday, June 18

Friday Shows @ 7:15pm

Saturday Shows @ 4:15 & 7:15pm

Sunday Shows @ 4:15 & 7:15pm

Theater 2, Doctorow Center for the Arts
7971 Main Street, Hunter, NY 12442

The intimate portrait of a woman who returns home to care for her dying mother. A delicate and nuanced story of a fractured family, the story explores universal themes of abandonment, aging, acceptance, and redemption.

Schubertiade: Auf dem Wasser zu Singen

Songs of Franz Schubert on texts of Goethe, Mayrhofer and others

CONCERTS & CONVERSATIONS
ACADEMY OF FORTEPIANO PERFORMANCE FESTIVAL

Drew Minter, baritone
Maria Rose, fortepiano

Saturday, June 10, 2023
@ 8:00pm

Doctorow Center for the Arts
7971 Main Street, Hunter, NY 12442

Franz Schubert’s love of nature is well-documented. In many of his more than six hundred songs, and in two of his famous song cycles, Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, Schubert describes foot journeys through the country, detailing the weather and a host of natural details. Schubert himself went on regular Ausflüge, or getaway trips, with a group of friends to escape the noisy bustle of Vienna, and as a tonic to his challenging health problems. Song after song describes what it is to wander among the elements. Our program highlights Schubert’s love of water poetry.

Well-known as a countertenor for four decades, Drew Minter appeared in leading roles in the opera houses of Brussels, Toulouse, Boston, Washington, Santa Fe, BAM, Wolf Trap, Glimmerglass, Nice, Marseilles, as well as the Halle, Karlsruhe, Maryland, and Goettingen Handel Festivals, among others. He has sung with many of the world’s foremost baroque orchestras, such as the Handel & Haydn Society, Les Arts Florissants, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and Freiburger Barockorchester. A founding member of the Newberry Consort and TREFOIL, Minter also has sung regularly with the Folger Consort and ARTEK. He has been a guest at festivals such as Ravinia, BAM’s Next Wave, Tanglewood, Marlboro, Boston Early Music, Edinburgh, and Spoleto. He is represented by more than 70 recordings.
An active opera stage director, Minter was the artistic director of Boston Midsummer Opera, a company he cofounded, from 2005-2011. He has directed productions for the Amherst Early Music Festival, Boston Early Music Festival, Caramoor, St. Luke’s Orchestra, Boston’s Opera Aperta, Lake George Opera, Tempesta di Mare, Apollo’s Fire, Boston University’s Opera Institute, Amherst Early Music Institute and at various colleges and universities. He has written for Opera News and Oxford Journals. Minter is a Senior Lecturer of Music at Vassar College, where he has taught voice, opera workshops, lieder and opera classes, and the Vassar College Chamber Singers for over two decades. He is also a certified teacher of the Feldenkrais Method. He has taught many masterclasses in singing, acting and movement for years.

Maria van Epenhuysen Rose, a native of the Netherlands, is a brilliant performer on historical pianos, covering a wide range of repertoire. She also holds a PhD in musicology from New York University and has published many articles on piano performance practice.

"Embraceable Gershwin"

Dr. Joanne Polk, piano
Dr. Jeffrey Langford, lecture

CONCERTS & CONVERSATIONS

Saturday, June 24, 2023
@ 2:00pm

Doctorow Center for the Arts
7971 Main Street, Hunter, NY 12442

What is your favorite Gershwin song?
Embraceable You?
Fascinatin' Rhythm?
Someone to Watch Over Me?
The Man I Love?
Somebody Loves Me?

The great pianist Earl Wild transcribed all these alluring Gershwin tunes into virtuosic etudes and variations--all fun, passionate pieces for solo piano. Would there be anything sweeter than a Saturday matinee with pianist Joanne Polk performing these arrangements of Gershwin's songs while Jeffrey Langford walks us through the life and times of the composer?

You might even want to sing along.

Bernie Williams Collective

2023 ANNUAL BENEFIT

Friday, July 7, 2023
@ 7:30pm

Doctorow Center for the Arts
7971 Main Street, Hunter, NY 12442

Kick off the 2023 Benefit Weekend with a concert by the Bernie Williams Collective. Bernie Williams is a renowned jazz guitarist and former Yankee baseball star.

Dancers from New York City Ballet perform A Tribute to Jacques d'Amboise

DANCE
A PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM WITH WORKS & PROCESS AT THE GUGGENHEIM

Sunday, July 9, 2023
@ 2:00pm

Orpheum Performing Arts Center
6050 Main Street, Tannersville, NY 12485

At the young age of 15, Jacques d’Amboise joined New York City Ballet. As Balanchine’s protégé, Mr. d’Amboise had more works choreographed specifically for him by the Ballet Master than any other dancer. Mr. d’Amboise is most remembered for his portrayal of what critics called “the definitive Apollo.” While still a principal dancer, Jacques d’Amboise founded National Dance Institute (NDI) in 1976 in the belief that the arts have a unique power to engage and motivate young people to strive for excellence Mr. d’Amboise traveled all over the world to promote dance education and his unique philosophy of teaching the magic of dance—from the extremes of Yakutsk, Siberia, to rainforests on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. NDI, has been in residence at the Orpheum Performing Arts Center for many summers teaching local children the joy of creative movement. This tribute to Jacques on Sunday, July 9 is performed by superb dancers from the New York City Ballet and will include signature works danced by Jacques d’Amboise in the past. Join the audience to celebrate the life of this extraordinary dancer and choreographer whose educational program contributes each summer to the lives of so many young people in our community.

“The arts open your heart and mind to possibilities that are limitless. They are pathways that touch upon our brains and emotions and bring sustenance to imagination. Human beings’ greatest form of communication, they walk in tandem with science and play, and best describe what it is to be human.”

—Jacques d’Amboise

National Dance Institute 2023 Mountaintop Residency Performance: Celebrating Dr. Maya Angelou

DANCE

Saturday, July 22, 2023
@ 7:00pm

Orpheum Performing Arts Center
6050 Main Street, Tannersville, NY 12485

National Dance Institute returns to the Catskill Region this summer to conduct a two-week dance intensive for local children. The residency will culminate in a joyful performance featuring local students, with special guest dancers from NDI's Celebration Team in New York City. Colorful banners created over the many years of our collaboration will provide a backdrop for the performance. This is a high energy event that draws large crowds every year!

This year, National Dance Institute honors the groundbreaking poet, activist, and scholar Dr. Maya Angelou.

“In diversity there is beauty and there is strength.”
—Maya Angelou

Hunter International Music Festival Faculty Concert

CONCERTS & CONVERSATIONS
HUNTER INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL

Friday, August 4, 2023
@ 7:30pm

Doctorow Center for the Arts
7971 Main Street, Hunter, NY 12442

Co-founders of the Hunter International Music Festival, pianist Ruiqi Fang and cellist Julian Langford, have poured tremendous talent and passion into this two week music intensive in the mountains of the Catskills, attracting superb teaching artists as well as students to perform and learn in this summer intensive.

"Decidedly personal," "intelligent playing," and "versatile." These are just a few examples of how critics have glowingly described pianist Ruiqi Fang’s solo recital at the Basílica Menor del Convento de San Francisco de Asís in Havana, Cuba. The recital “will be long remembered; a woman with unquestionable sensitivity, whom has performed works of Baroque and Impressionism with absolute thoroughness.” Ruiqi Fang is currently on the faculty of Long Island Conservatory and is a visiting lecturer at the Central Conservatory of Music Distance Learning Program.

In 2008, Julian was a winner of National Public Radio’s From the Top, and performed on the From the Top radio program. In the same year, Julian performed the Schubert Two Cello Quintet with cellist Yo-Yo Ma at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, and was invited to be a guest artist with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble on PBS’s Live from Lincoln Center at Damrosch Park In the summer of 2018, Julian was invited to participate in a China tour sponsored by the online video platform Discover Melody. In May of 2019, Julian received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree under the tutelage of Colin Carr at Stony Brook University.

Common Ground on the Mountain: Professor Louie & the Crowmatix, Greg Dayton and Walt Michael & Company

BLUES, POP & FOLK MUSIC

Saturday, August 19, 2023
@ 8:00pm

Orpheum Performing Arts Center
6050 Main Street, Tannersville, NY 12485

Professor Louie & The Crowmatix repertoire is  steeped in rock ‘n’ roll, blues, Gospel and American Roots music and features a compelling collection of original and traditional tunes.

“…a tasty mix of rhythm and blues and rock & roll. Americana at its best”

—Village Voice

Greg Dayton is a singer/songwriter with influences spanning electric and acoustic blues, funk, and rock. His special guest is the soulful vocalist, Towera Smith (New Zealand/ East Africa), former backup singer and session vocalist with the Australian rock group, Silverchair.

Walt Michael’s various incarnations, including Bottle Hill, Michael, McCreesh & Campbell and Walt Michael & Co. have spanned 40 years and taken him from the coal camps of Appalachia to the White House to the Closing Ceremonies of the 13th Olympic Winter Games.

Considered to be a virtuoso of tremendous influence in the revival of the hammered dulcimer, Walt’s wide repertoire ranges from old-time Southern Appalachian, to Celtic, to breathtaking original compositions.

Olivier Tarpaga Dance:
"Once the dust settles, flowers bloom"

DANCE
A PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM WITH THE JOYCE THEATER

Saturday, September 23, 2023
@ 7:30pm

Orpheum Performing Arts Center
6050 Main Street, Tannersville, NY 12485

"Once the dust settles, flowers bloom" is an original evening-length contemporary dance theater and live music work exploring conflicts between feminism and jihadism in Burkina Faso and the Sahel region, specifically the fragility of women's autonomy in the face of invasive religious extremism. This work looks beyond the horror and tragedy by channeling the strength and beauty of this displaced population. ​

Olivier Tarpaga is a dancer, choreographer, musician, composer, songwriter, performing arts consultant and storyteller originally from Burkina Faso. Tarpaga is the founder and artistic director of the internationally acclaimed Dafra Drum (traditional Manding music) since 1995 and Dafra Kura Band (Contemporary African acoustic music) since 2011 and a co-founder of Burkina Faso’s internationally acclaimed “Compagnie Ta.

Apollo's Fire:
The Road to Dublin

CONCERTS & CONVERSATIONS

Saturday, October 21, 2023
@ 7:30pm

Orpheum Performing Arts Center
6050 Main Street, Tannersville, NY 12485

“Superlative music-making...combining European stylishness and American can-do entrepreneurialism.”
—The Daily Telegraph
(Best 5 Classical Concerts of the Year)

Baroque Orchestra with
Amanda Forsythe, soprano
Amanda Powell, soprano
Amanda Crider, mezzo-soprano

Dublin – the ancient city of pubs, pints, and castles. Wandering bards and musicians have traveled the road to Dublin for centuries. In this new program from Jeannette Sorrell, haunting ballads and legends give way to driving reels, as Celtic fiddlers set sparks flying. Irish singer Fiona Gillespie joins the merry instrumentalists on fiddles, flute, cello, hammered dulcimer, plucked instruments, and harpsichord.

Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra

Robert Manno,
Music Director & Conductor

Simone Dinnerstein, piano

CONCERTS & CONVERSATIONS

Saturday, November 25, 2023
@ 7:30pm

Orpheum Performing Arts Center
6050 Main Street, Tannersville, NY 12485

This Thanksgiving, the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Robert Manno, returns with a holiday program featuring acclaimed piano soloist Simone Dinnerstein.

The evening’s program includes:

Bach: E Major Concerto BWV1053
Bach: F Major Concerto BWV1057
Handel: Entrance of the Queen of Sheba
Copland: Quiet City
Bach: Orchestral Suite #3

Since 2000 the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra under the direction of composer/conductor Robert Manno has earned accolades and national attention through the many broadcasts of its live performances from the Windham Chamber Music Festival and Catskill Mountain Foundation over American Public Media’s Performance Today.

Simone Dinnerstein has a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

Robert Manno is Co-Director of the Windham Chamber Music Festival, an award-winning composer, and an acclaimed conductor whose many performances from the Windham Festival and the Catskill Mountain Foundation have been featured nationally on “Performance Today.” The Atlanta Audio Society has described him as “a composer of serious music of considerable depth and spiritual beauty.”

The Hot Sardines: "Holiday Stomp"

JAZZ MUSIC

Saturday, December 16, 2023
@ 8:00pm

Orpheum Performing Arts Center
6050 Main Street, Tannersville, NY 12485

“Not many bands have seized the postmillennial early-jazz spotlight with as much gusto as The Hot Sardines.”
– Nate Chinen WBGO

“These are times that need live music. And I don’t know of anything that brings people together like the joy of hearing traditional jazz live,” says Elizabeth Bougerol, co-leader of The Hot Sardines, with pianist and bandleader, Evan Palazzo. These mischief-makers of hot jazz have been described as “potent and assured” (The New York Times) and “simply phenomenal” (The Times, London). “Everything in our DNA is about connecting with the audience. That’s where we feel most at home,” says Elizabeth, of playing live with the eight-piece band (including one wildly percussive tap dancer). The Sardines have gone from speakeasies and underground parties in Brooklyn, to festival crowds of 25,000 and a TV debut on Later… with Jools Holland. “That’s where jazz lives,” adds Evan. “In the playing, in sharing that experience, in coming together to create a moment that won’t happen again.”