Entertainment

Wynton Marsalis to host Summer Jazz Academy at Bard

Wynton Marsalis to host Summer Jazz Academy at Bard

Jazz at Lincoln Center comes up the river to run a rigorous training institute for 42 of the world’s most advanced and dedicated high school jazz students. This two-week program is taught by Wynton Marsalis and a select faculty of musical heavyweights, and if you act fast, you can hear them play.

Voice Theatre performs The Skin of Our Teeth at Byrdcliffe

Voice Theatre performs The Skin of Our Teeth at Byrdcliffe

Next two weekends: On the surface, The Skin of Our Teeth couldn’t seem more different from the Thornton Wilder piece that everybody knows: the universally produced Our Town. It was written as a spark of absurd hope amidst the despair of World War II, but takes on new layers of meaning whenever troubled times roll around.

Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in Oak Hill

Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in Oak Hill

July 13-16: Every summer, the venerable festival showcases the full spectrum of American bluegrass and folk: the old and the new, the traditional and the progressive, unknowns and certified national treasures with last names that strike awe.

Monastery Vinegar Festival in Lagrangeville

Monastery Vinegar Festival in Lagrangeville

Saturday-Sunday, July 15-16: The vinegarmaking at Our Lady of the Resurrection began four decades ago, when the monastery’s founder, Benedictine monk Brother Victor-Antoine d’Avila-Latourrette, came across a vinegar recipe dating to the Middle Ages.

Dean Jones’ Curling for Amateurs plays in New Paltz this Thursday

Dean Jones’ Curling for Amateurs plays in New Paltz this Thursday

Thursday, July 13: Curling for Amateurs is a highly skilled core band accompanied by Jones’ Hocket Workshop. Various sets of instruments – end-blown wooden organ pipes, pitched wood blocks, PVC tubes, bottles and the human voice – are played hocket-style, in which each person plays or sings a single note, which, in collaboration with others, creates melody and rhythm.

Open-air market in New Paltz grows smiles, business

Open-air market in New Paltz grows smiles, business

Tents shielding vendors from the summer sun line both sides of Church Street, with a narrow aisle between in which a constant stream of people walk back and forth. As they move from one booth to the next, visitors to the New Paltz Open Air Market, now in its third week, are clearly pleased by what might be described as the old farmer’s market on steroids.

An exceptional July for Kingston’s art scene

An exceptional July for Kingston’s art scene

There were so many openings last weekend — a total of 18 — it was impossible to see them all. Adding to the difficulty was the fact that so much of the art was worthy of contemplation. On the positive side, the rich snippet of paintings, collages, photographs and sculptures I managed to view attest to the city’s vibrant art scene.