Amongst a month of other events, there will be a bilingual flash-mob performance of “Un Violador en Tu Camino” (“A Rapist on Your Path”) in front of the Ulster County Courthouse. This choreographed protest chant originated in Chile and has gone viral.
Sunday, Mar. 1: It is an especially painful time for Towne Crier proprietor Phil Ciganer and his wife Mary, who recently lost their 26-year-old son Greyson to opioid addiction. Ciganer is now committed to transforming a personal tragedy into a call for action and change.
Saturday, Feb. 29: The man is doing what is not just the best work of his career, but really, the best work of almost anyone’s career.
Sunday, Mar. 1: In this celebration of the life and work of the famed Muppeteer (who once lived in Esopus), a variety of artists showcase selections from film and television (The Muppet Show, Sesame Street) and Henson-produced specials (Emmett Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas).
Friday, Feb. 28: Emmy-, Grammy- and Golden Globe-nominated jazz artist and bassist Russell Hall leads an exploratory study of the enigmas of jazz: Eric Dolphy, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Johnny Dunn, Charlie Mingus and others.
Saturday, Feb. 29: The Ancient Law is a landmark in Weimar cinema. It is the story of a rabbi’s son who leaves his shtetl home in Galicia and makes his way to Vienna, where an archduchess at the imperial court falls in love with him. The movie draws a complex portrait of the tension between tradition and modernity. Alicia Svigals is founder of the Grammy-winning Klezmatics. Donald Sosin has performed his silent film music at Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art and the Kennedy Center.
Saturday, Feb. 29: Joanie Madden formed the all-female supergroup Cherish the Ladies in New York City in 1985 and named it after a traditional fiddle tune to address the rise of women in what had theretofore been a male-dominated Irish music scene. Since then, with an evolving membership, the outfit has been an international touring sensation and a leading light in contemporary Irish music, both traditional and unafraid of the modern.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a true work of art.
Friday, Feb. 21: Driven by the effortlessly tuneful, graceful playing and composing of reed-player Jay Beckenstein and a light-touch, globally spiced approach to groove, Spyro Gyra unfortunately became a pivot point in the argument about jazz fusion: Were they true heirs of jazz gravity and genius like the first wave of great fusion bands (from Weather Report to early Pat Metheny Group), or were they the godfathers of lite jazz and ’70s TV themes, just a few stone-throws away from you-know-who, with the Kenny and the G?
Sunday, Feb. 23: Byron confers seriousness and the harmonic depth of jazz upon the genres that he studies and masters. The genres, in turn, render Byron’s catalogue one of the most listenable, joyous and unpredictable in all of serious and cerebral jazz.