This year, the theme is “Americans in Paris,” seven concerts concentrating in part on the work of Ned Rorem, the American composer who turns 95 in October.

There are quite the number of striking non-representational and Abstract paintings (with a capital A) that Tom Fletcher has assembled for his 23rd annual spring Fine Art Auction kicking off at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 23, at the Woodstock Community Center. Yet one work by the man the longtime art dealer, who formerly sold books, says was Woodstock’s only true Abstract Expressionist — Walter Plate — stands out.

For decades, WAAM member meetings have alternated between dull and uncontentious and fiery emotionality. But they’ve always been open to press coverage. Until last weekend.

One could hardly ask for a better exhibit title than the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild’s Pageant of Inconceivables, a collection of ceramic works “that operate/act as inner portraits rather than solely functional objects” according to curators Portia Munson and Katherine Umsted, opening at the Kleinert/James Center for the Arts on Saturday, June 9.

The Woodstock Playhouse and Peter Yarrow both turn 80 years old this year. To celebrate such serendipity, Yarrow will return to the town that meant a great deal to him in his formative years to perform a celebratory concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 10 at the Playhouse, 103 Mill Hill Road, Woodstock. 

Sunday, June 10: Among the two hundred plus pieces being auctioned off Sunday are treasures from several key local collections built up over the last half century and longer, including that of the late Sam Klein, which included a Milton Avery drawing as well as hosts of other renowned local artists, and all the local heirs of Edison’s pal George Meister, which collection includes a Babe Ruth-signed photo of a Phoenicia baseball team, as well as one of the Edison Company’s first light bulbs, which still works.

Sunday, May 27: Linda Mary Montano: 14 Years of Living Art, a new “220-page portable book/archive” charts the Saugerties’ native’s influential endurance performance art from 1984 to 1998 via the groundbreaking feminist artist’s journal writings, tantric tales, essays and interviews, instructions and “Art/Life instructions.”