2014 Exhibition by Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region

    One of the most eagerly anticipated art shows of the year is the annual Mohawk-Hudson regional, established in 1936. The juror for this year’s edition—which opens Saturday at the Albany Institute of History & Art—is Schenectady native Stephen Westfall of Rutgers University, an internationally renowned painter, writer and educator. Pictured is one of [...]

Other Desert Cities

  Playwright (and Pulitzer Prize nominee) Jon Robin Baitz brings back the Reagan years with his Broadway smash Other Desert Cities, which is opening this week at Capital Repertory Theatre. Starring Ellen Parker and Kevin McGuire, Other Desert Cities takes us into the dark heart of the American family. Capital Rep’s producing artist director Maggie [...]

Garrick Ohlsson

  Troy Chromatic Concerts will begin their 118th season this Sunday afternoon with a recital featuring pianist Garrick Ohlsson. The Berkshire Eagle praised his solo performance of works by Chopin at Tanglewood this summer for being “big, extroverted readings, full of narrative force and dazzling contrasts: sotto voce musings versus thundering chords, lyrical versus virtuosic [...]

Five Finger Death Punch

  Despite being relatively new on the scene—the beginnings of metalcore hark back to the late ’90s—Five Finger Death Punch quickly became one of the most successful bands of the genre. Taking inspiration for their name from classical martial arts movies, inaugural members Zoltan Bathory and Jeremy Spencer formed the band in 2005. They immediately [...]

A Couple of Blaguards

  Frank (Angela’s Ashes) McCourt and brother Malachy (A Monk Swimming) McCourt’s comedy-drama will come to life at the GE Theatre at Proctors this week in the form of this autobiographical account of their years growing up together. This two-hour comedy is set in Limerick, Ireland, where money was hard to come by for these [...]

Kip Moore

  This is the first headlining tour for Georgia native Moore, who toiled for several years as a store manager with Abercrombie & Fitch before landing a record deal with MCA Nashville. It didn’t take long for Moore and his straight-ahead, wheels-on-gravel sound to make a splash: His second single, “Somethin’ ’Bout a Truck,” went [...]

Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys

  Rockabilly Hall of Fame inductees Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys have been playing western swing and country boogie since their beginnings as a rockabilly revivalist band in Orange County, Calif., in the late ’80s. Big Sandy is known for playing to the crowd, adjusting the setlist to suit the mood of the audience, [...]

Picturing America

  There are two major exhibits opening this week at the Hyde Collection. Anne Diggory: Hybrid Visions will showcase 16 of her most recent works. As the title of the show suggests, these “hybrid media” are the result of a multilayered process that combines painting and photography. Her intention, according to the gallery notes, is [...]

Stefon Harris—Coming Home

  A 1991 graduate of Albany High School, Stefon Harris often credits his exposure to a variety of music from high school teachers and the Empire State Youth Orchestra for giving him the opportunity to seek his own artistic direction. And find his direction he did, going on to study jazz and classical at the [...]

Also Noted . . . . . . .

  The Chronicles (left), a local combo who fuse jazz with hip-hop, funk and more, will host a five-year-anniversary party tomorrow (Friday) at the Albany Barn, with Atlas Gray and Suitable Groove also performing (6 PM, 935-4858). . . . Also Friday, Rival Galaxies will share a bill with Kimono Dragons and Secret Release at [...]