There are few places in the Hudson Valley where the setting does as much work as the programming. At Opus 40, the season lineup arrives already charged by the site itself: Harvey Fite’s sprawling hand-built bluestone labyrinth, carved over nearly four decades into an abandoned quarry at the foot of the Catskills. Even after years of expansion and institutional maturation, Opus 40 still feels slightly improbable—a monumental work of land art that doubles as an outdoor performance venue, ecological preserve, and communal gathering space.
The season carries additional resonance this year as Opus 40 marks the 50th anniversary of Fite’s death with a free Community Day celebration on May 9. The event includes sculpture tours, local nonprofit showcases, craft activities, artisan vendors, music, stone-carving demonstrations, and even baby goats roaming the grounds. It’s less memorial than communal activation, reflecting the way Opus 40 increasingly treats the site as a living cultural commons rather than a static monument.
Visual art programming begins early in the season with “Land Escape,” a solo exhibition by Saugerties painter Anne Leith in the Richards Gallery. Organized in partnership with Cross Contemporary Art Projects and curator Jen Dragon, the show focuses on Hudson Valley landscapes rendered in oil and works on paper, drawing directly from the region’s shifting light and dense woodlands. Later in May, the gallery presents work by the late feminist artist Nancy Azara alongside encaustic paintings by her widow, Darla Bjork.
Performance programming kicks into gear June 5 with an outdoor screening of Robert Mugge’s 1986 Sonny Rollins documentary Saxophone Colossus, presented with Upstate Films. The evening includes a conversation with Mugge, Rollins biographer Aidan Levy, and former Opus 40 Artistic Director Tad Richards, tying the site’s current programming to its long history as an unlikely but important performance venue. Over the decades, the quarry has hosted everyone from Orleans to Sun Ra Arkestra to Sonny Rollins himself.
Music this season leans heavily toward globally rooted dance traditions and hybrid sounds that feel especially suited to the quarry’s open-air acoustics, curated in partnership with The Local in Saugerties, with production support from Utopia Studios Bearsville and Studio RRD. On July 5, Afro-Latin bandleader Ricardo Lemvo and Makina Loca bring a fusion of Congolese soukous, Cuban son, salsa, semba, and kizomba to the sculpture. July 18’s “Reggae on the Rocks” features Hudson Valley favorites The Big Takeover, fronted by Jamaican-born singer Nee Nee Rushie, channeling classic ska, reggae, and rocksteady through a horn-heavy contemporary soul lens.
Singer-songwriter Emily King performs July 25, bringing her sleek blend of pop and soul to the quarry before the return of “Rock the Quarry” on July 31. Curated by Jack Petruzzelli, the annual festival once again gathers regional players and scene veterans, including Cindy Cashdollar, Gail Ann Dorsey, Jay Collins’ Gravy Train, and others performing Beatles material, originals, and collaborative sets.
August continues the international scope. New Orleans ensemble Sally Baby’s Silver Dollars arrives August 8 with a sound that folds Creole jazz, second-line rhythms, calypso, and R&B into something both archival and contemporary. The Euphonia Balkan and Brass Festival follows August 22 with Funkrust Brass Band, Mountain Lions, and Unicorn Brass Band turning the quarry into a roaming brass-fueled dance floor. Psychedelic cumbia pioneers Chicha Libre close out August 30 with “Cumbia Vortex,” accompanied by live visuals from B.A. Miale.
Ecology walks, tree identification workshops and wellness programming further reinforce Opus 40’s broader identity shift—from sculpture destination to full-spectrum cultural landscape. Which feels true to the spirit of the place. Fite spent nearly four decades transforming an abandoned quarry into a six-and-a-half-acre earthwork sculpture that still feels simultaneously ancient and unfinished. At sunset, during performances, the stonework absorbs sound and shadow alike. The quarry stops functioning as backdrop and becomes part of the event itself.
