Yes, Hudson Valley winters are long and terribly brutal. So much so that our bagel-munching, fume-inhaling, downstate neighbors frequently question our sanity for wanting to live here. And, admittedly, right around mid February, when we’re shivering while digging out our cars and dealing with bursting pipes, many of us might be tempted to join them. But then, every year, just when we’ve given up hope, come the rewards: the lush, blindingly green spring that’s likely all around you as you read this, and the comparatively temperate upstate summer, a period spanning from, roughly, mid June to early September. Summer, filled with lazy weekend afternoons and star-filled, short-sleeved nights. Then we can look our vain Manhattanite nemeses in the eyes and tell them: The deep freeze has all been worthwhile. And to top it off, there’s music. Just about any style of music you could want, played for just you—and a few hundred or thousand other enthusiastic revelers—in the gorgeous outdoors, a regional tradition so famously rooted in the first Woodstock festival, in 1969. Here, then, is Chronogram’s handpicked roundup of the best of this year’s upstate summer music festivals—served alfresco of course.
Bethel Woods (June 14-August 26)
When it comes to a connection to the original Woodstock festival, look no further. Holding forth on the hallowed grounds of the legendary event’s very site, now home to the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, this year’s series marks the 40th anniversary of 1969’s three-day run of peace, love, and music, making a preconcert visit to the complex’s recently opened museum a must. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the bulk of the current calendar takes steady aim at baby boomers: Earth, Wind & Fire/Chicago (June 14); Bad Company/Doobie Brothers (June 27); Peter, Paul & Mary (July 31); Loggins & Messina/Poco (August 21). But a few dates do cater to their offspring—Dave Matthews Band (August 5); O.A.R./Matt Nathanson (August 12)—and even their mothers (Tom Jones, July 27). The double bill of B. B. King and Buddy Guy (August 27) is a rare summit of blues royalty, and an appearance by the New York Philharmonic (July 11) promises Ravel, Berlioz, and selections from Bizet’s Carmen.
www.bethelwoodscenter.org.
Clearwater (June 20-21)
Although it can be said that the local summer music festival season really kicks off with last month’s (fifth annual) WDST Mountain Jam, the Clearwater Festival, aka the Great Hudson River Revival, held at Croton Point Park in Croton-on-Hudson, has been helping usher in the warm days since folk legend and activist Pete Seeger helped found it in the 1970s. The granddaddy of all green-themed musical events, Clearwater, an ecological fundraiser, it is this year celebrating several significant milestones: the 40th anniversary of the launch of the sloop Clearwater, the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage up the river, and Seeger’s recent 90th birthday. “I grew up with the festival, and after playing at others I’ve realized how the message behind it and the overall community feeling make it so special,” says the Mammals’ Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, Pete’s grandson. “[Musician and organizer] John Dindas has really done a terrific job of putting it together.” Among many others, 2009’s lineup boasts Susan Tedeschi, Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens, Old Crow Medicine Show, Alejandro Escovedo, A. C. Newman, and, of course, Grandpa Pete.
www.clearwater.org.
Tanglewood (July 3-September 6)
Begun in 1934 in Lenox, Massachusetts, as a venue for outdoor summer concerts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood Music Festival has taken place every season since, with the exception of the World War II years. At first, the more modest concerts took place under a large tent, but in 1938 the opening of the 5,100-seat Koussevitzky Music Shed saw a quantum leap that made the classically oriented festival (rock acts and September’s jazz roster are relatively recent forays) one of the nation’s most prestigious programs. Along with the BSO’s presentations of Nielson, Beethoven, and Brahms (July 10), Wagner (July 11), and Mozart and Mahler (July 17) are dates by the likes of Diana Krall (July 4), Tony Bennett (July 21), James Taylor with John Williams and the Boston Pops (August 30), Paquito D’Rivera (September 4), and the Dave Holland Octet (September 6). And Garrison Keillor’s annual Tanglewood broadcast of “A Prairie Home Companion” (June 27) has become another tradition.
www.bso.org.
Belleayre (July 4-September 5)
Highmount’s Belleayre Mountain Ski Center is the stunning setting for this annual summerlong happening established nearly 15 years ago by the Belleayre Conservatory, a group of community and business leaders. Since then, the organization has brought in well over a hundred top-drawing artists from the fields of folk, rock, opera, classical, Broadway, jazz, and dance. This year’s schedule blasts off on July 4 with the West Point Band’s Jazz Knights (plus fireworks!), and is followed by Michael Feinstein (July 11), the Belleayre Festival Opera’s production of Die Fledermaus (July 25), Ladysmith Black Mambazo (August 1), tango pianist Pablo Ziegler (August 7), bossa nova queen Leny Andrade (August 8), reggae legends the Wailers (August 22), a benefit for Snuffy’s Food Pantry with kids’ music king Uncle Rock (August 23), the Supremes’ Mary Wilson (August 29), and tribute act Abba the Tour (September 5).
www.icatskills.us.
Maverick (July 4-September 6)
Started in 1916 by Maverick Art Colony founder Hervey White, Woodstock’s Maverick Concerts is America’s oldest continuous summer chamber music festival, and its acoustically perfect, hand-built wooden hall is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. “The setting in the woods is so utterly unique, the values and traditions of the place, so completely removed from materialism,” says Music Director Alexander Platt. Though best known for its small-ensemble classical chamber music, Maverick also presents opera, jazz, folk, and avant-garde (John Cage’s infamous 4’33” was premiered here in 1952). This season offers the Tokyo String Quartet (July 4); the Shanghai Quartet (July 5); the Paul Winter Consort (July 11); trombonist Roswell Rudd (July 18); violinist Timothy Fain (July 19); folkies Mike & Ruthy (August 1), Mike Seeger (July 25), and Elizabeth Mitchell (August 1); Bartok, Brahms, and Philip Glass by the trio of Maria Bachman, Andrew Armstrong, and Wendy Sutter (August 8); the quartet Antares, performing works by George Tsontakis and Messiaen (August 15); and the soaring Daedalus Quartet (September 6).
www.maverickconcerts.org.
Bard SummerScape/Bard Music Festival (July 9-August 23)
Okay, it may not be your traditional outdoor series, but Bard College’s Annandale-on-Hudson campus is Shangri-La in the summer. This 20th installment of the Bard Music Festival and its seven-years-and-running multi-arts companion Bard SummerScape celebrate the life and music of Richard Wagner. Among other highlights, conductor, and Bard College President Leon Botstein leads the American Symphony Orchestra through the composer’s key pieces (August 14, 15, 22, and 23), while choral and chamber affairs reprise his other compositions and those of his contemporaries. One of SummerScape’s recurrent themes—and one explored by Wagner via his Ring cycle and other works—is how ancient myths and events affect the present, to which end this year’s schedule features Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera Les Huguenots (July 31 and August 2, 5, and 7) and Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio St. Paul (August 9). The multimedia Dance features a score by Philip Glass, choreography by Lucinda Childs, and film by Sol Lewitt (July 9, 10, and 12), and the magical Spiegeltent returns with cabaret and dance nights, the New Albion Weekend of experimental music (August 14 and 15), and regional performers.
www.fishercenter.edu.
Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival (July 15-August 1)
New York new music organization Bang on a Can has been holding its Summer Music Festival for young performers and composers at North Adams, Massachusetts’s, knife-edge MassMOCA arts center since 2002. For this world-renowned gathering, fellows and faculty use every available space on the campus and throughout the community (indoors and out) to create and perform highly innovative music, and offer free daily (except Sundays) gallery recitals and instrument-making art classes and other events, including stuff for kids. Headlining this summer is minimalist master Steve Reich, whose landmark “Music for 18 Musicians” will be performed by the BOAC ensemble on July 25; earlier that day Reich will offer a talk on his work with the late visual artist Sol LeWitt. The culmination of each year’s festival is the raucous excitement of the closing six-hour marathon (August 1), which utilizes upwards of 30 musicians; on the card for this year’s marathon are George Antheil’s futuristic 1924 “Ballet Mecanique” and John Adams’s pivotal “Shaker Loops.”
www.massmoca.org.
Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival (July 16-19)
The premier such event in the Northeast, the 33-year-old Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival returns for its second year to the Walsh Farm in Oak Hill (previously held at Ancramdale’s Rothvoss Farm). Featuring four performance stages and three learning venues, the camp-out-friendly Grey Fox presents the world’s greatest living bluegrass artists in an infectiously down-home scenario whose central theme is aimed at preserving and passing on the music’s traditions—while having a hoot, to boot, naturally. Like those before it, this July’s four-day fete allows bluegrass fanatics the chance to watch and get in on the spontaneous jam sessions that blossom at every turn, as well as get their feedbags on at the refreshment stands. And how about these acts (check website for days and times): Del McCoury, David Bromberg, Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, Marty Stuart, Pete Rowan, Tim O’Brien, the Red Stick Ramblers, Bill Keith, Dry Branch Fire Squad, and Crooked Still, to name but a sliver.
www.greyfoxbluegrass.com.
Rosendale Street Festival (July 18-19)
It may not have the international-artist pull of the other festivals covered here, but the wildly popular, local-music-heavy Rosendale Street Festival is without a doubt one of the Hudson Valley’s most anticipated events. With the entertainment starting at noon and running until 10pm, the nonprofit program proffers a staggering 74 bands across five stages, all surrounded by vendors dispensing everything from ethnic cuisine to microbrews, CDs to handmade jewelry, cotton candy to Native American crafts. Reflecting the area’s wide-ranging styles, the acts comprise rock, jazz, folk, heavy metal, oldies, funk, blues, Latin, pop, alternative, children’s music, reggae, jam bands, and anything else that moves. “One of the great, unique things about the festival is that [attendees] can pick and choose who they want to hear,” says festival chairman and musician Charlie Knicely. “We get so many band applications that it’s always hard to narrow it down.” Among this year’s first-time and returning favorites are the Trapps, Voodelic, the Virginia Wolves, the Rhodes, Mr. Rusty, and the Saints of Swing.
www.rosendalestreetfestival.com.
Falcon Ridge Folk Festival (July 23-26)
Kicking up its heels for the last 20 years at the foot of the Berkshires in Hillsdale, New York, is the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, which was recently declared Folk Festival of the Year by the esteemed International Folk Alliance Conference. In past years this rabidly awaited outing has drawn as many as 15,000 folk-music lovers, and like Grey Fox, it caters to here-for-the-duration campers as well as single-day attendees. Its three stages plus a dance tent featuring various group and partnered dance styles is home to a constant flow of song swaps, workshops, and less-formal, small-scale performances. Confirmed so far this time out are Janis Ian, Susan Werner, Lisa Haley & the Zydecats, Dan Navarro, the Refugees, Nerissa & Katryna Nields, the Clayfoot Strutters, and Wild Asparagus, with more artists being added as the fiesta approaches.
www.falconridgefolk.com.
All Tomorrow’s Parties (September 11-13)
Jumping ahead a bit, maybe, but you’ll want to plan early for the second upstate coming of vanguard indie fest All Tomorrow’s Parties at Kutshers Country Club in Monticello. Started in the UK in 1999, this three-day summit of edgy alternative greatness, each episode curated by a different headlining act, has expanded to stage sanctioned events in the US and Australia. This year’s schedule is handpicked by headliners the Flaming Lips and includes Animal Collective, Panda Bear, the Melvins, and the resurrected Jesus Lizard. Besides its artist programming, another signature ATP facet is its “Don’t Look Back” segments of acts playing one of their influential albums in its entirety. September’s billing boasts Suicide performing the duo’s eponymous debut, the re-formed Feelies doing Crazy Rhythms, and the Dirty Three dishing up Ocean Songs. Also on board: comedian David Cross, Akron/Family, the Drones, Anti-Pop Consortium, and others. In lieu of camping, revelers can opt to spring for next-level tickets that include weekend accommodations at Kutshers’s gloriously Borscht Belt-era facility—which, given the shindig’s several late-running bars and dance clubs, may just come in handy.
www.atpfestival.com.
This article appears in June 2009.
