Rogovoy Report For April 8, 2016

The cultural highlights in our region this weekend include a real-life American Idol; a latter-day Mark Twain; a six-hour marathon of 19^th century pop music; a trumpet and organ recital; and readings by a number of authors, novelists, and poets.

Performance artist Taylor Mac will present a six-hour work-in-progress performance of “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music,” covering six decades of material from Mac’s wildly ambitious, multi-year effort to chart the history of popular music in America from the nation’s founding in 1776 to the present day, in the Hunter Center at MASS MoCA in North Adams, on Saturday, from 4 to 10pm.

Organist Peter Sykes and trumpeter Robinson Pyle will duet in “New Directions for Trumpet and Organ,” a Berkshire Bach program, at the First United Methodist Church in Pittsfield on Saturday at 6pm. The program includes Johann Heinrich Fasch’s Trumpet Concerto, Kent Kennan’s Trumpet Sonata, and organ masterworks by Johann Sebastian Bach, including Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E Minor, BWV 548, the "Wedge."

Andrea Wulf, author of the momentous book, “The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World,” will present an illustrated lecture based on her book at Hudson High School on Saturday at 4pm. The event, sponsored by The Olana Partnership, will be Wulf’s first East Coast stop on her United States and United Kingdom tour, and will include a booksigning. I’m reading the book right now, and it’s fascinating. “The Invention of Nature” reveals the extraordinary life of the visionary 19^th c. German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt and how he created the way we understand nature today. Perceiving nature as an interconnected global force, he turned scientific observation into poetic narrative, he was the first to note how human development had detrimental effects on the environment, and he inspired artist Frederic Church on numerous levels.

Authors and poets including Courtney Maum, Jenny Offill, and ShiraDentz will read from their works at Spotty Dog Books & Ale in Hudson on Saturday at 7pm, as part of Volume, the free monthly reading and music series every second Saturday of the month. The readings will be followed by a set by DJ Joe Moore.

New artworks by Christopher Engel, Scott Nelson Foster, Dai Ban, and Paul Chojnowski are on display at Carrie Haddad Gallery in Hudson now through Sunday, May 22. There will be an opening reception for “Points of Intersection” this Sunday from 2 to 4pm.

Bestselling humor writer David Sedaris pops up all around our region with performances at the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie tonight at 8pm, at the Egg in Albany tomorrow night, and at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington on Sunday at 7pm. Sedaris will read from his work and answer questions.

And finally, folk-country singer-songwriter Crystal Bowersox, an American Idol finalist who was the first contestant in the program’s history to have one of her original songs played on the show, returns to Club Helsinki Hudson on Saturday at 9pm. Bowersox is critically acclaimed for her considerable vocal prowess – her soulful audition pieces on Idol included songs by Aretha Franklin, Erma Franklin, Gladys Knight and LaVern Baker – and she has gone on to enjoy a successful post-American Idol career of originality and authenticity, along the way winning the endorsement of Jakob Dylan, who duetted with Bowersox on “Stitches,” a rootsy ballad on her 2013 album “All That for This.”