Anohni, the trailblazing singer, songwriter, and visual artist, returns to MASS MoCA in North Adams for an intimate concert with pianist Gael Rakotondrabe in the Hunter Center, on Saturday at 8:30pm, to celebrate the opening of Jeffrey Gibson’s installation Power Full Because We’re Different. Anohni first played MASS MoCA in 2003 with Antony and the Johnsons; a name change to Anohni came with the release of her first solo album, 2016’s Hopelessness. (Sat, Nov 2)
No Cowards in Our Band, a semi-staged musical drama telling the story of renowned activist and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, will be staged at Hudson Hall in Hudson, N.Y., on Saturday at 7pm. Actor and artist Masud Olufani stars as Douglass alongside a trio of singers: soprano Nia Drummond, Metropolitan Opera tenor Edward Washington II, and Opera Ebony and Syracuse Opera’s bass Gregory Sheppard. (Sat, Nov 2)
Contemporary string quartet Brooklyn Rider brings its Chalk and Soot program to the Stissing Center in Pine Plains, N.Y., on Sunday at 4pm. The concert will include four new string quartets inspired by Der Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider), a pre-WWI era collective led by Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky; Schoenberg’s tonality-shattering String Quartet No. 2 with mesmerizing soprano Ariadne Greif; and a new song cycle written by Colin Jacobsen, the violinist of the quartet. (Sun, Nov 3)
English rock singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock, perhaps best known for leading the 1970s art-rock band The Soft Boys and later The Egyptians, brings his sardonic wit and deep catalog of power-pop and folk-rock to Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, N.Y., tonight at 8pm. Blending folk and psychedelia with a wry British nihilism, Hitchcock describes his songs as “paintings you can listen to.” (Fri, Nov 1)
Also of note:
The Goddess Party, a 40-women, Hudson-Valley-based art choir backed by an all-female six-piece rock band, brings its newest performance, “The Parting of the Veils,” featuring an eclectic program featuring original compositions, Bulgarian field songs, punk anthems by the likes of Le Tigre and PJ Harvey, and more to Basilica Hudson in Hudson, N.Y., tonight at 8pm.
The first annual Borscht Belt Film Festival takes place at Shadowland Stages in Ellenville, N.Y., today through Sunday. Films include Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock (2009), which fixes the 1969 festival in a Borscht Belt context (with director Ang Lee taking part in a discussion), and The Dancing Man: Peg Leg Bates (1993), David Davidson’s documentary about the legendary one-legged tap dancer who opened a landmark Black Catskills resort, and other films celebrating the rich cultural legacy of the Catskills.
Chamber group Sō Percussion will perform at the Clark in Williamstown, Mass., on Saturday at 7pm.
Drummer Bobby Previte, keyboardist Jamie Saft, and guitarist Knox Chandler bring their Doom Jazz program to The Local in Saugerties, N.Y., on Saturday at 8pm.
Flutist Anthony Trionfo and pianist Albert Cano Smit will perform works by Francis Poulenc, Amy Beach, Prokofiev, Claude Debussy, and others at the Stissing Center in Pine Plains, N.Y., on Saturday at 7pm, presented by Clarion Concerts.
British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor will perform Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition as well as works of Brahms and Schumann at Union College’s Memorial Chapel in Schenectady, N.Y., on Sunday at 3pm, presented by Capital Region Classical.
And finally, you can see me read from and sign copies of my new book, Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison, at the Chatham Bookstore in Chatham, N.Y., this coming Sunday at 5pm, where I will also be in conversation with Elena Siyanko, director of PS21: Center for Contemporary Performance. (Sun, Nov 3)
Seth Rogovoy is editor of the Rogovoy Report, available at rogovoyreport.substack.com.
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