music

The Lift Concert Series at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall presents performances of new, independent music featuring regional performers, curated by S & S Presents, local artists Sam Torres and Sophia Subbayya Vastek. The performances give audiences the unique opportunity to sit on the historic stage with the artists while they perform. The first Lift concert at the historic music hall is on February 18 and will feature The Millstone Rounders. Sam Torres and Sophia Subbayya Vastek join us to tell us more.

The 49th Annual Saratoga Jazz Festival, presented by GE Vernova, will return for a full two-day and two-stage weekend experience on Saturday, June 27 and Sunday, June 28 at Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Featuring a roster of 22 musical groups and 13 festival debuts, the 2026 line-up is headlined by R&B legend Patti LaBelle and multi-platinum, New Orleans rock collective The Revivalists.

"Live at McCabe's Guitar Shop: Santa Monica’s Legendary Music Venue" is a new book from Peter Lesser, the former executive director of The Egg. McCabe’s has been hosting icons and legends of folk, blues, bluegrass, jazz, spoken word and world music since 1969.

Unless you were camping near El Yunque National Forest or out kayaking on the bioluminescent Mosquito Bay on Vieques, you likely watched Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio - aka Bad Bunny’s - energetic carnival of a Super-Bowl Halftime show last night.The field at Levi’s Stadium in San Francisco was transformed into a mini-Puerto Rico with power lines under repair, Bad Bunny’s signature colorful casita, and rows and rows of sugar cane and island grasses. Here’s the mojito with a twist: these bushes were people.

Kingston-based singer-songwriter Al Olender is releasing her sophomore full-length album “The Worrier” on February 13. It follows 2022’s “Easy Crier.” Al will mark the release of “The Worrier” with her fourth annual “Alentine’s Day” event at The Old Dutch Church in Kingston, New York on February 13.

Midori is a visionary artist, activist and educator who explores and builds connections between music and the human experience. In the four decades since her debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 11, she has performed with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras and has collaborated with world-renowned musicians including Leonard Bernstein, Yo-Yo Ma, and many others.She is in Albany to perform the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Albany Symphony Orchestra with guest conductor André Raphel. Plus, you’ll experience Shostakovich’s gripping, intense Symphony No. 10 – and the concert opens with a work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon. Midori will be on stage tomorrow night - Saturday, January 17th @ 7:30PM at the Palace Theatre with André Raphel conducting.

In the new book “Making Mary Poppins: The Sherman Brothers, Walt Disney, and the Creation of a Classic Film” author and Disney historian Todd James Pierce traces the unlikely path that brought the Sherman brothers to Walt Disney’s attention and how their genius and emotional lives shaped the films’ songs, and surprising stories.

Rock and roll is not rock and roll without a beat. John Ligan’s new book “Backbeats: A History of Rock and Roll in Fifteen Drummers” is a journey through the history of rock and roll told through the lives of fifteen iconic drummers and their percussion rivals.

Since 2010 - Will Herems and Sarah LaDuke have wrapped up the year in music during the waning hours of each calendar year. They missed a couple of years for a couple of different reasons, but are here, this year, to share some songs with you.

Howard Jones’ groundbreaking 1985 album, Dream Into Action, peaked on the UK charts and cracked the US Top 10. It went on to spawn global hit singles, “Things Can Only Get Better” (which experienced a resurgence after being featured on an episode of Netflix’s Stranger Things) and “No One is to Blame” as well as “Life in One Day” and “Like to Get to Know You Well."