Notes From the Grid is a bi-weekly column about the Columbia County music scene written by Rob. It is featured every other Friday in the "On the Scene" supplement of the Hudson Register Star. See all »

August 21, 2011

Music in Columbia County

We have waxed in both a nostalgic and in a lauditory (new word, I just made it up) manner the bunches of musical stuff this teeny City of Hudson has to offer.  Rightly so – there’s lot of things worth finding out about, lots of familiar and exotic things to listen to in these parts. But now I’d like to scurry around Columbia County a bit to suggest places where you might have a pleasant musical experience.
It’s no surprise to discover that the Columbia Festival Orchestra has made better and more frequent use of spaces throughout the area than any other organization. Commercial joints, churches libraries, the county fair, you name it they will play and entertain. Since 1988 Gwen Gould, the artistic director of CFO, has provided the opportunity for county folk to access more excellent music in more places than anyone else. Kudos.
Okay, why don’t we head out to Philmont and catch some music, a beer and a bit of dinner at the Main Street Public House in Philmont where publicans Matt and Elizabeth have gained notoriety as proprietors of the friendliest venue for musicians in the county. There have been a lot of great shows at the pub and participating musicians enjoy the respect and encouragement of both staff and audience.
From Philmont we could choose a route to Harlemville, where the Hawthorne Valley School is often the site of interesting musical occasions and where the brand spanking new Banjo Mountain Cafe has opened to offer food and musical diversions and then we’ll move south to Mount Washington Tavern on route 23 in downtown Hillsdale where there’s the tempting opportunities of live weekend rock and roll and a Thursday night Open Mic. If we headed out to Copake Falls we might find sporadic bluegrass music performances at the Taconic Wayside Inn hidden away near Bash Bish Falls.
Don’t even think we’ve gotten stuck in the middle of nowhere! All we have to do is take a trip to downtown Ancram where the venerable Ancram Opera House is the site of a plethora of engaging musical events – drum circles, harpsichords, sopranos, folk, baroque, dance and more.
But no time to dawdle, it’s a short trip to the Taconic Parkway where we can head up to Route 203 and into Spencertown where the Greek Rival building that houses the Spencertown Academy for the Arts has, for the past four decades, presented luminaries like Peter Shickele, David Amram,  Peggy Seeger and Andy Statman as well as many functions featuring art, music and community.
Um…which way to go? We’ll just head back west on 203 to Chatham, yes I know we’re going around in circles but these imaginary jaunts leave a much smaller carbon footprint than a real trip. As a matter of fact if you endeavor to actually mimic my fictional quixotic expedition get yourself a nice quiet electric car and a google map GPS type thing and see if maybe you can’t be a bit more efficient than this circuitous journey.
So here’s Chatham, a town with a history of creative use of space for musical endeavors, but due to lack of time and space we’ll touch on major venues for now and save the introspection and thorough scrutiny of the local scene for a future submission. St. James Parish at the corner of routes 203 and 66 is regularly home to classical, romantic, baroque, world and modern music and further down Route 66   Laperra’s Chatham House has intermittent musical interludes.
Okay, so on Main street we have the Peint O Gwrw, a virtual Welsh pub which features bands every Friday and occasional music events on Saturdays (and random evenings throughout the week). Bagpipes,  ceilidhs, bluegrass jams and guerrilla bands as well as open mics abound in this weird little pub with the weird little name. A few doors down we’ll stop at the Blue Plate Restaurant which has had a lot of music in a lot of ways but mostly Wednesday evenings when they regularly feature world class performances by Lincoln Mayorga and Otto Gardiner.  Now we’ll head down the hill on 66, nodding briefly towards Crellin Park, the occasional site of numerous outdoor rock and roll parties and make note of the entrance to PS 21 where there are concerts and community events whenever the upstate New York climate allows.
Making a left over the steel bridge will bring us to Valatie where we’ll locate the Community Theater on Main Street. This little gem of a theater is being being slowly rejuvenated by the Valatian Community (heh) offering music, open mics and theater both as performance and workshops with a particular purpose of interest in the youth of the village.

If we took a roundabout way and headed out to through Kinderhook (where I think there’s an ocassional musical performance at the farmer’s market) and out to Art Omi on county Route 22 which sponsors a music residency each summer with a wonderful final concert under a huge tent. Coordinator Jeffery Lependorf assembles composers and musicians most of whom completely defy the whole genre/label thing from all over the world to collaborate (and drink at The Turnpike Inn on 66).

That’s it, so ends our little jaunt as abruptly as it began it is over. I’ve probably missed or ignored places then I’ve listed but I will put that to you, gentle readers, as a request for information about your favorite Columbia County Music venues.  Contact me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and I will write down your oblations.

Pax Vobiscum.