Cover Story
The Vargas future
Superintendent Bolgen Vargas’s contract with the Rochester school district ends June 30, 2016. While it may seem premature to be thinking about it, the school board will need to have a serious discussion in the next few months about whether to renew that contract or start the search for a new superintendent. It’s hardly a…
RCSD transportation crisis resolved, but no one’s happy
Rochester school board members held their noses and voted in favor tonight of a one-year deal with RTS to bus city students this coming school year. The vote was 6-1, with board president Van White opposed. None of the board members seem happy with the deal — Commissioner Mary Adams called it “unconscionable” — but…
Two firms proposed to study new performing arts center downtown
Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren wants to hire two firms to study the feasibility of a new downtown performing arts center. The companies are Lincoln Center Global and Westlake Reed Leskosky. Lincoln Center Global is, according to Crain’s New York Business, the consulting arm of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. Westlake is…
Finger Lakes solar installations increase
Solar-power capacity increased significantly in the Finger Lakes region between 2011 and 2014, according to newly released data from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority The data shows the growth of solar power across the state. At the end of 2011, the Finger Lakes had 2.1 megawatts of installed solar capacity spread across 249…
City of Rochester announces ROC the Park lineup
This town certainly loves its music festivals. And there is no shortage of places to throw one. And now with Martin Luther King Jr park back in the mix, the mayor just announced a three concert series aptly named ROC the Park. This will be the series’ second year. For three separate days — Saturday,…
Week Ahead: Events for the week of Monday, July 6
By the end of the week, Monroe County voters should have a sense of which candidates may face primaries in September. Today through Thursday, candidates can turn in petitions to the Monroe County Board of Elections. Anyone who runs for an office without the party’s designation needs to file petitions, though many candidates still file…
Highlights for First Friday: July 3
First Friday art openings will take place despite the Fourth of July weekend. So if you’re in town, check out the following show receptions and open studios. The following highlights are just a few of the events offered tomorrow; check out more options listed at firstfridayrochester.org and in our calendar. All events run 6 p.m.…
City of Rochester starts shopping for police body cameras
The City of Rochester has begun shopping for vendors to get its police body-camera program off the ground. Proposals are due by July 31, with the intent of selecting a vendor or vendors by December 1. Most of the language in the city’s request for proposals (see below) seems boilerplate, but you can glean a…
International Year of Light events continue with “Illumination” exhibit at RMSC
The Rochester Museum and Science Center’s newest permanent exhibition opened last week as part of the International Year of Light celebrations in Rochester. “Illumination: The World of Light and Optics” features 15 hands-on, interactive components, allowing visitors of all ages to experiment with the science of light and to explore its nature. The exhibition explores…
KIDS | Catskill Puppet Theater
Taking puppetry to a whole new level, Catskill Puppet Theater utilizes incredibly intricate costumes and sets in their plays. “Sister Rain and Brother Sun,” for example, features a seven-foot in diameter sun, equipped with movable eyes and mouth. Other plays, such as the original “The Town That Fought Hate,” aim at imparting worldly messages about…
SPECIAL EVENT | Independence Day Celebrations
There will be numerous events to commemorate Independence Day throughout the Rochester area. This list represents only a few of the Fourth of July celebrations going on this Saturday. And always worth a mention: watch out for the City of Rochester’s fireworks display happening downtown, starting at 10 p.m. For more information, check the calendar…
FESTIVAL | Chil-E Festival
Held annually either on or close to the Fourth of July, the town of Chili’s Chil-E festival will host food, live music, vendors, kid’s activities, a car show, a parade, and fireworks. Perhaps the biggest surprise is there isn’t a listed chili cook-off, but it won’t detract from the plethora of entertainment offered at the…
FESTIVAL | Sterling Renaissance Festival
The time for over-sized roasted turkey legs, wench auctions, and liberal use of the word “ye” is here again. Aside from questionable English accents, and suits of armor, the Renaissance Festival offers a massive range of live entertainment: live jousting from Warhorse productions, the Vaudeville-styled Clan Tynker Circus, acrobatic trio Draiku, and many more. Alongside…
Feedback 7/1
Send comments to themail@rochester-citynews.com, or post them on our website, rochestercitynewspaper.com, our Facebook page, or our Twitter feed, @roccitynews. For our print edition, we select comments from all three sources, and we do edit selections for publication in print. Hate fines? Don’t run red lights I read with interest Christine Fien’s article about red-light cameras…
Final thoughts: Jazz Festival 2015
It was nine days, more than 320 shows — including at least 90 free ones — at 19 venues, and about 1500 artists. And it was all over in a blue-tinged instant. The 14th edition of the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival ended its momentous run last Saturday, bringing packed crowds of people into Downtown…
JAZZ | Bill Tiberio
Bill Tiberio leads the jazz band at Fairport High School, but he’s also carved out a reputation as a soulful saxophone player with a funky sound. He’s enhanced the music of a variety of artists, including Fred Wesley, Lou Gramm, and The Four Tops. At Kilbourn, he’ll be joined by Scott Bradley, who plays trumpet and…
ALBUM REVIEW: “Laura Dubin Plays The Great American Songbook”
Laura Dubin “Laura Dubin Plays The Great American Songbook” Self-released lauradubin.com Countless jazz artists have mined the Great American Songbook for gems to interpret. But it’s precisely because so many albums are filled with standards that artists have to bring something new to the table if they want to stand apart. In the case of…
JAZZ | Paul Hofmann and Chris Ziemba
When two superb pianists, Paul Hofmann and Chris Ziemba, team up at Kilbourn Hall, it will be a CD release celebration for their new album, “Who Knows?” Hofmann, a long-time favorite on the Rochester jazz scene, has played with Ron Carter, Steve Gadd, Karrin Allyson, Dianne Reeves, and many more. Ziemba, a former student of…
ALBUM REVIEW: “Triangles and Circles”
Dafnis Prieto Sextet “Triangles and Circles” Dafnison Music dafnisonmusic.com I’ve heard him play dazzling percussion in so many settings over the years that I thought I knew Dafnis Prieto. He was simply one of the greatest drummers playing today. With the release of his new sextet album, “Triangles and Circles,” I have to reconsider Prieto…
FOLK POP | Oliver Oak
Oliver Oak, a 5-piece folk pop group from Columbus, Ohio, is a little bit curious, a little bit experimental, but there’s also something captivating about it. The way the band’s vocal harmonies wind and float with one another while a violin cascades thoughtfully, with a few alternative tempos and rhythms, Oliver Oak’s sound is sweetly…
Schools are no haven for transgender youth
A recent report from the New York Civil Liberties Union says that discrimination against transgender and gender non-conforming youth is pervasive in the state’s public schools. During the 2012-2013 school year, there were nearly 25,000 reported incidents of harassment related to gender stereotypes and sexual orientation, according to the report, “Dignity For All? Discrimination Against…
ROCK | Jefferson Grizzard
This singer-songwriter based in Nashville has a grit and maturity that feels beyond his years. Jefferson Grizzard has got the storytelling of Dylan and that throaty growl of a voice like Waits, and he wears it well. Grizzard drives a hard rock sound whether solo on his acoustic guitar or with a full band behind…
Wooly bully
The hemlock wooly adelgid is a tiny invasive pest, similar to aphids, that preys on native and ornamental hemlock trees. The bugs kill the trees needle by needle and limb by limb; an unaddressed infestation can mean a slow death. This summer, a crew from the state Department of Environmental Conservation is surveying the state…
ROCK ‘N’ ROLL | Infrared Radiation Orchestra
Kim Draheim’s battered guitar is your library card — or perhaps more accurately, your passport — to rock ‘n’ roll. After plundering the region for more than 25 years in the guitar-centric hard-rocking bar band, Static Cling, Draheim has re-emerged with The Infrared Radiation Orchestra, a classic bar band in the tried and true trio…
CLASSICAL | Sunset Concerts
Hoping to fill a performance gap in Rochester’s classical community during the summer off-season, co-directors Emelyn Johnson and Jessica Woodridge King created the Sunset Concerts chamber music series in 2014. They hope the series will provide opportunities for the plethora of talented young professional musicians who reside in Rochester year-round. This year’s concerts will feature…
Urban Action 7/1
This week’s calls to action include the following events and activities. (All are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.) Rebuilding Upstate’s economy The Rochester Business Journal will present “A Conversation with Howard Zemsky” at 8 a.m. Tuesday, July 14. Zemsky has co-chaired the Western New York Regional Economic Development Council and has…
CLASSICAL | RPO’s Patriotic Salute
Music Director Ward Stare will conduct the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra this weekend during its two annual Fourth of July concerts. On Friday, the RPO will perform a program of patriotic favorites — including Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever” and Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” — during a blow-out performance at CMAC. The concert will conclude with…
RMSC’s resurrection role
As theater seats fill with fans of the popular “Jurassic Park” franchise, real-life de-extinction efforts for the passenger pigeon are taking place, with the Rochester Museum and Science Center playing a crucial role. A “Passenger Pigeon” exhibit currently on view at the museum showcases specimens owned by the institution, sheds light on the story of…
Culinary South Clinton
Opened by a bootlegger in 1929, The Stork Club in Manhattan was a nightclub that you or I could probably never get into. The club’s clientele included the rich, the famous, and the fabulous and they all hung out together in the “Cub Room” — the club’s lounge for the VIPs of the VIPs. Rochester’s…
ART | “Masterwork”
From the depths of Cubism to the vivid colors of Fauvism, Russian-French painter Marc Chagall is remembered as a master of the paintbrush. Alongside contemporaries Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, Chagall created works which defied the impressionist movement. Opting for extreme colors over realism, and symbolism over literal interpretation, Chagall’s style would serve as a…
Film Review: “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”
The most recent film to attain the increasingly less rare sweep of both the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize at Sundance (“Whiplash” did it last year and “Fruitvale Station” before that), "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" can sometimes feel like the ultimate “Sundance” movie: a cutesy tone applied to a tear-jerking story,…
Film Review: “A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence”
Described by Swedish director Roy Andersson as the third part in his trilogy of films about “being a human being,” the surreal “A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence” is a comedy for existentialists. The film unfolds as a series of vignettes (ranging from one to 10 minutes), filmed in a single, static…
Film Review: “A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence”
Described by Swedish director Roy Andersson as the third part in his trilogy of films about “being a human being,” the surreal “A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence” is a comedy for existentialists. The film unfolds as a series of vignettes (ranging from one to 10 minutes), filmed in a single, static…
Film Review: “The Wolfpack”
In case there’s any doubt about how movies inform our worldview, here’s a random exchange I overheard at my job yesterday: “What’s a Hare Krishna?” “It’s those guys from f**kin’ ‘Airplane!’ with the shaved heads.” (Just ignore the superfluous cursing; I work in a restaurant kitchen.) Cultural references like that one aren’t an anomaly in…
Just who do we think we are?
This is a big country. And we are deeply divided – and deeply segregated. And not just by race and income.
