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Downtown Rochester’s upward climb
What’s happening, and what isn’t
Genres collide in 2019-20 Kilbourn Concert Series
The lineup for the 2019-20 Kilbourn Concert Series is out, offering plenty of stylistic variety from musicians who are masters of their idiom and frequently veer from formal classical and jazz music into the world of pop. Next season, concertgoers at Kilbourn Hall can hear everything from vocal jazz to a genre-bending string trio.
CLASSICAL | Publick Musick’s ‘Neapolitan Delights’
In the recent past, Publick Musick has taken us to 17th- and 18th-century Paris, Salzburg, and Leipzig. This weekend, the destination is Naples. Publick Musick uncovers a few “Neapolitan Delights” from imaginative Baroque-era composers, with guest soprano Yetzabel Arias Fernandez and recorder player Eloy Cortinez. Fernandez is featured in the cantata “Bella madre dei fiori”…
INDIE ROCK | BRONCHO
BRONCHO’s decisively indie-rock spirit reflects something oddly familiar. The band’s latest album “Bad Behavior” was released last year, traversing intimate yet eerie sonic terrain.). Articulate songwriting and instrumentation can attract fans of artists like The Strokes or Tame Impala. Since their first release, “Can’t Get Past the Lips” in 2011, the Tulsa, Oklahoma outfit’s music…
ROCKABILLY | Lara Hope & the Ark-Tones
Lara Hope & the Ark-Tones are shedding fresh light on classic, honky-tonk rock ‘n’ roll, with a mischievous twang. Formed in 2012 as a hybrid between singer-guitarist Lara Hope’s former band The Champtones and bassist Matt Goldpaugh’s psychobilly group The Arkhams, Lara Hope & The Ark-Tones blends elements of country with blues, roots, and surf…
Feedback 3/27
Send comments to feedback@rochester-citynews.com, with your name; city, town, or village; and, for verification, daytime phone number. We edit selections for publication. Locust Club: ‘PAB proposal isn’t warranted’ In response to the March 13 Feedback letter by Ted Forsyth of the Police Accountability Board Alliance: The Rochester Police Locust Club again finds itself in the…
Urban Action 3/27
The coming week’s calls to action include the following events and activities. (All are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.) Cornel West speaks at RIT Rochester Institute of Technology will present “How to Agree to Disagree,” a talk by political philosophers Cornel West and Robert George on Friday, April 5. West, a…
Highland Hospital gets expansion OK
Highland Hospital and its residential neighbors have finally found some common ground, allowing the hospital to move ahead with its $70 million expansion plan. City Council unanimously approved Highland Hospital’s application last week to rezone the hospital’s 9.27-acre site from an Institutional Planned Development District to a Planned Development District. Highland needed the rezoning before…
Another push for more arts in downtown Rochester
A coalition of local community leaders called Arts in the Loop hopes to help revitalize downtown Rochester through the arts. Members of the group’s executive committee include artists, city and county government officials, and representatives from local businesses, arts institutions, and universities. Among them: the Rochester Downtown Development Corporation, Wegmans, the Rochester International Jazz Festival,…
CLASSICAL | Ying Quartet with PUSH Physical Theatre
For two consecutive nights in Kilbourn Hall, the Ying Quartet will continue its collaboration with PUSH Physical Theatre. Dubbed “Creative Collision,” the program will include PUSH’s clever vignette about coffee called “Cup of…,” with music by 20th-century composers Erwin Schulhoff and Randall Thompson, and the poignant trio “Censored,” set to a movement from Mendelssohn’s String…
RCSD’s challenge: budgeting for a shrinking district
The Rochester school district’s budget has been a target of the district’s critics for years. The district, they say, has plenty of money, but its officials don’t know how to manage it. But Interim Superintendent Daniel Lowengard’s proposed $925 million budget for next year, which he presented to school board members last week, highlights an…
SPOKEN WORD | Neil Hilborn
Reading poetry is important, but it’s even better if you have the chance to listen to a writer read their own work. Case in point: slam poet Neil Hilborn gained national acclaim in 2013, when Button Poetry released a video of him performing his emotionally gutting poem, “OCD.” It’s a rapid-fire, witty and earnest, relatable…
Groups push tenant bills
A coalition of tenants groups and advocates from across New York continues its campaign for new laws to protect renters from displacement due to arbitrary evictions or sudden rent increases. Representatives of the Upstate-Downstate Alliance travelled to Albany last week to show support for the laws, and they delivered letters to the offices of Governor…
SPECIAL EVENT | Annual Spring Orchid Show
Whether you’re deeply fascinated by the diversity of life or just deeply ready to be surrounded by blooming life (or both, to be honest), head over to the Rochester Museum and Science Center this weekend to check out the Genesee Region Orchid Society’s Annual Spring Orchid Show. Visitors can check out the wide selections of…
THEATER | ‘Miss Richfield 1981: Gender Fluids’
A few years ago Rochester’s own “RuPaul’s Drag Race” alum and beloved drag queen Mrs. Kasha Davis told CITY that one of her biggest influences was Minnesota-born queen Miss Richfield 19981. Kasha caught Miss Richfield’s show three times while on vacation in Provincetown, and says she was struck by how campy, ridiculous, and fun the…
FILM | ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’
Before Joss Whedon’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” enthralled fans as a long-running supernatural teen drama TV series, his film of the same name was a beloved cheesy horror flick. In the movie, the reluctant-Chosen-One-turned-badass-slayer is played by Kristy Swanson. Guided by the Watcher (Donald Sutherland), Buffy forges an alliance outside of her clique (RIP, Luke…
SPECIAL EVENT | Christopher Morrison Community Celebration
In January Rochester lost a valued member of its arts community. After a battle with pancreatic cancer, dancer, choreographer, and teacher Christopher Morrison died in New York City, where his funeral was held. During his time in Rochester, Morrison worked with Garth Fagan Dance, The Harley School, East High School, School Without Walls, the JCC,…
DANCE | ‘Woven’
Nazareth College’s annual Spring Dance Concert this year will feature a showcase that incorporates dance, spoken work, and video projection. It presents original student works alongside works by established artists, including Caitlin Mahon and Heather Roffe Wiktorski, as well as the premiere of a new work by acclaimed Bessie Award-winning choreographer David Dorfman. The production,…
JAZZ | Trio East
After 19 years together and four CD’s to their credit, drummer Rich Thompson, trumpeter Clay Jenkins and bassist Jeff Campbell — known collectively as Trio East — are as musically tight as it gets. All are professors at the Eastman School of Music, but when they’re not professing, Thompson has played with the Count Basie…
BLUES | Joe Beard with David Michael Miller
Rochester blues legend Joe Beard is back at it again, this time joined by Buffalo’s southern soul icon David Michael Miller. Since 1956, Joe Beard has been shaking up big clubs, national festivals and, lucky for us, intimate venues here in Rochester. At 81 years old, Beard can still rock harder than some of his…
Mueller’s report, Trump, and the Democrats
Robert Mueller’s work is finished. What the Democrats do now will be as important as what the Republicans do.
Album review: ‘Warm Prickly’
Benny Bleu ‘Warm Prickly’ Self-released bennybleu.bandcamp.com It sounds like I’m lying when I tell you a performance or record from Benny Bleu, a k a Ben Haravitch, features the entire Hochstein School of Music’s banjo faculty. That’s because he’s the only one there. Though Haravitch spends a lot of time solo on his new CD…
New art & culture space on King Street
The Douglass Auditorium, in the building that formerly housed the Frederick Douglass Resource Center, will host visual art exhibits, performances, lectures, and artists talks. 540WMain’s Calvin Eaton will manage the space’s programming.
Album review: ‘Everdene Holler’
Everdene Holler ‘Everdene Holler’ Self-released everdeneholler.bandcamp.com Rochester duo Everdene Holler’s debut album is a curious collection of sounds. Is it drone music? Is it roots music? Delightfully, the answers are unclear, as banjo player Zora Gussow and fiddler Clara Riedlinger — who share vocal duties — defy expectations with six unsettling but satisfying takes on…
A mighty meal at Caribbean Heritage Restaurant
The new family-owned spot on Plymouth offers fare drawn from various Caribbean traditions, ranging from staples such as oxtail to the signature rum-soaked fruitcake.
Film preview: ‘Hotel Mumbai’
Strictly speaking, “Hotel Mumbai” isn’t a horror movie, though in many ways it shares a similar purpose. In showing us what society fears at our particular moment in time, and on some level seeking to understand it, the film attempts a sort of exorcism.
Theater review: ‘Mauritius’
A play about stamp collecting doesn’t seem particularly gripping, in theory. But when the story also includes a true crime feel and comes from the pen of playwright and proven mystery writer Theresa Rebeck, things get interesting.
Film review: ‘Birds of Passage’
A compelling variation on the narco crime-drama, Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego’s lush film tells a sprawling tale centered on the South American drug trade and the tragic effects it has on an indigenous family, whose members grow susceptible to its corruptive influences.
Interview: The Cadillac Three
They call it country fuzz. It’s an ominous boogie coming out of Nashville’s The Cadillac Three, a trio that resonates with country and rock ‘n’ roll in equal parts. What separates them from the rest of the heard herd, while welding genres together, is the trio’s application of the sweet grind, whine, and growl of…
JAZZ | Nathan Kay Sextet
Sometimes you just can’t hold a student back. Trumpeter Nathan Kay is a senior at the Eastman School of Music, brimming with his own jazz compositions, so he’s assembled a sextet to play his tunes at the Bop Shop. Not surprisingly, Kay found most of his bandmates right on Gibbs Street. He’ll be joined by…
