Cover Story
Rochester’s cemeteries as parks
Beyond visiting the resting places of family and friends, spending time near graves might seem like the domain of moody teens or vandals. But in many ways, cemeteries are ideal places to spend a peaceful morning or afternoon, alone with your thoughts while you’re jogging or in the company of friends.
Wells elected as MCDC chair
Brittaney Wells will serve as the new chair of the Monroe County Democratic Committee, starting today.
2018 ImageOut Film Festival
The 26th annual Rochester LGBT Film Festival takes place Thursday, October 4, through Sunday, October 14, and features dozens of film screenings that celebrate the world-wide cultures and stories of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.
Calls grow to stop shootings
Last month, five people were shot in Rochester in three separate shootings in a matter of four hours. Two of them died. Two days later, there was another gun-related homicide. There’s no single explanation for gun violence in Rochester, any more than there is in other cities. But the Reverend Lewis Stewart, president of United…
ART | ‘The Enigmatic Imagination of John Kastner’
Many of Rochester-based artist John Kastner’s mixed media illustrations and paintings are Bosch-esque hellscapes jam-packed with clever commentary on this political, social, and environmental mess we’re in. In recent years Kastner began incorporating dimensional elements to his complex creations, adding bits of plastic and other detritus he’s collected from the sidewalks and streets while out…
SINGER-SONGWRITER | The Spirit Room One-Year Anniversary Show
In just a year, The Spirit Room has already established itself as a premier destination for listening to compelling music and poetry performances while sipping craft cocktails. In addition to providing an important platform for Rochester-area artists, The Spirit Room has also made a conscious effort to present socially conscious art that represents the experiences…
MULTIMEDIA | Dani & Sheilah ReStack
Visual Studies Workshop’s current experimental film series continues this week with “Strangely Ordinary This Devotion and Shameless Light: A Multimedia performance by Sheilah & Dani Restack.” The Ohio-based duo Sheilah Wilson and Dani Leventhal will present a multimedia performance, “Shameless Light,” which includes a participatory reading of lesbian love letters. The performance will be followed…
KIDS | ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’
OFC Creations this weekend kicks off its family-friendly production of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” Hans Christian Anderson’s timeless tale about a vain leader and his fearful constituents, who are all duped by a pair of con-artists until confronted with the naïve honesty of a child. In OFC’s version, a mother and son plead with the…
MUSEUM | ‘SoundSense’
A new exhibit at Rochester Museum & Science Center will focus on how the phenomenon of sound helps us make sense of the world around us, and how we use it to communicate or for entertainment. The interactive elements of “SoundSense” help visitors explore the physical nature of sound, how we sense it, how different…
Leep Foods grows super ‘shrooms
In October, Leep Foods is collaborating with three different restaurants to present mushroom-centered dining experiences. The events aim to educate the public about the company and the benefits of mushrooms as delicious, organic superfoods.
Urban Action 10/3
This week’s calls to action include the following events and activities. (All are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.) Supreme Court to be discussed The League of Women Voters of the Rochester Metropolitan Area will present “The Supreme Court – Distinct and Independent,” on Tuesday, October 9. Panelists will discuss whether Alexander…
Feedback 10/3
Send comments to themail@rochester-citynews.com, or post them on our website, rochestercitynewspaper.com, our Facebook page, or our Twitter feed, @roccitynews. We edit selections for publication in print, and we don’t publish comments sent to other media. Art and artists On reader Michael Nighan’s letter on the Otterness sculptures at the Memorial Art Gallery: A dear friend…
The sounds of justice
Charlene Sommers has been in choirs before, including college and touring choirs, as well as a stint with the Eastman Rochester Chorus. But Sommers is currently putting together a different kind of choral group, a Justice Choir. She wants to build a group of people who can go to protests or demonstrations and sing songs…
Tests reveal a lot or nothing at all
The results of last spring’s statewide testing for grades 3 to 8 in English and math were released last week, and there are multiple reasons to be concerned with the scores. On the upside, proficiency levels improved overall statewide in 2018, including in the Big Five districts: the state’s largest cities, including Rochester. (“Proficient” means…
AVANT-JAZZ | Ken Thomson Sextet
As a member of groups like the contemporary classical Bang on a Can All-Stars, punky jazz upstart Gutbucket, and experimental jazz outfit Slow/Fast, Ken Thomson has been ignoring genre labels for years. Relentlessly creative and always musically curious, the clarinetist-sax player will bring his incomparable sound to Bop Shop Records this Friday, in support of…
VOCAL JAZZ | The Cool Club & The Lipker Sisters
Swingin’ straight out of the Finger Lakes with finesse and plenty of moxie, it’s The Cool Club & The Lipker Sisters. This is a group split between four veteran musicians and three sisters who have that added advantage that only blood can bring. These gals are great. The Andrews Sisters, times 100. The Cool Club…
HIP-HOP | MF DOOM Tribute
MF DOOM is the larger-than-life, villainous alter ego of influential rapper Daniel Dumile. His smooth, conversationaI flow, clever wordplay, and quirky, jazz and funk-infused beats are reminiscent of music by A Tribe Called Quest and J Dilla. This Friday at the Bug Jar, Rochester rap-jazz collective Claude Bennington’s Fever Dream will pay homage to the…
ROCK | Our Lady Peace
Canadian alt-rock band Our Lady Peace has been cranking out anthems for a long time. It’s crazy to think that the group’s cathartic, classic 90’s album “Clumsy” came out over 20 years ago. This Thursday at Anthology, OLP will bring its arena-ready sound, but it’s not just a nostalgia trip. Touring in front of its…
JAZZ | Clay Jenkins
Before trumpeter extraordinaire Clay Jenkins became a professor at the Eastman School of Music, he’d paid his dues on the road with the jazz orchestras of Stan Kenton, Harry James, Buddy Rich and Count Basie. But he wasn’t finished. Just last month, Jenkins played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, where he still holds…
CLASSICAL | RPO presents ‘ZEST OF CZECH’
The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra’s getting into the music of Dvoák in a big way this year. The RPO opened the season with the “New World” Symphony, and this Sunday, it opens the Sunday Matinees series at Hochstein Performance Hall with the Seventh Symphony — his most ambitious and perhaps greatest symphonic work. The program, conducted…
‘At the Crossroads’ programming hits one year mark
The “At the Crossroads: Activating the Intersection of Art and Justice” initiative hits its one year anniversary this week with “Black and Disabled: A Long Table Conversation and Installation.”
LECTURE | ‘The Role of Haudenosaunee Women and Suffrage’
While the current US administration wages war on women, organizers at the 1816 Farmington Quaker Meetinghouse look back at the influence Indigenous women had on the American women’s pursuit of equality. This week the programming continues with a lecture, “The Role of Haudenosaunee Women and Suffrage,” with Jeanne Shenandoah (Eel Clan, Onondaga Nation) and historian…
Kavanaugh, Blasey, and the Senate circus
Despite all of the stories in the news, a majority of Senators still don’t get it – and don’t intend to try to.
Album review: ‘Lanterna Blu’
The Beaumonts ‘LanternaBlu’ Self-released facebook.com/THEBEAUMONTS The Beaumonts kick off “Lanterna Blu” with a quasi-bossa nova backbeat, reminiscent of Paul Weller’s postmodern lounge outfit The Style Council. But it isn’t a ploy to simply reel the listener into their comfort zone, because they do it again with the second track…and the third. The Beaumonts’ frontman Steve…
Skatepark workshop is Wednesday
The Roc City Skatepark faced years of delay, but now the project is now moving forward at a serious pace. The City of Rochester is holding a design workshop for the project from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Frederick Douglass R-Center, 999 South Avenue. The park will be located under the Douglass-Anthony…
Film preview: Witness Palestine Rochester
The annual Witness Palestine Film Festival seeks to examine the Palestine-Israel conflict from a human rights perspective, screening films that center the point of view of everyday citizens in the region and illustrate the realities on the ground in both Israel and occupied Palestinian territories.
Album review: ‘Sumus quod sumus’
Infrared Radiation Orchestra ‘Sumus Quod Sumus’ Good To Go Records facebook.com/InfraredRadiationOrchestra You can’t talk about Infrared Radiation Orchestra without mentioning Kim Draheim’s encyclopedic knowledge of roots guitar and his precise sonic application of all that know-how. He is a wizard, but Draheim ain’t a spotlight hog. On the band’s new album, “Sumus Quod Sumus,” Draheim…
Film review: ‘Hal’
Chronicling the life and career of filmmaker Hal Ashby, the lively and engaging documentary celebrates the artist behind such bona fide classics of the 1970s as “Harold and Maude,” “The Last Detail,” “Shampoo,” and “Being There.”
Interview: ‘Overhand Sam’ Snyder
Sam Snyder — commonly known as “Overhand Sam,” for his unorthodox guitar-playing style — never tries to set expectations. He just imagines that each show, in its own way, will be a great time. The multifaceted, Rochester-based musician is on a roll right now: fronting his own band Overhand Sam (OHS) and working on the…
