Hill and Hollow Music Presents

Meadowmount Free Concert 

Saturday, August 2, 7 pm

We are privileged to be host for an off-campus concert by advanced string students from the renowned Meadowmount School of Music. The young musicians are on professional career tracks, coming from points throughout the United States and from many countries around the globe. They have undergone a rigorous selection process to win the honor of attending Meadowmount’s seven-week training program in Lewis, NY, founded in 1944 by the legendary Russian violinist and Juilliard pedagogue Ivan Galamian. These kids have serious chops!

Alumni of Meadowmount have won every major competition worldwide, and are among the very best of international soloists and chamber musicians, concertmasters and principal players of the world’s leading orchestras, and distinguished artist-teachers in every major university and conservatory. Among hundreds of distinguished artists who attended the Meadowmount School in their youth are Martin Beaver, Joshua Bell, Glenn Dichterow, James Ehnes, Lynn Harrell, Soovin Kim, Nicholas Kitchen, Jaime Laredo, Yo-Yo Ma, Robert McDuffie, Peter Oundjian, Itzhak Perlman, Arnold Steinhardt, Michael Tree, Pinchas Zuckerman, Paul Zukofsky, and so on.

Free and open to the public; voluntary donations of any amount will be gratefully accepted and matched by Hill and Hollow Music up to $1000 for the Meadowmount Scholarship Fund. Home-made refreshments will be served during intermission. For further info: telephone 518-293-7613, e-mail ambrown.hillholl@gmail.com or visit Hill and Hollow Music HERE. 

Saranac Methodist Church, Route 3, Saranac

Adirondack History Museum presents

Are loons on thin ice because of climate change?

Thursday, July 31, 7 pm

Over the last two decades, the iconic Adirondack loon has experienced increasing nest failure and migration disruption. Why? Climate Change.

But how exactly is that happening and what, if anything, can we do about it?
Are Loons on Thin Ice with Climate Change?—a program on Thursday, July 31 at the Adirondack History Museum—will provide some answers, with an overview of the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation’s observations of how climate change is impacting Adirondack loons, as well as information about loon behavior and natural history. The speaker is Denise Silfee, director of Education and Communications at the Saranac Lake-based Loon Center.

Adirondack History Museum, 7590 Court St., Elizabethtown

John Brown Lives! Presents

51st Annual Essex Day

Additional details are HERE.

East Branch Friends of the Arts presents

Jake Blount 

Tuesday August 5, 7:30 pm

At 27 years old, Jake is an award-winning singer, multi-instrumentalist, and interpreter of Black folk music. Initially recognized for his skill as a string band musician, Jake has charted an unprecedented, Afrofuturist course on his pilgrimage through sound archives and song collections. In his hands, the banjo, fiddle, electric guitar and synthesizer become ceremonial objects used to channel the insurgent creativity of his forebears. Jake’s performances—like his recent Smithsonian Folkways releases, symbiont (2024) and The New Faith (2022)—seamlessly merge centuries-old traditional songs with the trappings and techniques of modern Black genres. 

Jake Blount has shared his music at venues including Carnegie Hall, Newport Folk Festival, the Library of Congress and NPR’s Tiny Desk. His knowledge and skill have deepened over the course of his still-young career, and his vision has grown more ambitious—but his music has only grown in popular appeal. Starting with his full-length debut Spider Tales (2020), each of Jake’s records has appeared on “best of year” lists from outlets including Bandcamp, The New Yorker, NPR, The Guardian, and Rolling Stone. With the Steve Martin Banjo Prize, two International Folk Music Awards nominations and two first-place ribbons from Clifftop already under his belt, Jake’s star continues to rise.

Jake Blount’s thoughtful musicianship has made him a sought-after collaborator. He has contributed to multiple recordings, opened for GRAMMY-winners Rhiannon Giddens and Molly Tuttle, and traveled the world as a member of old-time groups Tui and The Moose Whisperers. He regularly shares the stage with skilled contemporaries such as Mali Obomsawin, George Jackson and Nic Gareiss, and collaborated with the Kronos Quartet on their sold-out 50th Anniversary performance at Carnegie Hall. 

Please join EBFA in welcoming Jake Blount to our community, and take advantage of the opportunity to see and hear him in an intimate setting; it won’t be long until he’s selling out major venues around the world!

Watch Jake Blunt’s Tiny Desk Concert on NPR HERE.

Keene Valley Congregational Church, 1791 NY-73 Scenic, Keene Valley

Tannery Pond Center’s Widlund Gallery presents

Faces of Our Mosaic Mural & New Mosaics by Kate Hartley

Monday, August 4, 2025 – Saturday, September 6, 2025

Reception Friday, August 8, 5 – 7 pm.Music with local guitarist/singerDavid Hyde.

An exhibit of photos documenting many of the 2,079 people who helped to create the North Creek Mosaic Project Mural and the new mosaics it inspired by Kate Hartley, students and friends!

Kate received a 2025 Individual Artist’s Grant for the new body of mosaic pieces she’ll create.

Full details are HERE.

Tannery Pond Community Center, 228 Main Street, North Creek

The Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts presents

2025 Great Arts Benefit

August 10, 2025, 5 – 8 pm. RSVP by Tuesday, August 5, 2025.

The Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts 2025 Great Arts Benefit, will take place at our lovely, new, waterfront location! You’ll enjoy fabulous hors d’oeuvres provided by JL Catering & Moore, delicious drinks, contra dancing with Adirondack 2-Step, a Paddle Raise for our Preservation & Enhancement Fund and mingling with the great company of your fellow arts supporters. 

Please join us for this wonderful evening on Blue Mountain Lake.  Here’s to elevating the Arts in the Adirondacks!

Additional info and purchase tickets HERE.

Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts, 8897 NY-30, Blue Mountain Lake

Great Camp Sagamore presents

W.W. Durant & How the Great Camps Arose

Sunday, August 3, 2025, 7:15 - 8:30 pm

In 1850, the Adirondack region was a blank spot on the map, largely unorganized and uncharted. But, by 1900, the Adirondacks hosted elaborate summer estates for the wealthiest families in America: Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Carnegies, Whitneys and Morgans. While certainly not as lavish as their Newport cottages, Adirondack “Great Camps” such as Great Camp Sagamore still had elegant meals, fully stocked bars and dozens of staff to keep them running. The Adirondacks were a destination for escaping the city and recharging in nature, despite the dusty two-day journey. What was the genesis and what circumstances served as catalyst for this phenomenon?

This presentation by Sagamore’s historian, Dr. Connor Williams, will address these questions, and explore how environmentalism, opulence, industry, inequality, architecture and nature all intersected to produce the Adirondack Park (and the Adirondack vacations) we still connect to today.

Learn more, including how you can include dinner in your plans, and register HERE.

Also at Great Camp Sagamore

Traditional Adirondack Songs & Stories with Dan Berggren

Monday, August 4, 2025, 7:15 - 8:30 pm

Spend an evening steeped in traditional Adirondack folk music, regional history, and storytelling with Adirondack original and Sagamore’s Dean of Music, Dan Berggren.

A tradition-based songsmith, Dan Berggren writes with honesty, humor and a strong sense of place, exploring themes of home, hard work and caring for the planet and each other. Rooted in the Adirondacks, with music transcends borders, he has entertained audiences from Kentucky to Zimbabwe.

Additional details—including a dinner option—and registration HERE.

Great Camp Sagamore, 1105 Sagamore Road, Raquette Lake

In Case You Missed It

North Words: Norwood native and ESPN commentator Jenn Hildreth is “Tough as a Mother”

North Country Public Radio’s Mitch Teich chatted with author Jenn Hildreth about her new book Tough as a Mother in a recent edition of his podcast North Words. Listen in HERE at about the 9:30 mark.

Jenn is a North Country native, now based in Atlanta and an Emmy-winning ESPN broadcaster. She is the daughter of Saranac Lakes artist Sandra Hildreth and SUNY Potsdam Professor Emeritus Joe Hildreth.

Image: Jenn Hildreth and her mom, Sandra Hildreth, at a book signing at the Bookstore Plus in Lake Placid. Photo by: Mitch Teich.