Capital Region Curated: October 19-25
Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events, with novelist Garth Greenwell, architect Philip Beesley, Beethoven at Union and more.
Alan Koslow
40
mins read time
Originally published at
Substack: Capital Region Curated
Capital Region Curated, Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events.
What’s worth your time at Capital Region colleges and universities.
🏛️ 📚 🎶 🎭 🔬
LIVING ARCHITECTURE, AWARD-WINNING WRITERS, THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY & BEETHOVEN’S EROICA
Garth Greenwell at Skidmore; Philip Beesley at RPI; Sarah Rivett at UAlbany; Union’s ensembles performing Beethoven and contemporary music; and Marcus Roberts with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra. Plus UAlbany’s Research & Entrepreneurship Week, theater, exhibitions and concerts.
Novelist Garth Greenwell in a portrait by Bryan Schutmaat.
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🧭 START HERE: WHAT’S INSIDE THIS WEEK
⭐ Top Picks — Garth Greenwell; Philip Beesley; Union’s Lamentatio Herois; and Sarah Rivett.
🏛️ Ideas & Public Life — Living architecture, Black feminist teaching, democracy, entrepreneurship and scientific discovery.
📚 Books, Writers & Ideas — Award-winning fiction, Indigenous poetry, literary ravens and the hidden business of product testing.
🎭 Theater & Performance — The Drunken City, Beckett’s short plays and Stage & Stanza.
🎨 Art & Visual Culture — Anne Waldman on film, curator and student-led tours, family art-making and the McCoys’ film installations.
🎶 Music, Sound & Technology — Beethoven at Union, Ensemble Connect and UAlbany’s Orchestra and Concert Band.
🩺 Health & Community — ACPHS’s free community Health & Wellness Expo.
🌎 Regional Extension — Marcus Roberts Trio with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra.
🔥 Plan Ahead — Registration-based lectures, major jazz visitors and a music-and-dance anniversary collaboration.
📅 ADD THE COMPLETE WEEK
One calendar file adds this week’s events to Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook.
📅 ADD THE COMPLETE WEEK — GOOGLE · APPLE · OUTLOOK
For Google Calendar, download the file and import it through Settings → Import & export. Individual Google Calendar links appear with the events below.
🔐 VISITING A CAMPUS EVENT?
Some campus buildings have controlled or ID-card access, particularly during the day. If you’re attending a public event and find the doors locked, ask campus staff for assistance and explain that you’re a visitor coming for the program. Arriving a few minutes early for smaller daytime events is a good idea.
Check event pages for special registration, parking, accessibility or building-entry instructions.
💬 READER FIELD NOTES
Did you attend something listed in Capital Region Curated?
Leave a quick comment: what did you see, and would you recommend it? One sentence is enough.
⭐ TOP PICKS
📚 Garth Greenwell — 56th Annual Steloff Lecture
Skidmore · Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM
Garth Greenwell, whose novel Small Rain won the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award, returns to a campus where he spent six summers studying writing before becoming an instructor himself. His fiction examines desire, illness and intimacy through exceptionally attentive prose. The Steloff Lecture brings that literary career back to one of its formative places, with audience questions and an honorary doctorate presentation.
See 📚 Books, Writers & Ideas below.
🏗️ Philip Beesley — Metastable Aether: Systems for Living Architecture
RPI / EMPAC · Monday, October 19 · 5 PM
Architect, artist and University of Waterloo professor Philip Beesley builds installations that respond through light, sound and movement. His collaborations extend from engineering laboratories to designer Iris van Herpen’s couture. At EMPAC, he discusses “living architecture”: environments assembled from delicate structures, sensors and moving components that challenge the idea of a building as a passive container.
See 🏛️ Ideas, Public Life & Campus Conversations below.
🎶 Lamentatio Herois — Beethoven, Contemporary Voices & Union’s Ensembles
Union · Friday, October 23 · 7 PM
Union’s Schola Cantorum, Concert Choir and Philharmonic bring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica, into a program that also includes Steve Vai’s Liberty and music by contemporary choral composers. Guitarist Mark Visconti and drummer Jason Bowman join the ensembles. The combination promises a wider musical range than the title alone suggests, from Beethoven’s heroic scale to amplified instruments and modern choral writing.
See 🎶 Music, Sound & Technology below.
🪶 Sarah Rivett — Raven’s Flight through American Literature
UAlbany · Tuesday, October 20 · 6 PM
Sarah Rivett, Princeton’s Murray Professor of English Literature, follows the raven through Indigenous traditions and American writing. Her books have already challenged conventional accounts of colonial knowledge and the origins of American literature. This lecture draws on that scholarship to place a familiar literary bird within a much larger history of stories, languages and encounters.
See 📚 Books, Writers & Ideas below.
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🏛️ IDEAS, PUBLIC LIFE & CAMPUS CONVERSATIONS
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🏗️ Philip Beesley — Metastable Aether: Systems for Living Architecture
Philip Beesley works across architecture, visual art and engineering. A professor at the University of Waterloo and director of the Living Architecture Systems Group, he leads collaborations that bring together designers, researchers and fabricators. His longstanding work with fashion designer Iris van Herpen also places his experiments on the scale of the human body, where materials must respond to movement.
His installations often resemble intricate suspended landscapes: lightweight components assembled into environments containing sensors, actuators, sound and light. These elements allow a structure to register activity around it and respond. The technical work is inseparable from an artistic question—how does it feel to enter a space that appears to notice your presence?
Metastable Aether: Systems for Living Architecture, presented as RPI’s Lee Harris Pomeroy ’55 Lecture, introduces that practice. Beesley’s studio moves between public buildings, immersive installations and experimental materials, making the talk relevant to readers interested in architecture, interactive art, engineering or speculative ideas about the environments we may someday inhabit.
**📅 Monday, October 19 · 5 PM
📍 EMPAC Theater · 50 Eighth Street, Troy
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🌌 Aiesha Turman — What Are We Teaching Toward?
Aiesha Turman is an educator, writer and filmmaker whose scholarship connects Black cultural memory with speculative futures. She teaches in UAlbany’s Writing & Critical Inquiry Program and previously taught English and Africana Studies at several CUNY and SUNY institutions. Her documentary The Black Girl Project became the foundation for a decade-long social-action initiative.
Her dissertation, There’s Always Been an Afrofuture: Black Women’s Literature as Technology of Protest, examines the Black feminist literary roots of Afrofuturism. That background matters to this lecture: Turman approaches imagined futures through the histories, writing and lived experiences of Black women, rather than treating Afrofuturism simply as a visual style or a category of science fiction. Her research also considers how trauma shapes individual and collective memory.
In What Are We Teaching Toward? Black Feminist Pedagogy, Afrofuturism, and the Work of Possibility in Troubled Times, those interests meet the classroom. The question is about the ends of education—what students are being prepared to recognize, challenge and imagine. Teachers, readers of speculative fiction and anyone interested in the relationship between cultural history and education have a concrete reason to hear her.
**📅 Monday, October 19 · 3–4:30 PM
📍 Humanities Building, Room 354 · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Free and open to the public; an online option is also listed**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🔬 University at Albany Research & Entrepreneurship Week
UAlbany’s Research & Entrepreneurship Week brings scientists, scholars, entrepreneurs, journalists and community leaders together around a practical question: how does university work become useful beyond the university? Now in its fourth year, the program combines research presentations with discussions about communicating discoveries, building businesses and working with the communities affected by that research.
Monday — Innovation & Entrepreneurship
The week begins with Anna Topol, a former IBM Research chief technology officer who now leads quantum-technology startup QLITHIC. Her keynote examines the transition from corporate leadership to entrepreneurship. Former Wall Street Journal reporter Anne Marie Chaker follows with a workshop on explaining complex ideas to collaborators, customers and investors. RISE Demo Day gives research teams an opportunity to present the commercial potential of their innovations.
Tuesday — Research’s Public Impact
UAlbany President Havidán Rodríguez joins Angela Bednarek of The Pew Charitable Trusts to discuss research’s public value. A journalism panel addresses how findings reach readers and viewers. Afternoon conversations include university-community partnerships, Capitalize Albany President Ashley Mohl on the city’s revitalization, and collaborations involving Albany schools, mental-health services and local government.
Wednesday — Health Communication & Pathbreaking Research
Harvard’s K. “Vish” Viswanath speaks about communication, equity and wellbeing. UAlbany researchers Robert Rosenswig, Shawn Bushway, Dola Saha and Xin Li then present work spanning anthropology, public policy, wireless communication and computer science. The range is part of the attraction: the program places questions about human societies and public institutions alongside technological research.
Thursday & Friday — Albany Nanotechnology Symposium
The final two days feature the symposium described below. Its concentrated technical program warrants a closer look, while the whole-week program lets readers choose sessions that match their interests without committing to five full days.
**📅 Monday, October 19–Friday, October 23
🕒 Monday: 9 AM–8 PM listed; Tuesday: 8:30 AM–4:45 PM; Wednesday: 9 AM–5 PM listed. Consult the program for individual sessions.
📍 ETEC, Rooms 149/151 · 1220 Washington Avenue, Albany
📍 Wednesday: Campus Center Ballroom, CC 202 · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Monday–Wednesday programs are free, with daily registration. The symposium has separate registration.**
Full Week’s Program & Registration
Add individual Research Week sessions to your calendar
Monday, October 19
9 AM — Opening & Anna Topol keynote: Google · Apple/Outlook
10:15 AM — Anne Marie Chaker: Google · Apple/Outlook
5 PM — RISE Demo Day: Google · Apple/Outlook
Tuesday, October 20
9:10 AM — President’s Fireside Chat: Google · Apple/Outlook
10:10 AM — Public Impact, Plainly Told: Google · Apple/Outlook
11 AM — Faculty Lightning Talks: Google · Apple/Outlook
1 PM — Rooted in Place: Google · Apple/Outlook
2 PM — Albany’s Next Chapter: Google · Apple/Outlook
2:45 PM — Better Together: Google · Apple/Outlook
3:35 PM — Facing New York’s Challenges Together: Google · Apple/Outlook
Wednesday, October 21
9:10 AM — K. “Vish” Viswanath: Google · Apple/Outlook
10:10 AM — Pathbreaking Research Talks: Google · Apple/Outlook
11:30 AM — Vanguard Roundtable: Google · Apple/Outlook
Thursday and Friday’s symposium calendar links appear with its listing below.
🚀 Ajit Prabhu — From an RPI Startup to a Global Engineering Company
Ajit Prabhu co-founded Quest Global in 1997 while studying at RPI. Nearly three decades later, the company operates in more than twenty countries, with 104 delivery centers and more than 23,000 employees, according to RPI’s announcement. Its engineers work across aerospace, automotive manufacturing, energy, medical technology, rail and semiconductors—industries in which a design has to function reliably outside the drawing board.
That growth is why RPI’s Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship has selected Prabhu for the William F. Glaser ’53 Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Established in 1990, the award recognizes alumni whose business careers can provide substantive lessons for new entrepreneurs. Prabhu’s story offers a useful case: building an engineering-services company requires technical credibility, clients willing to trust a young business and the ability to organize teams across countries and specialties.
The public celebration begins with a fireside conversation with President Marty Schmidt, followed by a startup pitch competition and faculty-student poster presentations. Readers can hear an established founder discuss his experience, then see ideas at an earlier stage of development. For engineers, business owners and anyone curious about how a technically skilled team becomes a durable company, the afternoon has more substance than an award ceremony alone.
**📅 Wednesday, October 21 · Begins at 1 PM; full program concludes at 5:30 PM
🕒 Fireside conversation and awards: 1 PM; pitch competition: 2:30 PM; posters and networking: 3:30 PM; pitch and poster awards: 4:30 PM
📍 EMPAC Theater and Evelyn’s Café · 50 Eighth Street, Troy
🎟️ Free and open to the public; RSVP requested**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🏛️ Danielle Allen — America at 250: The Declaration’s Unfinished Promise
Danielle Allen is a political philosopher whose work asks how people acquire meaningful power in a democracy. Harvard’s James Bryant Conant University Professor, she directs the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation and the Democratic Knowledge Project. Those projects address electoral institutions, civic education and the practical conditions that allow citizens to participate.
Her book Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality gives this lecture a particular foundation. Allen has closely examined the Declaration as an argument about equality, rather than merely a familiar collection of quotations. Her later Justice by Means of Democracy connects political equality with the institutions and relationships through which people govern together.
At Skidmore’s 11th Kuroda Symposium Lecture, America at 250: The Declaration’s Unfinished Promise brings that scholarship to the anniversary of independence. The subject is the continuing work implied by the founding document: who has been able to exercise its promised equality, how exclusions persist and what democratic participation requires. Allen brings both historical interpretation and experience with contemporary civic reform, giving readers a reason to expect a discussion more specific than a ceremonial anniversary address.
**📅 Friday, October 23 · 5 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Wachenheim Gallery · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Researchers in protective clothing examine equipment used in nanoscale research.
⚛️ Albany Nanotechnology Symposium — Measuring the Chips Behind the AI Era
The Albany Nanotechnology Symposium brings more than two dozen speakers to ETEC for two days devoted to semiconductor, quantum and photonic technologies. This year’s emphasis is metrology: measuring the extraordinarily small features that determine whether a chip can be manufactured accurately and perform as intended. That problem becomes more demanding as devices shrink and computing workloads grow.
On the first day, Daniel Schmidt, chief technology officer at Laser Thermal, delivers Keeping the AI Era Cool: Thermal Metrology for Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing. The subject connects an everyday concern—heat—with the engineering of advanced chips. AI workloads place heavy demands on computing hardware; understanding where heat travels and accumulates is part of making that hardware reliable.
UAlbany’s preview also identifies talks about AI-assisted materials discovery and semiconductor production. Featured participants include Damon Tsai of Applied Materials and David Palsulich of Micron, alongside speakers from IBM, GlobalFoundries, RPI, New York University and UAlbany. The combination brings manufacturing problems and academic investigations into the same room.
The second day includes a metrology workshop marking forty years of Atomic Force Microscopy. The technique made it possible to examine and measure surfaces at extraordinarily small scales. Its anniversary provides a reason to consider how measurement tools change what scientists can discover and what engineers can build.
The symposium also explains something important about Albany’s semiconductor research: universities and companies here work within a connected research and manufacturing community. Shared facilities, specialized measurement tools and exchanges among academic and industrial researchers help turn discoveries into processes that can be used in production. The two-day program offers a close view of that collaboration and the problems now driving it. UAlbany’s symposium preview
**📅 Thursday–Friday, October 22–23
📍 ETEC · 1220 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Registration listed at $50 general / $10 students. Pre-registration deadline: October 12, now passed.**
Details & Registration Information
📅 October 22: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
📅 October 23: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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📚 BOOKS, WRITERS & IDEAS
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📚 Garth Greenwell — 56th Annual Steloff Lecture
Garth Greenwell has a substantial history with Skidmore: he attended its New York State Summer Writers Institute for six years and later returned to teach fiction. Now Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University, he comes back as the Steloff honoree, following a career that includes three novels, literary criticism and recognition for the quality of his prose.
His debut, What Belongs to You, received the British Book Award for Debut of the Year. Cleanness continued his exploration of desire and relationships, while Small Rain, winner of the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award, centers on a medical crisis. Its hospital setting brings physical vulnerability into contact with memory, love and the art that sustains a life.
Greenwell is worth hearing for the relationship between his subjects and his sentences: his fiction gives extended attention to experiences that people often struggle to describe. The lecture, audience questions and honorary doctorate presentation offer an encounter with a writer whose development is directly connected to this campus. Readers can arrive through his novels, his essays or an interest in how writing turns private experience into literature.
**📅 Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Payne Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
Details · About the Steloff Lecture
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Literary scholar Sarah Rivett in her Princeton faculty portrait.
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🪶 Sarah Rivett — Raven’s Flight through American Literature
Sarah Rivett studies the places where Indigenous histories, colonial knowledge and American literature meet. Princeton’s Murray Professor of English Literature and a professor of English and American Studies, she is the author of The Science of the Soul in Colonial New England and Unscripted America: Indigenous Languages and the Origins of a Literary Nation.
Her current book project, Raven’s Land: Indigenous Literature and the American Canon, provides the background for this lecture. The raven appears across traditions, but a reader whose first association is Poe may overlook its significance in Indigenous stories. Rivett’s work asks how those traditions intersect with the writing that has come to define American literature.
Raven’s Flight through American Literature offers a specific route into that larger question. Following a recurring figure allows listeners to compare stories, notice differences and reconsider which sources receive attention in literary history. For readers interested in American literature, Indigenous studies or the movement of stories across cultures, this is a chance to hear the research behind an evolving account of the canon.
**📅 Tuesday, October 20 · 6–7 PM
📍 Science Library, Standish Room, third floor · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
✍️ m.s. RedCherries — mother, Adoption & Reconnection
Poet m.s. RedCherries, a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, won an American Book Award and became a National Book Award finalist with her debut collection, mother. Those honors introduced a writer whose work uses poetry to carry a sustained story, crossing the usual boundary between lyric collection and fiction.
The book follows a young Native American adopted by white parents as she reconnects with her tribe, family, culture and ancestral land. Its subject is therefore more specific than a general search for identity: it considers what separation from community means and how belonging can be recovered through relationships, stories and place.
The Writers Institute appearance brings the author’s voice to a work in which inheritance is both personal and communal. Readers interested in contemporary poetry, adoption, Indigenous writing or stories of return have a strong point of entry. The program is co-sponsored by several UAlbany writing and academic programs, placing the book within a broader campus conversation about literature.
**📅 Tuesday, October 20 · 4:30 PM
📍 Campus Center Multipurpose Room · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🐻 Alex Davies — Chicken Cannons, Problem Bears & Breaking Things on Purpose
Alex Davies has reported for and led editorial teams at Wired, The Athletic and Business Insider. His earlier book, Driven, examined the race to develop autonomous cars. His new Kobuk the Destroyer follows another group of people whose work affects our daily lives but rarely receives much attention: test engineers.
Their job requires them to anticipate what users, weather, animals, impacts and accidents might do to a product. Davies’s examples include a cannon that fires birds into jet engines and a grizzly bear employed to test equipment. The memorable situations reveal a serious process: someone has to devise a test, decide what counts as passing and determine how closely the test resembles the world outside.
His HVCC lecture uses those stories to examine how safety is established through human judgment as well as measurement. It is especially well suited to readers who enjoy reported science writing, engineering history or an account of unfamiliar work told through the people doing it.
**📅 Tuesday, October 20 · Noon–1 PM
🎟️ Public VOICES library lecture**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🎭 THEATER & PERFORMANCE
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🍸 The Drunken City — A Celebration Goes Off Course
Three young women head into the city for a bachelorette celebration, expecting a night that confirms the future already planned for them. A chance encounter instead sends the bride-to-be off with a stranger, leaving her friends to confront both an immediate crisis and uncomfortable questions about their own expectations.
Adam Bock’s comedy makes that night out a test of friendship, commitment and self-knowledge. The premise provides plenty of room for panic and humor, but its emotional stakes come from the difference between choosing a life and continuing toward one because everyone assumes it is settled.
UAlbany’s production is directed by Desirée Chappelle Streeter in the Arena Theatre. The play’s search for the missing bride-to-be keeps its questions about love and independence grounded in the action of one increasingly chaotic night. Six performances include Friday and weekend matinees as well as evening shows.
**📅 Wednesday, October 21 · 8 PM
📅 Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM
📅 Friday, October 23 · 3 PM
📅 Saturday, October 24 · 2 PM and 8 PM
📅 Sunday, October 25 · 4 PM
📍 Arena Theatre, Performing Arts Center · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Advance: $20 general / $15 students, seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff. Day of show: $25 / $20.**
Details & Performance-Specific Tickets
Add a performance to your calendar
Wednesday, October 21 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Friday, October 23 · 3 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Saturday, October 24 · 2 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Saturday, October 24 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Sunday, October 25 · 4 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
🎭 BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain
Samuel Beckett’s shorter plays can build a theatrical world from remarkably little: a repeated movement, a voice, an object or the arrangement of bodies in space. Skidmore’s BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain brings together Act Without Words I & II, Rough for Theatre I & II, Quad, What Where and Rockaby.
Directed by Jared Klein, the production emphasizes the relationship between text and design. Beckett’s precise instructions make movement, lighting and space part of the dramatic argument; they do not merely illustrate dialogue. A program of several short works lets audiences see how differently he uses those elements.
For readers who know Beckett primarily through Waiting for Godot, this is a way to encounter the variety of his theater. The collection offers physical comedy, unsettling repetition and concentrated images of human dependence and persistence.
**📅 October 23–28 · Evening performances 8–10 PM; Sunday, October 25, 2–4 PM
📍 Skidmore Theater, Janet Kinghorn Bernhard Theater Building · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ $6.53 students / $11.83 non-students**
Add this week’s performances to your calendar
Friday, October 23 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Saturday, October 24 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
🎙️ Stage & Stanza — Robin Lewis & Jeffery Torres
Opalka’s October Stage & Stanza brings together Robin Lewis, a Broadway and touring performer, and Jeffery Torres, a poet and playwright now based in the Capital Region. Poet Carol Durant and Theatre Institute at Sage’s David Baecker host the conversation.
Lewis’s credits include Fosse, Beauty and the Beast and Victor/Victoria, along with the first national tour of The Producers. His choreography also appeared in Richard Linklater’s film Bernie. Now teaching at Russell Sage, he brings experience of the demands of professional performance and an interest in preparing younger artists for both the craft and pressures of that work.
Torres’s writing has appeared in local poetry programs, and his play Wild Rice (We Are Cherokee) was performed in the 2026 Activated Artist Fest. Lewis brings the experience of major productions and professional touring; Torres brings poetry, playwriting and participation in the region’s emerging arts communities. Their conversation connects two different routes into a creative life.
**📅 Thursday, October 22 · 6:30–7:30 PM
📍 Opalka Gallery · Russell Sage College · 140 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Consult the official program page for attendance information**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🎨 ART & VISUAL CULTURE
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🎬 Outrider — Anne Waldman’s Life in Poetry
Poet, performer and activist Anne Waldman is the subject of Alystyre Julian’s Outrider, a feature-length film that approaches poetry as a performed and collaborative art. Its artistic circle includes Patti Smith, Meredith Monk, Bob Dylan, Laurie Anderson and Thurston Moore, showing the connections surrounding Waldman’s work.
Julian is herself a poet and filmmaker, with experience in documentary projects, film photography and writing instruction. Her portrait follows an artist whose presence and delivery are integral to the work. For viewers, that means encountering poetry through voice, movement and relationships as well as words.
Skidmore professors Ben Bogin and Maggie Greaves, who teach “Buddhism and Poetry,” introduce the screening. It also precedes Waldman’s October 29 public reading at the Tang, featured in Plan Ahead. The film can stand on its own as an encounter with an influential literary performer or provide background for hearing her in person.
**📅 Wednesday, October 21 · 6 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Somers Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🖼️ Curator’s Tour — A Feeling of With
Rachel Seligman, the Tang’s Malloy Curator and assistant director for curatorial affairs, leads a tour of an exhibition developed with faculty from several disciplines. A Feeling of With uses the museum’s collection to examine relationships through language, nature, mathematics and religion.
Its three parts give that broad idea concrete forms. Behind, Below, Within considers how language and bodily experience organize space. Human Nature examines our place in—and distance from—the natural world. The Forms of Things Unknown explores how pattern, numbers and geometry become ways of representing the sacred.
A curator’s tour is useful here because the exhibition’s organizing choices are part of its meaning. Seligman can connect objects with the questions that brought them together. Visitors can then continue through the galleries independently, testing those connections against what they see.
**📅 Thursday, October 22 · Noon
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Atrium · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
Tour Details · About the Exhibition
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🎨 Family Saturday — Looking, Discussing & Making Art Together
The Tang’s Family Saturday combines a visit to selected artworks with a hands-on art-making activity. Children and their adult companions look together, discuss what they notice and use that encounter as a starting point for making something themselves.
The program is designed for multigenerational participation: adults and children work through the same encounter with art rather than separating into a children’s workshop and an adult museum visit. The afternoon includes a tour of selected works and time for making.
The October 24 project has not been specified on the event page, but the format and access details are clear. Children ages five and older are welcome with an adult, supplies are provided while available, and no registration is required.
**📅 Saturday, October 24 · 2–3:30 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Payne Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free; ages 5+ with an adult; no registration; supplies first-come, first-served**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🖼️ Tang Guide Tour — A Student’s Route Through the Museum
Tang Guides are trained gallery ambassadors, many of them Skidmore students. Their Sunday tours introduce the museum and its current exhibitions while giving visitors an opportunity to ask questions and discuss what they encounter.
This week’s museum offers several different subjects to explore, from the relationships examined in A Feeling of With to Mark Thomas Gibson’s engagement with American history and citizenship. A guide provides a manageable route through a museum whose exhibitions can otherwise pull visitors in several directions.
The tour is particularly useful for a first visit, but returning visitors may find value in another person’s selection of details. Visitors are welcome to remain afterward and spend more time with the works that interest them.
**📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Atrium · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Sheep graze across a green landscape in a still from Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s film Quitter.
🎞️ Final Week — The Films of Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy earned their MFAs at RPI before developing an internationally exhibited practice in film, video and digital media. HVCC’s Teaching Gallery now brings together three cinematic installations—Broker, Cleaner and Quitter—that form a sequence begun in 2016.
The exhibition includes the first installation of Quitter, a 2025 experimental video featuring artist Eve Sussman and music by Lori Scacco. Its central question asks what life might look like without “lifestyle”: how a person might break with the habits, images and expectations that make contemporary life appear already organized.
Seeing the three works together allows viewers to follow the artists’ inquiry across several years rather than encounter one isolated film. October 24 is the final day, making this the week to visit if the exhibition has been on your list. The gallery is free, and its Wednesday evening hours provide an alternative to a daytime outing.
**📅 On view through Saturday, October 24
🕒 Tuesday, Thursday and Friday · 10 AM–4 PM; Wednesday · Noon–7 PM; Saturday · Noon–4 PM
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
🌼 Día de Muertos — A Conversation & Altar Exhibition
Professor Malú Benton discusses Mexican Day of the Dead traditions at HVCC, where an altar exhibition is also on view in the Marvin Library Learning Commons. The pairing allows visitors to encounter the tradition through both a conversation and a physical display.
Altars honor departed loved ones and ancestors through carefully chosen objects and decorations. The exhibition’s visual richness is therefore connected to remembrance: it makes relationships with those who have died visible within a shared cultural practice.
Tuesday’s discussion provides context for visitors who know the holiday chiefly through its imagery. Readers can attend the talk and visit the altar, or see the exhibition separately during library access hours through October 30.
**📅 Discussion: Tuesday, October 20 · 1 PM
📅 Altar exhibition: On view through Friday, October 30
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
Discussion Details · Exhibition Details
📅 Discussion: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🖼️ Light & Transient Causes — Whose Grievances Count?
Opalka’s exhibition takes its title from the Declaration of Independence’s caution against changing governments for “light and transient causes.” Curator Marisa Espe uses that phrase to consider a harder question: who decides that another person’s grievance is minor enough to ignore or temporary enough to postpone?
The ten participating artists include Deborah Dancy, Sky Hopinka, Wendy Red Star, Alisa Sikelianos-Carter and Jean-Marc Superville Sovak. Placing their work within the Declaration’s anniversary year turns the familiar document into a starting point for considering unequal experiences and judgments.
This gives the exhibition a clear relationship to the week’s public-life conversations, including Danielle Allen’s lecture. Visitors attending Stage & Stanza can spend time in the gallery beforehand, while a separate visit allows a slower encounter with the artists’ responses to the exhibition’s premise.
**📅 On view through December 5
🕒 Tuesday–Saturday · Noon–5 PM; Thursday until 8 PM; Monday by appointment
📍 Opalka Gallery · Russell Sage College · 140 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Free**
Exhibition Details · Visitor Information
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🎶 MUSIC, SOUND & TECHNOLOGY
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🎶 Lamentatio Herois — Beethoven’s Eroica & a Broader Musical Conversation
Union’s Schola Cantorum, Concert Choir and Philharmonic share a program featuring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica. The symphony’s scale, dramatic contrasts and famous funeral-march movement give the evening a substantial orchestral foundation.
The program also includes Steve Vai’s Liberty and music by Narverud, Whitacre, Lim, Thompson, Cho, Gjeilo and Davison. Guitarist Mark Visconti and drummer Jason Bowman appear as soloists. Those names and instruments suggest the breadth of the concert more clearly than a general description of “campus ensembles”: the evening brings orchestral, choral and amplified sounds together.
For listeners, the appeal lies in hearing those different musical languages within a single program. Memorial Chapel provides the setting, while the combined ensembles make this a substantial presentation of Union’s student music-making. Suggested donations support the ensembles directly.
**📅 Friday, October 23 · 7 PM
📍 Memorial Chapel · Union College · 807 Union Street, Schenectady
🎟️ Tickets at the door. Suggested donations: $15 general / $10 Union faculty, staff and alumni / $5 students, seniors and children under 12.**
Concert Program · Admission Information
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🎻 Ensemble Connect — Ligeti, Loeffler, Kodály & Bartók
Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect returns to Skidmore with a program built around unusual instrumental combinations. Ligeti’s Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano, Loeffler’s Two Rhapsodies and Kodály’s Serenade offer contrasting ways of balancing individual voices within a small ensemble.
Bartók’s Contrasts supplies a particularly interesting connection between concert music and jazz. Written in response to requests from clarinetist Benny Goodman and violinist Joseph Szigeti, it brings clarinet, violin and piano into a work whose very title directs attention to differences in character and sound.
The program gives audiences specific things to listen for: the horn alongside violin and piano in Ligeti, the shifting colors of Loeffler’s writing and the interplay in Bartók’s trio. Ensemble Connect’s residency makes this a free opportunity to hear an adventurous professional chamber program in Zankel’s concert hall.
**📅 Friday, October 23 · 7:30 PM
🎟️ Free; advance ticket registration required**
Program Details · Register for Free Tickets
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Two musicians perform together onstage.
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🎺 University Orchestra & Concert Band
UAlbany’s University Orchestra and Concert Band share a Sunday-afternoon concert in the Performing Arts Center’s Main Theatre. The program brings two of the university’s large student ensembles together in one performance.
The repertoire has not been announced on the official event page. The confirmed attraction is the shared concert itself: an opportunity to hear the work of both ensembles, with advance admission ranging from $3 for students to $10 for the general public.
The Sunday afternoon performance offers a straightforward campus music outing for families, students and readers who follow local ensemble concerts.
**📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM
📍 Main Theatre, Performing Arts Center · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Advance: $10 general / $6 seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff / $3 students. Day of show: $15 / $11 / $8.**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🩺 HEALTH & COMMUNITY
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🩺 ACPHS Health & Wellness Expo
The American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists at Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences brings its annual Health & Wellness Expo to Crossgates Mall. The location makes the program accessible to people who may not otherwise visit a campus health event.
The announced services include blood-pressure screening, a flu-shot clinic and bone-density screening, along with additional health information. Students take part through their professional organization, giving visitors an opportunity to meet future pharmacists engaged in community-facing work.
The value is practical: several services and conversations are gathered in one free afternoon program. Readers can stop by while visiting the mall or make a dedicated trip to learn what is offered. The official page provides the event’s service overview.
**📅 Saturday, October 24 · Noon–3 PM
📍 Crossgates Mall · 1 Crossgates Mall Road, Albany
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🌎 REGIONAL EXTENSION PICK — BARD COLLEGE
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🎹 Marcus Roberts Trio with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra
Marcus Roberts established his national reputation through six years touring and recording with Wynton Marsalis, then developed a career as a pianist, composer and bandleader. His work connects jazz traditions with orchestral music, and his approach to the trio gives each musician an active role in shaping tempo, texture and direction.
At Bard, the Marcus Roberts Trio joins the Conservatory Orchestra for James P. Johnson’s Yamecraw. Johnson was a central figure in Harlem stride piano, and this collaboration brings his music into an orchestral setting without losing the significance of the jazz musicians at its center. Roberts’s experience moving between improvising ensembles and symphony orchestras makes him particularly suited to that meeting.
The surrounding program includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 and Elgar’s Symphony No. 1. Those substantial orchestral works frame the jazz-classical collaboration, giving listeners a full concert rather than a brief guest appearance. Roberts’s participation is the reason this program earns a Regional Extension Pick: a nationally significant musician brings a distinctive artistic practice to a public campus performance. Bard faculty profile
**📅 Saturday, October 24 · 7 PM
📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM
📍 Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater · Bard College · 60 Manor Avenue, Annandale-on-Hudson
🎟️ $10–$26.50, depending on seating location**
📅 Saturday, October 24 · 7 PM: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🔥 3-WEEK PLAN AHEAD — OCTOBER 26–NOVEMBER 15
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⚖️ Richard Rifkin Memorial Lecture — Public Service & the Work of Government
Richard Rifkin spent more than four decades in New York public service, including roles as deputy attorney general, executive director of the State Ethics Commission and special counsel to a governor. As legal director of Albany Law’s Government Law Center, he continued advising on problems facing state and local governments until his death in 2024.
This memorial program includes remarks from former New York Attorney General Robert Abrams, placing Rifkin’s career within the institutions and public-law questions he helped address. Registration is available now for the lecture and reception, making this a program readers can reserve ahead of the event week.
**📅 Monday, October 26 · Lecture 6–7:30 PM; reception follows
📍 Dean Alexander Moot Court Room, Room 421 · Albany Law School’s 1928 Building · 80 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Registration requested; consult the event page for arrangements**
✍️ Anne Waldman — Dharma Gaze
Anne Waldman’s career encompasses more than seventy volumes of poetry, poetics and anthologies, as well as performance, recordings and the creation of literary communities. A co-founder of Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, she has helped shape a tradition in which poetry is an embodied, collaborative and public art.
Her Tang reading offers a direct encounter with that performance practice. The October 21 screening of Outrider, featured in this issue, gives readers a chance to explore her artistic life first, then hear her poetry in person the following week. That connection makes the advance notice useful: the two programs form a fuller encounter than either alone.
**📅 Thursday, October 29 · 6 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Payne Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
A portrait of saxophonist Ernie Watts.
🎷 Ernie Watts Quartet
Ernie Watts’s career includes two Grammy Awards, work with Charlie Haden’s Quartet West and extensive recordings across jazz, film and popular music. His quartet brings that history into a setting centered on improvisation, with Marc Seales on piano, Bruce Lett on bass and Bob Leatherbarrow on drums.
A Place for Jazz presents the group for one local concert, with advance tickets already available. The attraction is the opportunity to hear a major saxophonist with musicians who have developed a sustained musical relationship, giving the quartet room to move beyond the demands of studio and supporting work.
**📅 Friday, October 30 · 7 PM
📍 Carl B. Taylor Auditorium · SUNY Schenectady · 78 Washington Avenue, Schenectady
🎟️ $25 general; students with ID $10 at the door**
⚖️ Dorothy Roberts — The Mixed Marriage Project
Dorothy Roberts, the University of Pennsylvania’s George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology, has reshaped debates about race, reproductive justice and child welfare through books including Killing the Black Body, Fatal Invention and Torn Apart. Her scholarship examines how institutions make racial categories consequential in people’s lives.
At Albany Law’s 12th Katheryn D. Katz ’70 Memorial Lecture, she turns to The Mixed Marriage Project: Lessons from the History of Interracial Marriage on Race, Love, and Law. The appearance connects her newest book with the lecture series’ longstanding attention to family law and inequality. Registration is open, and early notice gives readers time to explore the book before hearing Roberts discuss its questions.
**📅 Wednesday, November 4 · 5:30 PM; reception follows
📍 Dean Alexander Moot Court Room · Albany Law School · 80 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Registration available for in-person attendance; an online option is also offered**
🎻 Capital Duo & Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company — Anniversaries in Music & Movement
Pianist Duncan Cumming and violinist Hilary Cumming mark thirty years of performing together as Capital Duo, while Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company concludes its thirty-fifth anniversary year. Their joint program brings live chamber music and contemporary dance together through artists with long connections to the Capital Region.
The evening includes a premiere set to music by Icelandic composer María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, a return to a 2018 collaboration, musical interludes by Bartók and Smetana, and Gershwin in music and movement. This is a single ticketed anniversary performance, with advance sales available—a specific collaboration worth reserving rather than a routine concert date. UAlbany ticket page
**📅 Saturday, November 7 · 7:30 PM
📍 Main Theatre, Performing Arts Center · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Ticket page lists a $16 base admission; eligible price categories appear during selection**
A portrait of jazz flutist Ali Ryerson.
🎷 Ali Ryerson Quartet
Ali Ryerson has built an international career as a jazz flutist, with appearances at major concert halls, clubs and festivals. Her recordings and Jazz Flute Big Band work have helped demonstrate the instrument’s possibilities beyond its more familiar orchestral role. Her quartet includes Larry Ham on piano, Lou Pappas on bass and Tom Melito on drums.
This is the final concert in A Place for Jazz’s announced fall series, with advance tickets available. Ryerson’s flute gives the series a different instrumental voice for its conclusion, making the evening particularly appealing to readers interested in the range of sounds a small jazz group can produce.
**📅 Friday, November 13 · 7 PM
📍 Carl B. Taylor Auditorium · SUNY Schenectady · 78 Washington Avenue, Schenectady
🎟️ $25 general; students with ID $10 at the door**
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🔭 LONG-RANGE EARLY WARNING — NOVEMBER 16–FEBRUARY 15
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🏠 A Doll’s House — UAlbany
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House begins within a household whose apparent stability depends on expectations about marriage, money and a wife’s responsibilities. As Nora’s concealed actions become known, the play turns those expectations into a conflict over dignity and independence.
UAlbany presents the play in a new version by Amy Herzog, directed by visiting assistant professor of acting Kea Trevett in her university directing debut. That combination brings a contemporary playwright’s treatment of Ibsen to a new director’s interpretation of Nora’s carefully constructed world.
The five-day run offers a concentrated opportunity to encounter a drama whose arguments remain unsettled. Readers familiar with the original can consider what a new version brings forward; newcomers can experience the choices that have made Nora’s story a continuing subject of debate.
November 18–22 · UAlbany Performing Arts Center
Theater director Sara Lyons in Skidmore’s faculty portrait.
🎭 This Emancipation Thing — Skidmore
Director Sara Lyons works with queer and feminist theatrical forms, adaptation and archival material. Their work has appeared at venues including REDCAT, The Kitchen and La MaMa. This Emancipation Thing brings that practice to Skidmore through a participatory performance led by theater students.
The production revisits feminist consciousness-raising, placing historical material beside contemporary experiences of identity, bodies and freedom. Rather than asking an audience only to watch a story unfold, it invites people to listen and consider whether they want to take part in a shared conversation.
Its unusual format deserves an introduction before the production opens. The performance asks audiences to engage with an archive as something that can be questioned and activated in the present, making it a distinctive option for readers interested in theater, feminist history and public conversation.
**November 20–December 5 · Skidmore’s Black Box Theater
Ticket information forthcoming**
📖 Little Women: The Musical — Theatre Institute at Sage
Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters bring different ambitions to the same household. Little Women: The Musical places those ambitions in songs and scenes about family loyalty, creative work, romance and the difficulty of growing into a life of one’s own.
Russell Sage’s production is directed by Michael Musial, with a book by Allan Knee, music by Jason Howland and lyrics by Mindi Dickstein. It offers a musical version of a story many readers know through the novel or its film adaptations.
Tickets are already listed for the December run. For readers considering a family or group theater outing, this is an opportunity to choose a performance of an established literary adaptation while the presenting theater’s season is available for advance planning.
**December 2–10 · Schacht Fine Arts Center, Troy
Tickets listed at $15**
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🎭 FUTURE THEATER ON CAMPUS — OCTOBER 26–APRIL 25
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These are advance production dates. Check the presenting theater for individual performances, ticket availability and schedule changes.
DatesProductionCampusDetailsThrough October 28BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain — begins October 23SkidmoreDetailsOctober 30–November 8GreaseRussell Sage / Theatre Institute at SageDetails & TicketsNovember 12–21RentSienaDetailsNovember 18–22A Doll’s HouseUAlbanySeason DetailsNovember 20–December 5This Emancipation ThingSkidmoreDetailsDecember 2–10Little Women: The MusicalRussell Sage / Theatre Institute at SageSeason & TicketsFebruary 24–March 3ClueRussell Sage / Theatre Institute at SageSeason & TicketsMarch 3–7UAlbany Theatre musical — title forthcomingUAlbanySeason DetailsApril 8–17The Country WifeSienaDetailsApril 14–17FRESH ACTS: A Festival of New PlaysUAlbanySeason Details
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📅 BY DAY CALENDAR
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Monday, October 19
9–10 AM — Research Week opening program and Anna Topol keynote · UAlbany / ETEC
10:15–11:30 AM — Anne Marie Chaker: Storytelling and Messaging for Innovators · UAlbany / ETEC
3–4:30 PM — Aiesha Turman: What Are We Teaching Toward? · UAlbany
5 PM — Philip Beesley: Metastable Aether · RPI / EMPAC
5–6:30 PM — RISE Demo Day · UAlbany / ETEC
Tuesday, October 20
9:10–9:55 AM — President’s Fireside Chat: From Research to Real-World Impact · UAlbany / ETEC
10:10–11 AM — Public Impact, Plainly Told · UAlbany / ETEC
11 AM — Faculty Lightning Talks · UAlbany / ETEC
Noon–1 PM — Alex Davies: Chicken Cannons, Problem Bears & Test Engineering · HVCC
1 PM — Día de los Muertos Discussion with Malú Benton · HVCC
1–1:50 PM — Rooted in Place: University-Community Partnerships · UAlbany / ETEC
2–2:30 PM — Albany’s Next Chapter: Revitalization and UAlbany · UAlbany / ETEC
2:45–3:30 PM — Better Together: Partnership that Creates Impact · UAlbany / ETEC
3:35–4:30 PM — Facing New York’s Challenges Together · UAlbany / ETEC
4:30 PM — m.s. RedCherries · UAlbany
6–7 PM — Sarah Rivett: Raven’s Flight through American Literature · UAlbany
Wednesday, October 21
9:10–10 AM — K. “Vish” Viswanath: Communication, Equity & Wellbeing · UAlbany
10:10–11:30 AM — Pathbreaking Research Talks · UAlbany
11:30 AM–Noon — Vanguard Roundtable · UAlbany
1 PM — Ajit Prabhu: Entrepreneur of the Year ceremony and fireside chat · RPI / EMPAC
2:30 PM — Student and Faculty Pitch Competition · RPI / EMPAC
3:30 PM — Poster Session and Networking · RPI / EMPAC
4:30 PM — Pitch and Poster Awards · RPI / EMPAC
6 PM — Outrider screening · Skidmore / Tang
8 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
Thursday, October 22
Time not posted — Albany Nanotechnology Symposium, Day 1 · UAlbany / ETEC
Noon — Curator’s Tour of A Feeling of With · Skidmore / Tang
6:30–7:30 PM — Stage & Stanza with Robin Lewis and Jeffery Torres · Russell Sage / Opalka
8 PM — Garth Greenwell: Steloff Lecture · Skidmore / Tang
8 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
Friday, October 23
Time not posted — Albany Nanotechnology Symposium, Day 2 · UAlbany / ETEC
3 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
5 PM — Danielle Allen: Kuroda Symposium Lecture · Skidmore / Tang
7 PM — Lamentatio Herois · Union
7:30 PM — Ensemble Connect · Skidmore / Zankel
8–10 PM — BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain · Skidmore
Saturday, October 24
Noon–3 PM — ACPHS Health & Wellness Expo · Crossgates Mall
2 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
2–3:30 PM — Family Saturday · Skidmore / Tang
7 PM — Bard Conservatory Orchestra with Marcus Roberts Trio · Bard / Fisher Center
8 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
8–10 PM — BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain · Skidmore
Sunday, October 25
2 PM — University Orchestra & Concert Band · UAlbany
2 PM — Tang Guide Tour · Skidmore / Tang
2 PM — Bard Conservatory Orchestra with Marcus Roberts Trio · Bard / Fisher Center
2–4 PM — BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain · Skidmore
4 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
Also on view: The Films of Jennifer and Kevin McCoy through October 24; HVCC’s Día de Muertos altar through October 30; Opalka’s Light & Transient Causes through December 5.
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HELP SHAPE CAPITAL REGION CURATED
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What would you like to see more of—music, science, history, literature, visual art or public affairs? Have you attended something that deserves a reader’s recommendation?
Send suggestions, corrections and field notes to Alan Koslow. If you organize a substantial public campus event, please include its official event page, date, time, location and attendance requirements.
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What’s worth your time at Capital Region colleges and universities.
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Capital Region Curated: October 19-25
Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events, with novelist Garth Greenwell, architect Philip Beesley, Beethoven at Union and more.
Alan Koslow
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Originally published at
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Capital Region Curated, Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events.
What’s worth your time at Capital Region colleges and universities.
🏛️ 📚 🎶 🎭 🔬
LIVING ARCHITECTURE, AWARD-WINNING WRITERS, THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY & BEETHOVEN’S EROICA
Garth Greenwell at Skidmore; Philip Beesley at RPI; Sarah Rivett at UAlbany; Union’s ensembles performing Beethoven and contemporary music; and Marcus Roberts with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra. Plus UAlbany’s Research & Entrepreneurship Week, theater, exhibitions and concerts.
Novelist Garth Greenwell in a portrait by Bryan Schutmaat.
📣 HELP SPREAD THE WORD
It really helps when readers share Capital Region Curated.
If you work with a college department, program, gallery, museum, performing arts office, organization, campus newsletter or personal newsletter, I’d be grateful if you would share it with people who might want a weekly guide to public events on Capital Region campuses.
Subscribe to Capital Region Curated
🧭 START HERE: WHAT’S INSIDE THIS WEEK
⭐ Top Picks — Garth Greenwell; Philip Beesley; Union’s Lamentatio Herois; and Sarah Rivett.
🏛️ Ideas & Public Life — Living architecture, Black feminist teaching, democracy, entrepreneurship and scientific discovery.
📚 Books, Writers & Ideas — Award-winning fiction, Indigenous poetry, literary ravens and the hidden business of product testing.
🎭 Theater & Performance — The Drunken City, Beckett’s short plays and Stage & Stanza.
🎨 Art & Visual Culture — Anne Waldman on film, curator and student-led tours, family art-making and the McCoys’ film installations.
🎶 Music, Sound & Technology — Beethoven at Union, Ensemble Connect and UAlbany’s Orchestra and Concert Band.
🩺 Health & Community — ACPHS’s free community Health & Wellness Expo.
🌎 Regional Extension — Marcus Roberts Trio with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra.
🔥 Plan Ahead — Registration-based lectures, major jazz visitors and a music-and-dance anniversary collaboration.
📅 ADD THE COMPLETE WEEK
One calendar file adds this week’s events to Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook.
📅 ADD THE COMPLETE WEEK — GOOGLE · APPLE · OUTLOOK
For Google Calendar, download the file and import it through Settings → Import & export. Individual Google Calendar links appear with the events below.
🔐 VISITING A CAMPUS EVENT?
Some campus buildings have controlled or ID-card access, particularly during the day. If you’re attending a public event and find the doors locked, ask campus staff for assistance and explain that you’re a visitor coming for the program. Arriving a few minutes early for smaller daytime events is a good idea.
Check event pages for special registration, parking, accessibility or building-entry instructions.
💬 READER FIELD NOTES
Did you attend something listed in Capital Region Curated?
Leave a quick comment: what did you see, and would you recommend it? One sentence is enough.
⭐ TOP PICKS
📚 Garth Greenwell — 56th Annual Steloff Lecture
Skidmore · Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM
Garth Greenwell, whose novel Small Rain won the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award, returns to a campus where he spent six summers studying writing before becoming an instructor himself. His fiction examines desire, illness and intimacy through exceptionally attentive prose. The Steloff Lecture brings that literary career back to one of its formative places, with audience questions and an honorary doctorate presentation.
See 📚 Books, Writers & Ideas below.
🏗️ Philip Beesley — Metastable Aether: Systems for Living Architecture
RPI / EMPAC · Monday, October 19 · 5 PM
Architect, artist and University of Waterloo professor Philip Beesley builds installations that respond through light, sound and movement. His collaborations extend from engineering laboratories to designer Iris van Herpen’s couture. At EMPAC, he discusses “living architecture”: environments assembled from delicate structures, sensors and moving components that challenge the idea of a building as a passive container.
See 🏛️ Ideas, Public Life & Campus Conversations below.
🎶 Lamentatio Herois — Beethoven, Contemporary Voices & Union’s Ensembles
Union · Friday, October 23 · 7 PM
Union’s Schola Cantorum, Concert Choir and Philharmonic bring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica, into a program that also includes Steve Vai’s Liberty and music by contemporary choral composers. Guitarist Mark Visconti and drummer Jason Bowman join the ensembles. The combination promises a wider musical range than the title alone suggests, from Beethoven’s heroic scale to amplified instruments and modern choral writing.
See 🎶 Music, Sound & Technology below.
🪶 Sarah Rivett — Raven’s Flight through American Literature
UAlbany · Tuesday, October 20 · 6 PM
Sarah Rivett, Princeton’s Murray Professor of English Literature, follows the raven through Indigenous traditions and American writing. Her books have already challenged conventional accounts of colonial knowledge and the origins of American literature. This lecture draws on that scholarship to place a familiar literary bird within a much larger history of stories, languages and encounters.
See 📚 Books, Writers & Ideas below.
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🏛️ IDEAS, PUBLIC LIFE & CAMPUS CONVERSATIONS
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🏗️ Philip Beesley — Metastable Aether: Systems for Living Architecture
Philip Beesley works across architecture, visual art and engineering. A professor at the University of Waterloo and director of the Living Architecture Systems Group, he leads collaborations that bring together designers, researchers and fabricators. His longstanding work with fashion designer Iris van Herpen also places his experiments on the scale of the human body, where materials must respond to movement.
His installations often resemble intricate suspended landscapes: lightweight components assembled into environments containing sensors, actuators, sound and light. These elements allow a structure to register activity around it and respond. The technical work is inseparable from an artistic question—how does it feel to enter a space that appears to notice your presence?
Metastable Aether: Systems for Living Architecture, presented as RPI’s Lee Harris Pomeroy ’55 Lecture, introduces that practice. Beesley’s studio moves between public buildings, immersive installations and experimental materials, making the talk relevant to readers interested in architecture, interactive art, engineering or speculative ideas about the environments we may someday inhabit.
**📅 Monday, October 19 · 5 PM
📍 EMPAC Theater · 50 Eighth Street, Troy
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🌌 Aiesha Turman — What Are We Teaching Toward?
Aiesha Turman is an educator, writer and filmmaker whose scholarship connects Black cultural memory with speculative futures. She teaches in UAlbany’s Writing & Critical Inquiry Program and previously taught English and Africana Studies at several CUNY and SUNY institutions. Her documentary The Black Girl Project became the foundation for a decade-long social-action initiative.
Her dissertation, There’s Always Been an Afrofuture: Black Women’s Literature as Technology of Protest, examines the Black feminist literary roots of Afrofuturism. That background matters to this lecture: Turman approaches imagined futures through the histories, writing and lived experiences of Black women, rather than treating Afrofuturism simply as a visual style or a category of science fiction. Her research also considers how trauma shapes individual and collective memory.
In What Are We Teaching Toward? Black Feminist Pedagogy, Afrofuturism, and the Work of Possibility in Troubled Times, those interests meet the classroom. The question is about the ends of education—what students are being prepared to recognize, challenge and imagine. Teachers, readers of speculative fiction and anyone interested in the relationship between cultural history and education have a concrete reason to hear her.
**📅 Monday, October 19 · 3–4:30 PM
📍 Humanities Building, Room 354 · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Free and open to the public; an online option is also listed**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🔬 University at Albany Research & Entrepreneurship Week
UAlbany’s Research & Entrepreneurship Week brings scientists, scholars, entrepreneurs, journalists and community leaders together around a practical question: how does university work become useful beyond the university? Now in its fourth year, the program combines research presentations with discussions about communicating discoveries, building businesses and working with the communities affected by that research.
Monday — Innovation & Entrepreneurship
The week begins with Anna Topol, a former IBM Research chief technology officer who now leads quantum-technology startup QLITHIC. Her keynote examines the transition from corporate leadership to entrepreneurship. Former Wall Street Journal reporter Anne Marie Chaker follows with a workshop on explaining complex ideas to collaborators, customers and investors. RISE Demo Day gives research teams an opportunity to present the commercial potential of their innovations.
Tuesday — Research’s Public Impact
UAlbany President Havidán Rodríguez joins Angela Bednarek of The Pew Charitable Trusts to discuss research’s public value. A journalism panel addresses how findings reach readers and viewers. Afternoon conversations include university-community partnerships, Capitalize Albany President Ashley Mohl on the city’s revitalization, and collaborations involving Albany schools, mental-health services and local government.
Wednesday — Health Communication & Pathbreaking Research
Harvard’s K. “Vish” Viswanath speaks about communication, equity and wellbeing. UAlbany researchers Robert Rosenswig, Shawn Bushway, Dola Saha and Xin Li then present work spanning anthropology, public policy, wireless communication and computer science. The range is part of the attraction: the program places questions about human societies and public institutions alongside technological research.
Thursday & Friday — Albany Nanotechnology Symposium
The final two days feature the symposium described below. Its concentrated technical program warrants a closer look, while the whole-week program lets readers choose sessions that match their interests without committing to five full days.
**📅 Monday, October 19–Friday, October 23
🕒 Monday: 9 AM–8 PM listed; Tuesday: 8:30 AM–4:45 PM; Wednesday: 9 AM–5 PM listed. Consult the program for individual sessions.
📍 ETEC, Rooms 149/151 · 1220 Washington Avenue, Albany
📍 Wednesday: Campus Center Ballroom, CC 202 · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Monday–Wednesday programs are free, with daily registration. The symposium has separate registration.**
Full Week’s Program & Registration
Add individual Research Week sessions to your calendar
Monday, October 19
9 AM — Opening & Anna Topol keynote: Google · Apple/Outlook
10:15 AM — Anne Marie Chaker: Google · Apple/Outlook
5 PM — RISE Demo Day: Google · Apple/Outlook
Tuesday, October 20
9:10 AM — President’s Fireside Chat: Google · Apple/Outlook
10:10 AM — Public Impact, Plainly Told: Google · Apple/Outlook
11 AM — Faculty Lightning Talks: Google · Apple/Outlook
1 PM — Rooted in Place: Google · Apple/Outlook
2 PM — Albany’s Next Chapter: Google · Apple/Outlook
2:45 PM — Better Together: Google · Apple/Outlook
3:35 PM — Facing New York’s Challenges Together: Google · Apple/Outlook
Wednesday, October 21
9:10 AM — K. “Vish” Viswanath: Google · Apple/Outlook
10:10 AM — Pathbreaking Research Talks: Google · Apple/Outlook
11:30 AM — Vanguard Roundtable: Google · Apple/Outlook
Thursday and Friday’s symposium calendar links appear with its listing below.
🚀 Ajit Prabhu — From an RPI Startup to a Global Engineering Company
Ajit Prabhu co-founded Quest Global in 1997 while studying at RPI. Nearly three decades later, the company operates in more than twenty countries, with 104 delivery centers and more than 23,000 employees, according to RPI’s announcement. Its engineers work across aerospace, automotive manufacturing, energy, medical technology, rail and semiconductors—industries in which a design has to function reliably outside the drawing board.
That growth is why RPI’s Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship has selected Prabhu for the William F. Glaser ’53 Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Established in 1990, the award recognizes alumni whose business careers can provide substantive lessons for new entrepreneurs. Prabhu’s story offers a useful case: building an engineering-services company requires technical credibility, clients willing to trust a young business and the ability to organize teams across countries and specialties.
The public celebration begins with a fireside conversation with President Marty Schmidt, followed by a startup pitch competition and faculty-student poster presentations. Readers can hear an established founder discuss his experience, then see ideas at an earlier stage of development. For engineers, business owners and anyone curious about how a technically skilled team becomes a durable company, the afternoon has more substance than an award ceremony alone.
**📅 Wednesday, October 21 · Begins at 1 PM; full program concludes at 5:30 PM
🕒 Fireside conversation and awards: 1 PM; pitch competition: 2:30 PM; posters and networking: 3:30 PM; pitch and poster awards: 4:30 PM
📍 EMPAC Theater and Evelyn’s Café · 50 Eighth Street, Troy
🎟️ Free and open to the public; RSVP requested**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🏛️ Danielle Allen — America at 250: The Declaration’s Unfinished Promise
Danielle Allen is a political philosopher whose work asks how people acquire meaningful power in a democracy. Harvard’s James Bryant Conant University Professor, she directs the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation and the Democratic Knowledge Project. Those projects address electoral institutions, civic education and the practical conditions that allow citizens to participate.
Her book Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality gives this lecture a particular foundation. Allen has closely examined the Declaration as an argument about equality, rather than merely a familiar collection of quotations. Her later Justice by Means of Democracy connects political equality with the institutions and relationships through which people govern together.
At Skidmore’s 11th Kuroda Symposium Lecture, America at 250: The Declaration’s Unfinished Promise brings that scholarship to the anniversary of independence. The subject is the continuing work implied by the founding document: who has been able to exercise its promised equality, how exclusions persist and what democratic participation requires. Allen brings both historical interpretation and experience with contemporary civic reform, giving readers a reason to expect a discussion more specific than a ceremonial anniversary address.
**📅 Friday, October 23 · 5 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Wachenheim Gallery · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Researchers in protective clothing examine equipment used in nanoscale research.
⚛️ Albany Nanotechnology Symposium — Measuring the Chips Behind the AI Era
The Albany Nanotechnology Symposium brings more than two dozen speakers to ETEC for two days devoted to semiconductor, quantum and photonic technologies. This year’s emphasis is metrology: measuring the extraordinarily small features that determine whether a chip can be manufactured accurately and perform as intended. That problem becomes more demanding as devices shrink and computing workloads grow.
On the first day, Daniel Schmidt, chief technology officer at Laser Thermal, delivers Keeping the AI Era Cool: Thermal Metrology for Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing. The subject connects an everyday concern—heat—with the engineering of advanced chips. AI workloads place heavy demands on computing hardware; understanding where heat travels and accumulates is part of making that hardware reliable.
UAlbany’s preview also identifies talks about AI-assisted materials discovery and semiconductor production. Featured participants include Damon Tsai of Applied Materials and David Palsulich of Micron, alongside speakers from IBM, GlobalFoundries, RPI, New York University and UAlbany. The combination brings manufacturing problems and academic investigations into the same room.
The second day includes a metrology workshop marking forty years of Atomic Force Microscopy. The technique made it possible to examine and measure surfaces at extraordinarily small scales. Its anniversary provides a reason to consider how measurement tools change what scientists can discover and what engineers can build.
The symposium also explains something important about Albany’s semiconductor research: universities and companies here work within a connected research and manufacturing community. Shared facilities, specialized measurement tools and exchanges among academic and industrial researchers help turn discoveries into processes that can be used in production. The two-day program offers a close view of that collaboration and the problems now driving it. UAlbany’s symposium preview
**📅 Thursday–Friday, October 22–23
📍 ETEC · 1220 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Registration listed at $50 general / $10 students. Pre-registration deadline: October 12, now passed.**
Details & Registration Information
📅 October 22: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
📅 October 23: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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📚 BOOKS, WRITERS & IDEAS
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📚 Garth Greenwell — 56th Annual Steloff Lecture
Garth Greenwell has a substantial history with Skidmore: he attended its New York State Summer Writers Institute for six years and later returned to teach fiction. Now Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University, he comes back as the Steloff honoree, following a career that includes three novels, literary criticism and recognition for the quality of his prose.
His debut, What Belongs to You, received the British Book Award for Debut of the Year. Cleanness continued his exploration of desire and relationships, while Small Rain, winner of the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award, centers on a medical crisis. Its hospital setting brings physical vulnerability into contact with memory, love and the art that sustains a life.
Greenwell is worth hearing for the relationship between his subjects and his sentences: his fiction gives extended attention to experiences that people often struggle to describe. The lecture, audience questions and honorary doctorate presentation offer an encounter with a writer whose development is directly connected to this campus. Readers can arrive through his novels, his essays or an interest in how writing turns private experience into literature.
**📅 Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Payne Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
Details · About the Steloff Lecture
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Literary scholar Sarah Rivett in her Princeton faculty portrait.
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🪶 Sarah Rivett — Raven’s Flight through American Literature
Sarah Rivett studies the places where Indigenous histories, colonial knowledge and American literature meet. Princeton’s Murray Professor of English Literature and a professor of English and American Studies, she is the author of The Science of the Soul in Colonial New England and Unscripted America: Indigenous Languages and the Origins of a Literary Nation.
Her current book project, Raven’s Land: Indigenous Literature and the American Canon, provides the background for this lecture. The raven appears across traditions, but a reader whose first association is Poe may overlook its significance in Indigenous stories. Rivett’s work asks how those traditions intersect with the writing that has come to define American literature.
Raven’s Flight through American Literature offers a specific route into that larger question. Following a recurring figure allows listeners to compare stories, notice differences and reconsider which sources receive attention in literary history. For readers interested in American literature, Indigenous studies or the movement of stories across cultures, this is a chance to hear the research behind an evolving account of the canon.
**📅 Tuesday, October 20 · 6–7 PM
📍 Science Library, Standish Room, third floor · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
✍️ m.s. RedCherries — mother, Adoption & Reconnection
Poet m.s. RedCherries, a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, won an American Book Award and became a National Book Award finalist with her debut collection, mother. Those honors introduced a writer whose work uses poetry to carry a sustained story, crossing the usual boundary between lyric collection and fiction.
The book follows a young Native American adopted by white parents as she reconnects with her tribe, family, culture and ancestral land. Its subject is therefore more specific than a general search for identity: it considers what separation from community means and how belonging can be recovered through relationships, stories and place.
The Writers Institute appearance brings the author’s voice to a work in which inheritance is both personal and communal. Readers interested in contemporary poetry, adoption, Indigenous writing or stories of return have a strong point of entry. The program is co-sponsored by several UAlbany writing and academic programs, placing the book within a broader campus conversation about literature.
**📅 Tuesday, October 20 · 4:30 PM
📍 Campus Center Multipurpose Room · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🐻 Alex Davies — Chicken Cannons, Problem Bears & Breaking Things on Purpose
Alex Davies has reported for and led editorial teams at Wired, The Athletic and Business Insider. His earlier book, Driven, examined the race to develop autonomous cars. His new Kobuk the Destroyer follows another group of people whose work affects our daily lives but rarely receives much attention: test engineers.
Their job requires them to anticipate what users, weather, animals, impacts and accidents might do to a product. Davies’s examples include a cannon that fires birds into jet engines and a grizzly bear employed to test equipment. The memorable situations reveal a serious process: someone has to devise a test, decide what counts as passing and determine how closely the test resembles the world outside.
His HVCC lecture uses those stories to examine how safety is established through human judgment as well as measurement. It is especially well suited to readers who enjoy reported science writing, engineering history or an account of unfamiliar work told through the people doing it.
**📅 Tuesday, October 20 · Noon–1 PM
🎟️ Public VOICES library lecture**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🎭 THEATER & PERFORMANCE
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🍸 The Drunken City — A Celebration Goes Off Course
Three young women head into the city for a bachelorette celebration, expecting a night that confirms the future already planned for them. A chance encounter instead sends the bride-to-be off with a stranger, leaving her friends to confront both an immediate crisis and uncomfortable questions about their own expectations.
Adam Bock’s comedy makes that night out a test of friendship, commitment and self-knowledge. The premise provides plenty of room for panic and humor, but its emotional stakes come from the difference between choosing a life and continuing toward one because everyone assumes it is settled.
UAlbany’s production is directed by Desirée Chappelle Streeter in the Arena Theatre. The play’s search for the missing bride-to-be keeps its questions about love and independence grounded in the action of one increasingly chaotic night. Six performances include Friday and weekend matinees as well as evening shows.
**📅 Wednesday, October 21 · 8 PM
📅 Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM
📅 Friday, October 23 · 3 PM
📅 Saturday, October 24 · 2 PM and 8 PM
📅 Sunday, October 25 · 4 PM
📍 Arena Theatre, Performing Arts Center · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Advance: $20 general / $15 students, seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff. Day of show: $25 / $20.**
Details & Performance-Specific Tickets
Add a performance to your calendar
Wednesday, October 21 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Friday, October 23 · 3 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Saturday, October 24 · 2 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Saturday, October 24 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Sunday, October 25 · 4 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
🎭 BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain
Samuel Beckett’s shorter plays can build a theatrical world from remarkably little: a repeated movement, a voice, an object or the arrangement of bodies in space. Skidmore’s BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain brings together Act Without Words I & II, Rough for Theatre I & II, Quad, What Where and Rockaby.
Directed by Jared Klein, the production emphasizes the relationship between text and design. Beckett’s precise instructions make movement, lighting and space part of the dramatic argument; they do not merely illustrate dialogue. A program of several short works lets audiences see how differently he uses those elements.
For readers who know Beckett primarily through Waiting for Godot, this is a way to encounter the variety of his theater. The collection offers physical comedy, unsettling repetition and concentrated images of human dependence and persistence.
**📅 October 23–28 · Evening performances 8–10 PM; Sunday, October 25, 2–4 PM
📍 Skidmore Theater, Janet Kinghorn Bernhard Theater Building · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ $6.53 students / $11.83 non-students**
Add this week’s performances to your calendar
Friday, October 23 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Saturday, October 24 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
🎙️ Stage & Stanza — Robin Lewis & Jeffery Torres
Opalka’s October Stage & Stanza brings together Robin Lewis, a Broadway and touring performer, and Jeffery Torres, a poet and playwright now based in the Capital Region. Poet Carol Durant and Theatre Institute at Sage’s David Baecker host the conversation.
Lewis’s credits include Fosse, Beauty and the Beast and Victor/Victoria, along with the first national tour of The Producers. His choreography also appeared in Richard Linklater’s film Bernie. Now teaching at Russell Sage, he brings experience of the demands of professional performance and an interest in preparing younger artists for both the craft and pressures of that work.
Torres’s writing has appeared in local poetry programs, and his play Wild Rice (We Are Cherokee) was performed in the 2026 Activated Artist Fest. Lewis brings the experience of major productions and professional touring; Torres brings poetry, playwriting and participation in the region’s emerging arts communities. Their conversation connects two different routes into a creative life.
**📅 Thursday, October 22 · 6:30–7:30 PM
📍 Opalka Gallery · Russell Sage College · 140 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Consult the official program page for attendance information**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🎨 ART & VISUAL CULTURE
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🎬 Outrider — Anne Waldman’s Life in Poetry
Poet, performer and activist Anne Waldman is the subject of Alystyre Julian’s Outrider, a feature-length film that approaches poetry as a performed and collaborative art. Its artistic circle includes Patti Smith, Meredith Monk, Bob Dylan, Laurie Anderson and Thurston Moore, showing the connections surrounding Waldman’s work.
Julian is herself a poet and filmmaker, with experience in documentary projects, film photography and writing instruction. Her portrait follows an artist whose presence and delivery are integral to the work. For viewers, that means encountering poetry through voice, movement and relationships as well as words.
Skidmore professors Ben Bogin and Maggie Greaves, who teach “Buddhism and Poetry,” introduce the screening. It also precedes Waldman’s October 29 public reading at the Tang, featured in Plan Ahead. The film can stand on its own as an encounter with an influential literary performer or provide background for hearing her in person.
**📅 Wednesday, October 21 · 6 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Somers Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🖼️ Curator’s Tour — A Feeling of With
Rachel Seligman, the Tang’s Malloy Curator and assistant director for curatorial affairs, leads a tour of an exhibition developed with faculty from several disciplines. A Feeling of With uses the museum’s collection to examine relationships through language, nature, mathematics and religion.
Its three parts give that broad idea concrete forms. Behind, Below, Within considers how language and bodily experience organize space. Human Nature examines our place in—and distance from—the natural world. The Forms of Things Unknown explores how pattern, numbers and geometry become ways of representing the sacred.
A curator’s tour is useful here because the exhibition’s organizing choices are part of its meaning. Seligman can connect objects with the questions that brought them together. Visitors can then continue through the galleries independently, testing those connections against what they see.
**📅 Thursday, October 22 · Noon
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Atrium · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
Tour Details · About the Exhibition
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🎨 Family Saturday — Looking, Discussing & Making Art Together
The Tang’s Family Saturday combines a visit to selected artworks with a hands-on art-making activity. Children and their adult companions look together, discuss what they notice and use that encounter as a starting point for making something themselves.
The program is designed for multigenerational participation: adults and children work through the same encounter with art rather than separating into a children’s workshop and an adult museum visit. The afternoon includes a tour of selected works and time for making.
The October 24 project has not been specified on the event page, but the format and access details are clear. Children ages five and older are welcome with an adult, supplies are provided while available, and no registration is required.
**📅 Saturday, October 24 · 2–3:30 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Payne Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free; ages 5+ with an adult; no registration; supplies first-come, first-served**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🖼️ Tang Guide Tour — A Student’s Route Through the Museum
Tang Guides are trained gallery ambassadors, many of them Skidmore students. Their Sunday tours introduce the museum and its current exhibitions while giving visitors an opportunity to ask questions and discuss what they encounter.
This week’s museum offers several different subjects to explore, from the relationships examined in A Feeling of With to Mark Thomas Gibson’s engagement with American history and citizenship. A guide provides a manageable route through a museum whose exhibitions can otherwise pull visitors in several directions.
The tour is particularly useful for a first visit, but returning visitors may find value in another person’s selection of details. Visitors are welcome to remain afterward and spend more time with the works that interest them.
**📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Atrium · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Sheep graze across a green landscape in a still from Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s film Quitter.
🎞️ Final Week — The Films of Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy earned their MFAs at RPI before developing an internationally exhibited practice in film, video and digital media. HVCC’s Teaching Gallery now brings together three cinematic installations—Broker, Cleaner and Quitter—that form a sequence begun in 2016.
The exhibition includes the first installation of Quitter, a 2025 experimental video featuring artist Eve Sussman and music by Lori Scacco. Its central question asks what life might look like without “lifestyle”: how a person might break with the habits, images and expectations that make contemporary life appear already organized.
Seeing the three works together allows viewers to follow the artists’ inquiry across several years rather than encounter one isolated film. October 24 is the final day, making this the week to visit if the exhibition has been on your list. The gallery is free, and its Wednesday evening hours provide an alternative to a daytime outing.
**📅 On view through Saturday, October 24
🕒 Tuesday, Thursday and Friday · 10 AM–4 PM; Wednesday · Noon–7 PM; Saturday · Noon–4 PM
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
🌼 Día de Muertos — A Conversation & Altar Exhibition
Professor Malú Benton discusses Mexican Day of the Dead traditions at HVCC, where an altar exhibition is also on view in the Marvin Library Learning Commons. The pairing allows visitors to encounter the tradition through both a conversation and a physical display.
Altars honor departed loved ones and ancestors through carefully chosen objects and decorations. The exhibition’s visual richness is therefore connected to remembrance: it makes relationships with those who have died visible within a shared cultural practice.
Tuesday’s discussion provides context for visitors who know the holiday chiefly through its imagery. Readers can attend the talk and visit the altar, or see the exhibition separately during library access hours through October 30.
**📅 Discussion: Tuesday, October 20 · 1 PM
📅 Altar exhibition: On view through Friday, October 30
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
Discussion Details · Exhibition Details
📅 Discussion: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🖼️ Light & Transient Causes — Whose Grievances Count?
Opalka’s exhibition takes its title from the Declaration of Independence’s caution against changing governments for “light and transient causes.” Curator Marisa Espe uses that phrase to consider a harder question: who decides that another person’s grievance is minor enough to ignore or temporary enough to postpone?
The ten participating artists include Deborah Dancy, Sky Hopinka, Wendy Red Star, Alisa Sikelianos-Carter and Jean-Marc Superville Sovak. Placing their work within the Declaration’s anniversary year turns the familiar document into a starting point for considering unequal experiences and judgments.
This gives the exhibition a clear relationship to the week’s public-life conversations, including Danielle Allen’s lecture. Visitors attending Stage & Stanza can spend time in the gallery beforehand, while a separate visit allows a slower encounter with the artists’ responses to the exhibition’s premise.
**📅 On view through December 5
🕒 Tuesday–Saturday · Noon–5 PM; Thursday until 8 PM; Monday by appointment
📍 Opalka Gallery · Russell Sage College · 140 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Free**
Exhibition Details · Visitor Information
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🎶 MUSIC, SOUND & TECHNOLOGY
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🎶 Lamentatio Herois — Beethoven’s Eroica & a Broader Musical Conversation
Union’s Schola Cantorum, Concert Choir and Philharmonic share a program featuring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica. The symphony’s scale, dramatic contrasts and famous funeral-march movement give the evening a substantial orchestral foundation.
The program also includes Steve Vai’s Liberty and music by Narverud, Whitacre, Lim, Thompson, Cho, Gjeilo and Davison. Guitarist Mark Visconti and drummer Jason Bowman appear as soloists. Those names and instruments suggest the breadth of the concert more clearly than a general description of “campus ensembles”: the evening brings orchestral, choral and amplified sounds together.
For listeners, the appeal lies in hearing those different musical languages within a single program. Memorial Chapel provides the setting, while the combined ensembles make this a substantial presentation of Union’s student music-making. Suggested donations support the ensembles directly.
**📅 Friday, October 23 · 7 PM
📍 Memorial Chapel · Union College · 807 Union Street, Schenectady
🎟️ Tickets at the door. Suggested donations: $15 general / $10 Union faculty, staff and alumni / $5 students, seniors and children under 12.**
Concert Program · Admission Information
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🎻 Ensemble Connect — Ligeti, Loeffler, Kodály & Bartók
Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect returns to Skidmore with a program built around unusual instrumental combinations. Ligeti’s Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano, Loeffler’s Two Rhapsodies and Kodály’s Serenade offer contrasting ways of balancing individual voices within a small ensemble.
Bartók’s Contrasts supplies a particularly interesting connection between concert music and jazz. Written in response to requests from clarinetist Benny Goodman and violinist Joseph Szigeti, it brings clarinet, violin and piano into a work whose very title directs attention to differences in character and sound.
The program gives audiences specific things to listen for: the horn alongside violin and piano in Ligeti, the shifting colors of Loeffler’s writing and the interplay in Bartók’s trio. Ensemble Connect’s residency makes this a free opportunity to hear an adventurous professional chamber program in Zankel’s concert hall.
**📅 Friday, October 23 · 7:30 PM
🎟️ Free; advance ticket registration required**
Program Details · Register for Free Tickets
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Two musicians perform together onstage.
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🎺 University Orchestra & Concert Band
UAlbany’s University Orchestra and Concert Band share a Sunday-afternoon concert in the Performing Arts Center’s Main Theatre. The program brings two of the university’s large student ensembles together in one performance.
The repertoire has not been announced on the official event page. The confirmed attraction is the shared concert itself: an opportunity to hear the work of both ensembles, with advance admission ranging from $3 for students to $10 for the general public.
The Sunday afternoon performance offers a straightforward campus music outing for families, students and readers who follow local ensemble concerts.
**📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM
📍 Main Theatre, Performing Arts Center · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Advance: $10 general / $6 seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff / $3 students. Day of show: $15 / $11 / $8.**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🩺 HEALTH & COMMUNITY
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🩺 ACPHS Health & Wellness Expo
The American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists at Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences brings its annual Health & Wellness Expo to Crossgates Mall. The location makes the program accessible to people who may not otherwise visit a campus health event.
The announced services include blood-pressure screening, a flu-shot clinic and bone-density screening, along with additional health information. Students take part through their professional organization, giving visitors an opportunity to meet future pharmacists engaged in community-facing work.
The value is practical: several services and conversations are gathered in one free afternoon program. Readers can stop by while visiting the mall or make a dedicated trip to learn what is offered. The official page provides the event’s service overview.
**📅 Saturday, October 24 · Noon–3 PM
📍 Crossgates Mall · 1 Crossgates Mall Road, Albany
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🌎 REGIONAL EXTENSION PICK — BARD COLLEGE
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🎹 Marcus Roberts Trio with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra
Marcus Roberts established his national reputation through six years touring and recording with Wynton Marsalis, then developed a career as a pianist, composer and bandleader. His work connects jazz traditions with orchestral music, and his approach to the trio gives each musician an active role in shaping tempo, texture and direction.
At Bard, the Marcus Roberts Trio joins the Conservatory Orchestra for James P. Johnson’s Yamecraw. Johnson was a central figure in Harlem stride piano, and this collaboration brings his music into an orchestral setting without losing the significance of the jazz musicians at its center. Roberts’s experience moving between improvising ensembles and symphony orchestras makes him particularly suited to that meeting.
The surrounding program includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 and Elgar’s Symphony No. 1. Those substantial orchestral works frame the jazz-classical collaboration, giving listeners a full concert rather than a brief guest appearance. Roberts’s participation is the reason this program earns a Regional Extension Pick: a nationally significant musician brings a distinctive artistic practice to a public campus performance. Bard faculty profile
**📅 Saturday, October 24 · 7 PM
📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM
📍 Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater · Bard College · 60 Manor Avenue, Annandale-on-Hudson
🎟️ $10–$26.50, depending on seating location**
📅 Saturday, October 24 · 7 PM: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🔥 3-WEEK PLAN AHEAD — OCTOBER 26–NOVEMBER 15
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⚖️ Richard Rifkin Memorial Lecture — Public Service & the Work of Government
Richard Rifkin spent more than four decades in New York public service, including roles as deputy attorney general, executive director of the State Ethics Commission and special counsel to a governor. As legal director of Albany Law’s Government Law Center, he continued advising on problems facing state and local governments until his death in 2024.
This memorial program includes remarks from former New York Attorney General Robert Abrams, placing Rifkin’s career within the institutions and public-law questions he helped address. Registration is available now for the lecture and reception, making this a program readers can reserve ahead of the event week.
**📅 Monday, October 26 · Lecture 6–7:30 PM; reception follows
📍 Dean Alexander Moot Court Room, Room 421 · Albany Law School’s 1928 Building · 80 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Registration requested; consult the event page for arrangements**
✍️ Anne Waldman — Dharma Gaze
Anne Waldman’s career encompasses more than seventy volumes of poetry, poetics and anthologies, as well as performance, recordings and the creation of literary communities. A co-founder of Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, she has helped shape a tradition in which poetry is an embodied, collaborative and public art.
Her Tang reading offers a direct encounter with that performance practice. The October 21 screening of Outrider, featured in this issue, gives readers a chance to explore her artistic life first, then hear her poetry in person the following week. That connection makes the advance notice useful: the two programs form a fuller encounter than either alone.
**📅 Thursday, October 29 · 6 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Payne Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
A portrait of saxophonist Ernie Watts.
🎷 Ernie Watts Quartet
Ernie Watts’s career includes two Grammy Awards, work with Charlie Haden’s Quartet West and extensive recordings across jazz, film and popular music. His quartet brings that history into a setting centered on improvisation, with Marc Seales on piano, Bruce Lett on bass and Bob Leatherbarrow on drums.
A Place for Jazz presents the group for one local concert, with advance tickets already available. The attraction is the opportunity to hear a major saxophonist with musicians who have developed a sustained musical relationship, giving the quartet room to move beyond the demands of studio and supporting work.
**📅 Friday, October 30 · 7 PM
📍 Carl B. Taylor Auditorium · SUNY Schenectady · 78 Washington Avenue, Schenectady
🎟️ $25 general; students with ID $10 at the door**
⚖️ Dorothy Roberts — The Mixed Marriage Project
Dorothy Roberts, the University of Pennsylvania’s George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology, has reshaped debates about race, reproductive justice and child welfare through books including Killing the Black Body, Fatal Invention and Torn Apart. Her scholarship examines how institutions make racial categories consequential in people’s lives.
At Albany Law’s 12th Katheryn D. Katz ’70 Memorial Lecture, she turns to The Mixed Marriage Project: Lessons from the History of Interracial Marriage on Race, Love, and Law. The appearance connects her newest book with the lecture series’ longstanding attention to family law and inequality. Registration is open, and early notice gives readers time to explore the book before hearing Roberts discuss its questions.
**📅 Wednesday, November 4 · 5:30 PM; reception follows
📍 Dean Alexander Moot Court Room · Albany Law School · 80 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Registration available for in-person attendance; an online option is also offered**
🎻 Capital Duo & Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company — Anniversaries in Music & Movement
Pianist Duncan Cumming and violinist Hilary Cumming mark thirty years of performing together as Capital Duo, while Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company concludes its thirty-fifth anniversary year. Their joint program brings live chamber music and contemporary dance together through artists with long connections to the Capital Region.
The evening includes a premiere set to music by Icelandic composer María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, a return to a 2018 collaboration, musical interludes by Bartók and Smetana, and Gershwin in music and movement. This is a single ticketed anniversary performance, with advance sales available—a specific collaboration worth reserving rather than a routine concert date. UAlbany ticket page
**📅 Saturday, November 7 · 7:30 PM
📍 Main Theatre, Performing Arts Center · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Ticket page lists a $16 base admission; eligible price categories appear during selection**
A portrait of jazz flutist Ali Ryerson.
🎷 Ali Ryerson Quartet
Ali Ryerson has built an international career as a jazz flutist, with appearances at major concert halls, clubs and festivals. Her recordings and Jazz Flute Big Band work have helped demonstrate the instrument’s possibilities beyond its more familiar orchestral role. Her quartet includes Larry Ham on piano, Lou Pappas on bass and Tom Melito on drums.
This is the final concert in A Place for Jazz’s announced fall series, with advance tickets available. Ryerson’s flute gives the series a different instrumental voice for its conclusion, making the evening particularly appealing to readers interested in the range of sounds a small jazz group can produce.
**📅 Friday, November 13 · 7 PM
📍 Carl B. Taylor Auditorium · SUNY Schenectady · 78 Washington Avenue, Schenectady
🎟️ $25 general; students with ID $10 at the door**
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🔭 LONG-RANGE EARLY WARNING — NOVEMBER 16–FEBRUARY 15
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🏠 A Doll’s House — UAlbany
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House begins within a household whose apparent stability depends on expectations about marriage, money and a wife’s responsibilities. As Nora’s concealed actions become known, the play turns those expectations into a conflict over dignity and independence.
UAlbany presents the play in a new version by Amy Herzog, directed by visiting assistant professor of acting Kea Trevett in her university directing debut. That combination brings a contemporary playwright’s treatment of Ibsen to a new director’s interpretation of Nora’s carefully constructed world.
The five-day run offers a concentrated opportunity to encounter a drama whose arguments remain unsettled. Readers familiar with the original can consider what a new version brings forward; newcomers can experience the choices that have made Nora’s story a continuing subject of debate.
November 18–22 · UAlbany Performing Arts Center
Theater director Sara Lyons in Skidmore’s faculty portrait.
🎭 This Emancipation Thing — Skidmore
Director Sara Lyons works with queer and feminist theatrical forms, adaptation and archival material. Their work has appeared at venues including REDCAT, The Kitchen and La MaMa. This Emancipation Thing brings that practice to Skidmore through a participatory performance led by theater students.
The production revisits feminist consciousness-raising, placing historical material beside contemporary experiences of identity, bodies and freedom. Rather than asking an audience only to watch a story unfold, it invites people to listen and consider whether they want to take part in a shared conversation.
Its unusual format deserves an introduction before the production opens. The performance asks audiences to engage with an archive as something that can be questioned and activated in the present, making it a distinctive option for readers interested in theater, feminist history and public conversation.
**November 20–December 5 · Skidmore’s Black Box Theater
Ticket information forthcoming**
📖 Little Women: The Musical — Theatre Institute at Sage
Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters bring different ambitions to the same household. Little Women: The Musical places those ambitions in songs and scenes about family loyalty, creative work, romance and the difficulty of growing into a life of one’s own.
Russell Sage’s production is directed by Michael Musial, with a book by Allan Knee, music by Jason Howland and lyrics by Mindi Dickstein. It offers a musical version of a story many readers know through the novel or its film adaptations.
Tickets are already listed for the December run. For readers considering a family or group theater outing, this is an opportunity to choose a performance of an established literary adaptation while the presenting theater’s season is available for advance planning.
**December 2–10 · Schacht Fine Arts Center, Troy
Tickets listed at $15**
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🎭 FUTURE THEATER ON CAMPUS — OCTOBER 26–APRIL 25
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These are advance production dates. Check the presenting theater for individual performances, ticket availability and schedule changes.
DatesProductionCampusDetailsThrough October 28BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain — begins October 23SkidmoreDetailsOctober 30–November 8GreaseRussell Sage / Theatre Institute at SageDetails & TicketsNovember 12–21RentSienaDetailsNovember 18–22A Doll’s HouseUAlbanySeason DetailsNovember 20–December 5This Emancipation ThingSkidmoreDetailsDecember 2–10Little Women: The MusicalRussell Sage / Theatre Institute at SageSeason & TicketsFebruary 24–March 3ClueRussell Sage / Theatre Institute at SageSeason & TicketsMarch 3–7UAlbany Theatre musical — title forthcomingUAlbanySeason DetailsApril 8–17The Country WifeSienaDetailsApril 14–17FRESH ACTS: A Festival of New PlaysUAlbanySeason Details
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📅 BY DAY CALENDAR
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Monday, October 19
9–10 AM — Research Week opening program and Anna Topol keynote · UAlbany / ETEC
10:15–11:30 AM — Anne Marie Chaker: Storytelling and Messaging for Innovators · UAlbany / ETEC
3–4:30 PM — Aiesha Turman: What Are We Teaching Toward? · UAlbany
5 PM — Philip Beesley: Metastable Aether · RPI / EMPAC
5–6:30 PM — RISE Demo Day · UAlbany / ETEC
Tuesday, October 20
9:10–9:55 AM — President’s Fireside Chat: From Research to Real-World Impact · UAlbany / ETEC
10:10–11 AM — Public Impact, Plainly Told · UAlbany / ETEC
11 AM — Faculty Lightning Talks · UAlbany / ETEC
Noon–1 PM — Alex Davies: Chicken Cannons, Problem Bears & Test Engineering · HVCC
1 PM — Día de los Muertos Discussion with Malú Benton · HVCC
1–1:50 PM — Rooted in Place: University-Community Partnerships · UAlbany / ETEC
2–2:30 PM — Albany’s Next Chapter: Revitalization and UAlbany · UAlbany / ETEC
2:45–3:30 PM — Better Together: Partnership that Creates Impact · UAlbany / ETEC
3:35–4:30 PM — Facing New York’s Challenges Together · UAlbany / ETEC
4:30 PM — m.s. RedCherries · UAlbany
6–7 PM — Sarah Rivett: Raven’s Flight through American Literature · UAlbany
Wednesday, October 21
9:10–10 AM — K. “Vish” Viswanath: Communication, Equity & Wellbeing · UAlbany
10:10–11:30 AM — Pathbreaking Research Talks · UAlbany
11:30 AM–Noon — Vanguard Roundtable · UAlbany
1 PM — Ajit Prabhu: Entrepreneur of the Year ceremony and fireside chat · RPI / EMPAC
2:30 PM — Student and Faculty Pitch Competition · RPI / EMPAC
3:30 PM — Poster Session and Networking · RPI / EMPAC
4:30 PM — Pitch and Poster Awards · RPI / EMPAC
6 PM — Outrider screening · Skidmore / Tang
8 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
Thursday, October 22
Time not posted — Albany Nanotechnology Symposium, Day 1 · UAlbany / ETEC
Noon — Curator’s Tour of A Feeling of With · Skidmore / Tang
6:30–7:30 PM — Stage & Stanza with Robin Lewis and Jeffery Torres · Russell Sage / Opalka
8 PM — Garth Greenwell: Steloff Lecture · Skidmore / Tang
8 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
Friday, October 23
Time not posted — Albany Nanotechnology Symposium, Day 2 · UAlbany / ETEC
3 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
5 PM — Danielle Allen: Kuroda Symposium Lecture · Skidmore / Tang
7 PM — Lamentatio Herois · Union
7:30 PM — Ensemble Connect · Skidmore / Zankel
8–10 PM — BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain · Skidmore
Saturday, October 24
Noon–3 PM — ACPHS Health & Wellness Expo · Crossgates Mall
2 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
2–3:30 PM — Family Saturday · Skidmore / Tang
7 PM — Bard Conservatory Orchestra with Marcus Roberts Trio · Bard / Fisher Center
8 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
8–10 PM — BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain · Skidmore
Sunday, October 25
2 PM — University Orchestra & Concert Band · UAlbany
2 PM — Tang Guide Tour · Skidmore / Tang
2 PM — Bard Conservatory Orchestra with Marcus Roberts Trio · Bard / Fisher Center
2–4 PM — BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain · Skidmore
4 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
Also on view: The Films of Jennifer and Kevin McCoy through October 24; HVCC’s Día de Muertos altar through October 30; Opalka’s Light & Transient Causes through December 5.
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What would you like to see more of—music, science, history, literature, visual art or public affairs? Have you attended something that deserves a reader’s recommendation?
Send suggestions, corrections and field notes to Alan Koslow. If you organize a substantial public campus event, please include its official event page, date, time, location and attendance requirements.
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What’s worth your time at Capital Region colleges and universities.
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Capital Region Curated: October 19-25
Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events, with novelist Garth Greenwell, architect Philip Beesley, Beethoven at Union and more.
Alan Koslow
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Capital Region Curated, Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events.
What’s worth your time at Capital Region colleges and universities.
🏛️ 📚 🎶 🎭 🔬
LIVING ARCHITECTURE, AWARD-WINNING WRITERS, THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY & BEETHOVEN’S EROICA
Garth Greenwell at Skidmore; Philip Beesley at RPI; Sarah Rivett at UAlbany; Union’s ensembles performing Beethoven and contemporary music; and Marcus Roberts with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra. Plus UAlbany’s Research & Entrepreneurship Week, theater, exhibitions and concerts.
Novelist Garth Greenwell in a portrait by Bryan Schutmaat.
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If you work with a college department, program, gallery, museum, performing arts office, organization, campus newsletter or personal newsletter, I’d be grateful if you would share it with people who might want a weekly guide to public events on Capital Region campuses.
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🧭 START HERE: WHAT’S INSIDE THIS WEEK
⭐ Top Picks — Garth Greenwell; Philip Beesley; Union’s Lamentatio Herois; and Sarah Rivett.
🏛️ Ideas & Public Life — Living architecture, Black feminist teaching, democracy, entrepreneurship and scientific discovery.
📚 Books, Writers & Ideas — Award-winning fiction, Indigenous poetry, literary ravens and the hidden business of product testing.
🎭 Theater & Performance — The Drunken City, Beckett’s short plays and Stage & Stanza.
🎨 Art & Visual Culture — Anne Waldman on film, curator and student-led tours, family art-making and the McCoys’ film installations.
🎶 Music, Sound & Technology — Beethoven at Union, Ensemble Connect and UAlbany’s Orchestra and Concert Band.
🩺 Health & Community — ACPHS’s free community Health & Wellness Expo.
🌎 Regional Extension — Marcus Roberts Trio with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra.
🔥 Plan Ahead — Registration-based lectures, major jazz visitors and a music-and-dance anniversary collaboration.
📅 ADD THE COMPLETE WEEK
One calendar file adds this week’s events to Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook.
📅 ADD THE COMPLETE WEEK — GOOGLE · APPLE · OUTLOOK
For Google Calendar, download the file and import it through Settings → Import & export. Individual Google Calendar links appear with the events below.
🔐 VISITING A CAMPUS EVENT?
Some campus buildings have controlled or ID-card access, particularly during the day. If you’re attending a public event and find the doors locked, ask campus staff for assistance and explain that you’re a visitor coming for the program. Arriving a few minutes early for smaller daytime events is a good idea.
Check event pages for special registration, parking, accessibility or building-entry instructions.
💬 READER FIELD NOTES
Did you attend something listed in Capital Region Curated?
Leave a quick comment: what did you see, and would you recommend it? One sentence is enough.
⭐ TOP PICKS
📚 Garth Greenwell — 56th Annual Steloff Lecture
Skidmore · Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM
Garth Greenwell, whose novel Small Rain won the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award, returns to a campus where he spent six summers studying writing before becoming an instructor himself. His fiction examines desire, illness and intimacy through exceptionally attentive prose. The Steloff Lecture brings that literary career back to one of its formative places, with audience questions and an honorary doctorate presentation.
See 📚 Books, Writers & Ideas below.
🏗️ Philip Beesley — Metastable Aether: Systems for Living Architecture
RPI / EMPAC · Monday, October 19 · 5 PM
Architect, artist and University of Waterloo professor Philip Beesley builds installations that respond through light, sound and movement. His collaborations extend from engineering laboratories to designer Iris van Herpen’s couture. At EMPAC, he discusses “living architecture”: environments assembled from delicate structures, sensors and moving components that challenge the idea of a building as a passive container.
See 🏛️ Ideas, Public Life & Campus Conversations below.
🎶 Lamentatio Herois — Beethoven, Contemporary Voices & Union’s Ensembles
Union · Friday, October 23 · 7 PM
Union’s Schola Cantorum, Concert Choir and Philharmonic bring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica, into a program that also includes Steve Vai’s Liberty and music by contemporary choral composers. Guitarist Mark Visconti and drummer Jason Bowman join the ensembles. The combination promises a wider musical range than the title alone suggests, from Beethoven’s heroic scale to amplified instruments and modern choral writing.
See 🎶 Music, Sound & Technology below.
🪶 Sarah Rivett — Raven’s Flight through American Literature
UAlbany · Tuesday, October 20 · 6 PM
Sarah Rivett, Princeton’s Murray Professor of English Literature, follows the raven through Indigenous traditions and American writing. Her books have already challenged conventional accounts of colonial knowledge and the origins of American literature. This lecture draws on that scholarship to place a familiar literary bird within a much larger history of stories, languages and encounters.
See 📚 Books, Writers & Ideas below.
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🏛️ IDEAS, PUBLIC LIFE & CAMPUS CONVERSATIONS
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🏗️ Philip Beesley — Metastable Aether: Systems for Living Architecture
Philip Beesley works across architecture, visual art and engineering. A professor at the University of Waterloo and director of the Living Architecture Systems Group, he leads collaborations that bring together designers, researchers and fabricators. His longstanding work with fashion designer Iris van Herpen also places his experiments on the scale of the human body, where materials must respond to movement.
His installations often resemble intricate suspended landscapes: lightweight components assembled into environments containing sensors, actuators, sound and light. These elements allow a structure to register activity around it and respond. The technical work is inseparable from an artistic question—how does it feel to enter a space that appears to notice your presence?
Metastable Aether: Systems for Living Architecture, presented as RPI’s Lee Harris Pomeroy ’55 Lecture, introduces that practice. Beesley’s studio moves between public buildings, immersive installations and experimental materials, making the talk relevant to readers interested in architecture, interactive art, engineering or speculative ideas about the environments we may someday inhabit.
**📅 Monday, October 19 · 5 PM
📍 EMPAC Theater · 50 Eighth Street, Troy
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🌌 Aiesha Turman — What Are We Teaching Toward?
Aiesha Turman is an educator, writer and filmmaker whose scholarship connects Black cultural memory with speculative futures. She teaches in UAlbany’s Writing & Critical Inquiry Program and previously taught English and Africana Studies at several CUNY and SUNY institutions. Her documentary The Black Girl Project became the foundation for a decade-long social-action initiative.
Her dissertation, There’s Always Been an Afrofuture: Black Women’s Literature as Technology of Protest, examines the Black feminist literary roots of Afrofuturism. That background matters to this lecture: Turman approaches imagined futures through the histories, writing and lived experiences of Black women, rather than treating Afrofuturism simply as a visual style or a category of science fiction. Her research also considers how trauma shapes individual and collective memory.
In What Are We Teaching Toward? Black Feminist Pedagogy, Afrofuturism, and the Work of Possibility in Troubled Times, those interests meet the classroom. The question is about the ends of education—what students are being prepared to recognize, challenge and imagine. Teachers, readers of speculative fiction and anyone interested in the relationship between cultural history and education have a concrete reason to hear her.
**📅 Monday, October 19 · 3–4:30 PM
📍 Humanities Building, Room 354 · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Free and open to the public; an online option is also listed**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🔬 University at Albany Research & Entrepreneurship Week
UAlbany’s Research & Entrepreneurship Week brings scientists, scholars, entrepreneurs, journalists and community leaders together around a practical question: how does university work become useful beyond the university? Now in its fourth year, the program combines research presentations with discussions about communicating discoveries, building businesses and working with the communities affected by that research.
Monday — Innovation & Entrepreneurship
The week begins with Anna Topol, a former IBM Research chief technology officer who now leads quantum-technology startup QLITHIC. Her keynote examines the transition from corporate leadership to entrepreneurship. Former Wall Street Journal reporter Anne Marie Chaker follows with a workshop on explaining complex ideas to collaborators, customers and investors. RISE Demo Day gives research teams an opportunity to present the commercial potential of their innovations.
Tuesday — Research’s Public Impact
UAlbany President Havidán Rodríguez joins Angela Bednarek of The Pew Charitable Trusts to discuss research’s public value. A journalism panel addresses how findings reach readers and viewers. Afternoon conversations include university-community partnerships, Capitalize Albany President Ashley Mohl on the city’s revitalization, and collaborations involving Albany schools, mental-health services and local government.
Wednesday — Health Communication & Pathbreaking Research
Harvard’s K. “Vish” Viswanath speaks about communication, equity and wellbeing. UAlbany researchers Robert Rosenswig, Shawn Bushway, Dola Saha and Xin Li then present work spanning anthropology, public policy, wireless communication and computer science. The range is part of the attraction: the program places questions about human societies and public institutions alongside technological research.
Thursday & Friday — Albany Nanotechnology Symposium
The final two days feature the symposium described below. Its concentrated technical program warrants a closer look, while the whole-week program lets readers choose sessions that match their interests without committing to five full days.
**📅 Monday, October 19–Friday, October 23
🕒 Monday: 9 AM–8 PM listed; Tuesday: 8:30 AM–4:45 PM; Wednesday: 9 AM–5 PM listed. Consult the program for individual sessions.
📍 ETEC, Rooms 149/151 · 1220 Washington Avenue, Albany
📍 Wednesday: Campus Center Ballroom, CC 202 · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Monday–Wednesday programs are free, with daily registration. The symposium has separate registration.**
Full Week’s Program & Registration
Add individual Research Week sessions to your calendar
Monday, October 19
9 AM — Opening & Anna Topol keynote: Google · Apple/Outlook
10:15 AM — Anne Marie Chaker: Google · Apple/Outlook
5 PM — RISE Demo Day: Google · Apple/Outlook
Tuesday, October 20
9:10 AM — President’s Fireside Chat: Google · Apple/Outlook
10:10 AM — Public Impact, Plainly Told: Google · Apple/Outlook
11 AM — Faculty Lightning Talks: Google · Apple/Outlook
1 PM — Rooted in Place: Google · Apple/Outlook
2 PM — Albany’s Next Chapter: Google · Apple/Outlook
2:45 PM — Better Together: Google · Apple/Outlook
3:35 PM — Facing New York’s Challenges Together: Google · Apple/Outlook
Wednesday, October 21
9:10 AM — K. “Vish” Viswanath: Google · Apple/Outlook
10:10 AM — Pathbreaking Research Talks: Google · Apple/Outlook
11:30 AM — Vanguard Roundtable: Google · Apple/Outlook
Thursday and Friday’s symposium calendar links appear with its listing below.
🚀 Ajit Prabhu — From an RPI Startup to a Global Engineering Company
Ajit Prabhu co-founded Quest Global in 1997 while studying at RPI. Nearly three decades later, the company operates in more than twenty countries, with 104 delivery centers and more than 23,000 employees, according to RPI’s announcement. Its engineers work across aerospace, automotive manufacturing, energy, medical technology, rail and semiconductors—industries in which a design has to function reliably outside the drawing board.
That growth is why RPI’s Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship has selected Prabhu for the William F. Glaser ’53 Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Established in 1990, the award recognizes alumni whose business careers can provide substantive lessons for new entrepreneurs. Prabhu’s story offers a useful case: building an engineering-services company requires technical credibility, clients willing to trust a young business and the ability to organize teams across countries and specialties.
The public celebration begins with a fireside conversation with President Marty Schmidt, followed by a startup pitch competition and faculty-student poster presentations. Readers can hear an established founder discuss his experience, then see ideas at an earlier stage of development. For engineers, business owners and anyone curious about how a technically skilled team becomes a durable company, the afternoon has more substance than an award ceremony alone.
**📅 Wednesday, October 21 · Begins at 1 PM; full program concludes at 5:30 PM
🕒 Fireside conversation and awards: 1 PM; pitch competition: 2:30 PM; posters and networking: 3:30 PM; pitch and poster awards: 4:30 PM
📍 EMPAC Theater and Evelyn’s Café · 50 Eighth Street, Troy
🎟️ Free and open to the public; RSVP requested**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🏛️ Danielle Allen — America at 250: The Declaration’s Unfinished Promise
Danielle Allen is a political philosopher whose work asks how people acquire meaningful power in a democracy. Harvard’s James Bryant Conant University Professor, she directs the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation and the Democratic Knowledge Project. Those projects address electoral institutions, civic education and the practical conditions that allow citizens to participate.
Her book Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality gives this lecture a particular foundation. Allen has closely examined the Declaration as an argument about equality, rather than merely a familiar collection of quotations. Her later Justice by Means of Democracy connects political equality with the institutions and relationships through which people govern together.
At Skidmore’s 11th Kuroda Symposium Lecture, America at 250: The Declaration’s Unfinished Promise brings that scholarship to the anniversary of independence. The subject is the continuing work implied by the founding document: who has been able to exercise its promised equality, how exclusions persist and what democratic participation requires. Allen brings both historical interpretation and experience with contemporary civic reform, giving readers a reason to expect a discussion more specific than a ceremonial anniversary address.
**📅 Friday, October 23 · 5 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Wachenheim Gallery · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Researchers in protective clothing examine equipment used in nanoscale research.
⚛️ Albany Nanotechnology Symposium — Measuring the Chips Behind the AI Era
The Albany Nanotechnology Symposium brings more than two dozen speakers to ETEC for two days devoted to semiconductor, quantum and photonic technologies. This year’s emphasis is metrology: measuring the extraordinarily small features that determine whether a chip can be manufactured accurately and perform as intended. That problem becomes more demanding as devices shrink and computing workloads grow.
On the first day, Daniel Schmidt, chief technology officer at Laser Thermal, delivers Keeping the AI Era Cool: Thermal Metrology for Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing. The subject connects an everyday concern—heat—with the engineering of advanced chips. AI workloads place heavy demands on computing hardware; understanding where heat travels and accumulates is part of making that hardware reliable.
UAlbany’s preview also identifies talks about AI-assisted materials discovery and semiconductor production. Featured participants include Damon Tsai of Applied Materials and David Palsulich of Micron, alongside speakers from IBM, GlobalFoundries, RPI, New York University and UAlbany. The combination brings manufacturing problems and academic investigations into the same room.
The second day includes a metrology workshop marking forty years of Atomic Force Microscopy. The technique made it possible to examine and measure surfaces at extraordinarily small scales. Its anniversary provides a reason to consider how measurement tools change what scientists can discover and what engineers can build.
The symposium also explains something important about Albany’s semiconductor research: universities and companies here work within a connected research and manufacturing community. Shared facilities, specialized measurement tools and exchanges among academic and industrial researchers help turn discoveries into processes that can be used in production. The two-day program offers a close view of that collaboration and the problems now driving it. UAlbany’s symposium preview
**📅 Thursday–Friday, October 22–23
📍 ETEC · 1220 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Registration listed at $50 general / $10 students. Pre-registration deadline: October 12, now passed.**
Details & Registration Information
📅 October 22: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
📅 October 23: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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📚 BOOKS, WRITERS & IDEAS
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📚 Garth Greenwell — 56th Annual Steloff Lecture
Garth Greenwell has a substantial history with Skidmore: he attended its New York State Summer Writers Institute for six years and later returned to teach fiction. Now Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University, he comes back as the Steloff honoree, following a career that includes three novels, literary criticism and recognition for the quality of his prose.
His debut, What Belongs to You, received the British Book Award for Debut of the Year. Cleanness continued his exploration of desire and relationships, while Small Rain, winner of the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award, centers on a medical crisis. Its hospital setting brings physical vulnerability into contact with memory, love and the art that sustains a life.
Greenwell is worth hearing for the relationship between his subjects and his sentences: his fiction gives extended attention to experiences that people often struggle to describe. The lecture, audience questions and honorary doctorate presentation offer an encounter with a writer whose development is directly connected to this campus. Readers can arrive through his novels, his essays or an interest in how writing turns private experience into literature.
**📅 Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Payne Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
Details · About the Steloff Lecture
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Literary scholar Sarah Rivett in her Princeton faculty portrait.
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🪶 Sarah Rivett — Raven’s Flight through American Literature
Sarah Rivett studies the places where Indigenous histories, colonial knowledge and American literature meet. Princeton’s Murray Professor of English Literature and a professor of English and American Studies, she is the author of The Science of the Soul in Colonial New England and Unscripted America: Indigenous Languages and the Origins of a Literary Nation.
Her current book project, Raven’s Land: Indigenous Literature and the American Canon, provides the background for this lecture. The raven appears across traditions, but a reader whose first association is Poe may overlook its significance in Indigenous stories. Rivett’s work asks how those traditions intersect with the writing that has come to define American literature.
Raven’s Flight through American Literature offers a specific route into that larger question. Following a recurring figure allows listeners to compare stories, notice differences and reconsider which sources receive attention in literary history. For readers interested in American literature, Indigenous studies or the movement of stories across cultures, this is a chance to hear the research behind an evolving account of the canon.
**📅 Tuesday, October 20 · 6–7 PM
📍 Science Library, Standish Room, third floor · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
✍️ m.s. RedCherries — mother, Adoption & Reconnection
Poet m.s. RedCherries, a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, won an American Book Award and became a National Book Award finalist with her debut collection, mother. Those honors introduced a writer whose work uses poetry to carry a sustained story, crossing the usual boundary between lyric collection and fiction.
The book follows a young Native American adopted by white parents as she reconnects with her tribe, family, culture and ancestral land. Its subject is therefore more specific than a general search for identity: it considers what separation from community means and how belonging can be recovered through relationships, stories and place.
The Writers Institute appearance brings the author’s voice to a work in which inheritance is both personal and communal. Readers interested in contemporary poetry, adoption, Indigenous writing or stories of return have a strong point of entry. The program is co-sponsored by several UAlbany writing and academic programs, placing the book within a broader campus conversation about literature.
**📅 Tuesday, October 20 · 4:30 PM
📍 Campus Center Multipurpose Room · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🐻 Alex Davies — Chicken Cannons, Problem Bears & Breaking Things on Purpose
Alex Davies has reported for and led editorial teams at Wired, The Athletic and Business Insider. His earlier book, Driven, examined the race to develop autonomous cars. His new Kobuk the Destroyer follows another group of people whose work affects our daily lives but rarely receives much attention: test engineers.
Their job requires them to anticipate what users, weather, animals, impacts and accidents might do to a product. Davies’s examples include a cannon that fires birds into jet engines and a grizzly bear employed to test equipment. The memorable situations reveal a serious process: someone has to devise a test, decide what counts as passing and determine how closely the test resembles the world outside.
His HVCC lecture uses those stories to examine how safety is established through human judgment as well as measurement. It is especially well suited to readers who enjoy reported science writing, engineering history or an account of unfamiliar work told through the people doing it.
**📅 Tuesday, October 20 · Noon–1 PM
🎟️ Public VOICES library lecture**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🎭 THEATER & PERFORMANCE
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🍸 The Drunken City — A Celebration Goes Off Course
Three young women head into the city for a bachelorette celebration, expecting a night that confirms the future already planned for them. A chance encounter instead sends the bride-to-be off with a stranger, leaving her friends to confront both an immediate crisis and uncomfortable questions about their own expectations.
Adam Bock’s comedy makes that night out a test of friendship, commitment and self-knowledge. The premise provides plenty of room for panic and humor, but its emotional stakes come from the difference between choosing a life and continuing toward one because everyone assumes it is settled.
UAlbany’s production is directed by Desirée Chappelle Streeter in the Arena Theatre. The play’s search for the missing bride-to-be keeps its questions about love and independence grounded in the action of one increasingly chaotic night. Six performances include Friday and weekend matinees as well as evening shows.
**📅 Wednesday, October 21 · 8 PM
📅 Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM
📅 Friday, October 23 · 3 PM
📅 Saturday, October 24 · 2 PM and 8 PM
📅 Sunday, October 25 · 4 PM
📍 Arena Theatre, Performing Arts Center · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Advance: $20 general / $15 students, seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff. Day of show: $25 / $20.**
Details & Performance-Specific Tickets
Add a performance to your calendar
Wednesday, October 21 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Friday, October 23 · 3 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Saturday, October 24 · 2 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Saturday, October 24 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Sunday, October 25 · 4 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
🎭 BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain
Samuel Beckett’s shorter plays can build a theatrical world from remarkably little: a repeated movement, a voice, an object or the arrangement of bodies in space. Skidmore’s BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain brings together Act Without Words I & II, Rough for Theatre I & II, Quad, What Where and Rockaby.
Directed by Jared Klein, the production emphasizes the relationship between text and design. Beckett’s precise instructions make movement, lighting and space part of the dramatic argument; they do not merely illustrate dialogue. A program of several short works lets audiences see how differently he uses those elements.
For readers who know Beckett primarily through Waiting for Godot, this is a way to encounter the variety of his theater. The collection offers physical comedy, unsettling repetition and concentrated images of human dependence and persistence.
**📅 October 23–28 · Evening performances 8–10 PM; Sunday, October 25, 2–4 PM
📍 Skidmore Theater, Janet Kinghorn Bernhard Theater Building · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ $6.53 students / $11.83 non-students**
Add this week’s performances to your calendar
Friday, October 23 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Saturday, October 24 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
🎙️ Stage & Stanza — Robin Lewis & Jeffery Torres
Opalka’s October Stage & Stanza brings together Robin Lewis, a Broadway and touring performer, and Jeffery Torres, a poet and playwright now based in the Capital Region. Poet Carol Durant and Theatre Institute at Sage’s David Baecker host the conversation.
Lewis’s credits include Fosse, Beauty and the Beast and Victor/Victoria, along with the first national tour of The Producers. His choreography also appeared in Richard Linklater’s film Bernie. Now teaching at Russell Sage, he brings experience of the demands of professional performance and an interest in preparing younger artists for both the craft and pressures of that work.
Torres’s writing has appeared in local poetry programs, and his play Wild Rice (We Are Cherokee) was performed in the 2026 Activated Artist Fest. Lewis brings the experience of major productions and professional touring; Torres brings poetry, playwriting and participation in the region’s emerging arts communities. Their conversation connects two different routes into a creative life.
**📅 Thursday, October 22 · 6:30–7:30 PM
📍 Opalka Gallery · Russell Sage College · 140 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Consult the official program page for attendance information**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🎨 ART & VISUAL CULTURE
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🎬 Outrider — Anne Waldman’s Life in Poetry
Poet, performer and activist Anne Waldman is the subject of Alystyre Julian’s Outrider, a feature-length film that approaches poetry as a performed and collaborative art. Its artistic circle includes Patti Smith, Meredith Monk, Bob Dylan, Laurie Anderson and Thurston Moore, showing the connections surrounding Waldman’s work.
Julian is herself a poet and filmmaker, with experience in documentary projects, film photography and writing instruction. Her portrait follows an artist whose presence and delivery are integral to the work. For viewers, that means encountering poetry through voice, movement and relationships as well as words.
Skidmore professors Ben Bogin and Maggie Greaves, who teach “Buddhism and Poetry,” introduce the screening. It also precedes Waldman’s October 29 public reading at the Tang, featured in Plan Ahead. The film can stand on its own as an encounter with an influential literary performer or provide background for hearing her in person.
**📅 Wednesday, October 21 · 6 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Somers Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🖼️ Curator’s Tour — A Feeling of With
Rachel Seligman, the Tang’s Malloy Curator and assistant director for curatorial affairs, leads a tour of an exhibition developed with faculty from several disciplines. A Feeling of With uses the museum’s collection to examine relationships through language, nature, mathematics and religion.
Its three parts give that broad idea concrete forms. Behind, Below, Within considers how language and bodily experience organize space. Human Nature examines our place in—and distance from—the natural world. The Forms of Things Unknown explores how pattern, numbers and geometry become ways of representing the sacred.
A curator’s tour is useful here because the exhibition’s organizing choices are part of its meaning. Seligman can connect objects with the questions that brought them together. Visitors can then continue through the galleries independently, testing those connections against what they see.
**📅 Thursday, October 22 · Noon
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Atrium · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
Tour Details · About the Exhibition
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🎨 Family Saturday — Looking, Discussing & Making Art Together
The Tang’s Family Saturday combines a visit to selected artworks with a hands-on art-making activity. Children and their adult companions look together, discuss what they notice and use that encounter as a starting point for making something themselves.
The program is designed for multigenerational participation: adults and children work through the same encounter with art rather than separating into a children’s workshop and an adult museum visit. The afternoon includes a tour of selected works and time for making.
The October 24 project has not been specified on the event page, but the format and access details are clear. Children ages five and older are welcome with an adult, supplies are provided while available, and no registration is required.
**📅 Saturday, October 24 · 2–3:30 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Payne Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free; ages 5+ with an adult; no registration; supplies first-come, first-served**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🖼️ Tang Guide Tour — A Student’s Route Through the Museum
Tang Guides are trained gallery ambassadors, many of them Skidmore students. Their Sunday tours introduce the museum and its current exhibitions while giving visitors an opportunity to ask questions and discuss what they encounter.
This week’s museum offers several different subjects to explore, from the relationships examined in A Feeling of With to Mark Thomas Gibson’s engagement with American history and citizenship. A guide provides a manageable route through a museum whose exhibitions can otherwise pull visitors in several directions.
The tour is particularly useful for a first visit, but returning visitors may find value in another person’s selection of details. Visitors are welcome to remain afterward and spend more time with the works that interest them.
**📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Atrium · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Sheep graze across a green landscape in a still from Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s film Quitter.
🎞️ Final Week — The Films of Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy earned their MFAs at RPI before developing an internationally exhibited practice in film, video and digital media. HVCC’s Teaching Gallery now brings together three cinematic installations—Broker, Cleaner and Quitter—that form a sequence begun in 2016.
The exhibition includes the first installation of Quitter, a 2025 experimental video featuring artist Eve Sussman and music by Lori Scacco. Its central question asks what life might look like without “lifestyle”: how a person might break with the habits, images and expectations that make contemporary life appear already organized.
Seeing the three works together allows viewers to follow the artists’ inquiry across several years rather than encounter one isolated film. October 24 is the final day, making this the week to visit if the exhibition has been on your list. The gallery is free, and its Wednesday evening hours provide an alternative to a daytime outing.
**📅 On view through Saturday, October 24
🕒 Tuesday, Thursday and Friday · 10 AM–4 PM; Wednesday · Noon–7 PM; Saturday · Noon–4 PM
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
🌼 Día de Muertos — A Conversation & Altar Exhibition
Professor Malú Benton discusses Mexican Day of the Dead traditions at HVCC, where an altar exhibition is also on view in the Marvin Library Learning Commons. The pairing allows visitors to encounter the tradition through both a conversation and a physical display.
Altars honor departed loved ones and ancestors through carefully chosen objects and decorations. The exhibition’s visual richness is therefore connected to remembrance: it makes relationships with those who have died visible within a shared cultural practice.
Tuesday’s discussion provides context for visitors who know the holiday chiefly through its imagery. Readers can attend the talk and visit the altar, or see the exhibition separately during library access hours through October 30.
**📅 Discussion: Tuesday, October 20 · 1 PM
📅 Altar exhibition: On view through Friday, October 30
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
Discussion Details · Exhibition Details
📅 Discussion: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🖼️ Light & Transient Causes — Whose Grievances Count?
Opalka’s exhibition takes its title from the Declaration of Independence’s caution against changing governments for “light and transient causes.” Curator Marisa Espe uses that phrase to consider a harder question: who decides that another person’s grievance is minor enough to ignore or temporary enough to postpone?
The ten participating artists include Deborah Dancy, Sky Hopinka, Wendy Red Star, Alisa Sikelianos-Carter and Jean-Marc Superville Sovak. Placing their work within the Declaration’s anniversary year turns the familiar document into a starting point for considering unequal experiences and judgments.
This gives the exhibition a clear relationship to the week’s public-life conversations, including Danielle Allen’s lecture. Visitors attending Stage & Stanza can spend time in the gallery beforehand, while a separate visit allows a slower encounter with the artists’ responses to the exhibition’s premise.
**📅 On view through December 5
🕒 Tuesday–Saturday · Noon–5 PM; Thursday until 8 PM; Monday by appointment
📍 Opalka Gallery · Russell Sage College · 140 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Free**
Exhibition Details · Visitor Information
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🎶 MUSIC, SOUND & TECHNOLOGY
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🎶 Lamentatio Herois — Beethoven’s Eroica & a Broader Musical Conversation
Union’s Schola Cantorum, Concert Choir and Philharmonic share a program featuring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica. The symphony’s scale, dramatic contrasts and famous funeral-march movement give the evening a substantial orchestral foundation.
The program also includes Steve Vai’s Liberty and music by Narverud, Whitacre, Lim, Thompson, Cho, Gjeilo and Davison. Guitarist Mark Visconti and drummer Jason Bowman appear as soloists. Those names and instruments suggest the breadth of the concert more clearly than a general description of “campus ensembles”: the evening brings orchestral, choral and amplified sounds together.
For listeners, the appeal lies in hearing those different musical languages within a single program. Memorial Chapel provides the setting, while the combined ensembles make this a substantial presentation of Union’s student music-making. Suggested donations support the ensembles directly.
**📅 Friday, October 23 · 7 PM
📍 Memorial Chapel · Union College · 807 Union Street, Schenectady
🎟️ Tickets at the door. Suggested donations: $15 general / $10 Union faculty, staff and alumni / $5 students, seniors and children under 12.**
Concert Program · Admission Information
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🎻 Ensemble Connect — Ligeti, Loeffler, Kodály & Bartók
Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect returns to Skidmore with a program built around unusual instrumental combinations. Ligeti’s Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano, Loeffler’s Two Rhapsodies and Kodály’s Serenade offer contrasting ways of balancing individual voices within a small ensemble.
Bartók’s Contrasts supplies a particularly interesting connection between concert music and jazz. Written in response to requests from clarinetist Benny Goodman and violinist Joseph Szigeti, it brings clarinet, violin and piano into a work whose very title directs attention to differences in character and sound.
The program gives audiences specific things to listen for: the horn alongside violin and piano in Ligeti, the shifting colors of Loeffler’s writing and the interplay in Bartók’s trio. Ensemble Connect’s residency makes this a free opportunity to hear an adventurous professional chamber program in Zankel’s concert hall.
**📅 Friday, October 23 · 7:30 PM
🎟️ Free; advance ticket registration required**
Program Details · Register for Free Tickets
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Two musicians perform together onstage.
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🎺 University Orchestra & Concert Band
UAlbany’s University Orchestra and Concert Band share a Sunday-afternoon concert in the Performing Arts Center’s Main Theatre. The program brings two of the university’s large student ensembles together in one performance.
The repertoire has not been announced on the official event page. The confirmed attraction is the shared concert itself: an opportunity to hear the work of both ensembles, with advance admission ranging from $3 for students to $10 for the general public.
The Sunday afternoon performance offers a straightforward campus music outing for families, students and readers who follow local ensemble concerts.
**📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM
📍 Main Theatre, Performing Arts Center · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Advance: $10 general / $6 seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff / $3 students. Day of show: $15 / $11 / $8.**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🩺 HEALTH & COMMUNITY
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🩺 ACPHS Health & Wellness Expo
The American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists at Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences brings its annual Health & Wellness Expo to Crossgates Mall. The location makes the program accessible to people who may not otherwise visit a campus health event.
The announced services include blood-pressure screening, a flu-shot clinic and bone-density screening, along with additional health information. Students take part through their professional organization, giving visitors an opportunity to meet future pharmacists engaged in community-facing work.
The value is practical: several services and conversations are gathered in one free afternoon program. Readers can stop by while visiting the mall or make a dedicated trip to learn what is offered. The official page provides the event’s service overview.
**📅 Saturday, October 24 · Noon–3 PM
📍 Crossgates Mall · 1 Crossgates Mall Road, Albany
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🌎 REGIONAL EXTENSION PICK — BARD COLLEGE
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🎹 Marcus Roberts Trio with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra
Marcus Roberts established his national reputation through six years touring and recording with Wynton Marsalis, then developed a career as a pianist, composer and bandleader. His work connects jazz traditions with orchestral music, and his approach to the trio gives each musician an active role in shaping tempo, texture and direction.
At Bard, the Marcus Roberts Trio joins the Conservatory Orchestra for James P. Johnson’s Yamecraw. Johnson was a central figure in Harlem stride piano, and this collaboration brings his music into an orchestral setting without losing the significance of the jazz musicians at its center. Roberts’s experience moving between improvising ensembles and symphony orchestras makes him particularly suited to that meeting.
The surrounding program includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 and Elgar’s Symphony No. 1. Those substantial orchestral works frame the jazz-classical collaboration, giving listeners a full concert rather than a brief guest appearance. Roberts’s participation is the reason this program earns a Regional Extension Pick: a nationally significant musician brings a distinctive artistic practice to a public campus performance. Bard faculty profile
**📅 Saturday, October 24 · 7 PM
📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM
📍 Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater · Bard College · 60 Manor Avenue, Annandale-on-Hudson
🎟️ $10–$26.50, depending on seating location**
📅 Saturday, October 24 · 7 PM: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🔥 3-WEEK PLAN AHEAD — OCTOBER 26–NOVEMBER 15
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⚖️ Richard Rifkin Memorial Lecture — Public Service & the Work of Government
Richard Rifkin spent more than four decades in New York public service, including roles as deputy attorney general, executive director of the State Ethics Commission and special counsel to a governor. As legal director of Albany Law’s Government Law Center, he continued advising on problems facing state and local governments until his death in 2024.
This memorial program includes remarks from former New York Attorney General Robert Abrams, placing Rifkin’s career within the institutions and public-law questions he helped address. Registration is available now for the lecture and reception, making this a program readers can reserve ahead of the event week.
**📅 Monday, October 26 · Lecture 6–7:30 PM; reception follows
📍 Dean Alexander Moot Court Room, Room 421 · Albany Law School’s 1928 Building · 80 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Registration requested; consult the event page for arrangements**
✍️ Anne Waldman — Dharma Gaze
Anne Waldman’s career encompasses more than seventy volumes of poetry, poetics and anthologies, as well as performance, recordings and the creation of literary communities. A co-founder of Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, she has helped shape a tradition in which poetry is an embodied, collaborative and public art.
Her Tang reading offers a direct encounter with that performance practice. The October 21 screening of Outrider, featured in this issue, gives readers a chance to explore her artistic life first, then hear her poetry in person the following week. That connection makes the advance notice useful: the two programs form a fuller encounter than either alone.
**📅 Thursday, October 29 · 6 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Payne Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
A portrait of saxophonist Ernie Watts.
🎷 Ernie Watts Quartet
Ernie Watts’s career includes two Grammy Awards, work with Charlie Haden’s Quartet West and extensive recordings across jazz, film and popular music. His quartet brings that history into a setting centered on improvisation, with Marc Seales on piano, Bruce Lett on bass and Bob Leatherbarrow on drums.
A Place for Jazz presents the group for one local concert, with advance tickets already available. The attraction is the opportunity to hear a major saxophonist with musicians who have developed a sustained musical relationship, giving the quartet room to move beyond the demands of studio and supporting work.
**📅 Friday, October 30 · 7 PM
📍 Carl B. Taylor Auditorium · SUNY Schenectady · 78 Washington Avenue, Schenectady
🎟️ $25 general; students with ID $10 at the door**
⚖️ Dorothy Roberts — The Mixed Marriage Project
Dorothy Roberts, the University of Pennsylvania’s George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology, has reshaped debates about race, reproductive justice and child welfare through books including Killing the Black Body, Fatal Invention and Torn Apart. Her scholarship examines how institutions make racial categories consequential in people’s lives.
At Albany Law’s 12th Katheryn D. Katz ’70 Memorial Lecture, she turns to The Mixed Marriage Project: Lessons from the History of Interracial Marriage on Race, Love, and Law. The appearance connects her newest book with the lecture series’ longstanding attention to family law and inequality. Registration is open, and early notice gives readers time to explore the book before hearing Roberts discuss its questions.
**📅 Wednesday, November 4 · 5:30 PM; reception follows
📍 Dean Alexander Moot Court Room · Albany Law School · 80 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Registration available for in-person attendance; an online option is also offered**
🎻 Capital Duo & Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company — Anniversaries in Music & Movement
Pianist Duncan Cumming and violinist Hilary Cumming mark thirty years of performing together as Capital Duo, while Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company concludes its thirty-fifth anniversary year. Their joint program brings live chamber music and contemporary dance together through artists with long connections to the Capital Region.
The evening includes a premiere set to music by Icelandic composer María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, a return to a 2018 collaboration, musical interludes by Bartók and Smetana, and Gershwin in music and movement. This is a single ticketed anniversary performance, with advance sales available—a specific collaboration worth reserving rather than a routine concert date. UAlbany ticket page
**📅 Saturday, November 7 · 7:30 PM
📍 Main Theatre, Performing Arts Center · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Ticket page lists a $16 base admission; eligible price categories appear during selection**
A portrait of jazz flutist Ali Ryerson.
🎷 Ali Ryerson Quartet
Ali Ryerson has built an international career as a jazz flutist, with appearances at major concert halls, clubs and festivals. Her recordings and Jazz Flute Big Band work have helped demonstrate the instrument’s possibilities beyond its more familiar orchestral role. Her quartet includes Larry Ham on piano, Lou Pappas on bass and Tom Melito on drums.
This is the final concert in A Place for Jazz’s announced fall series, with advance tickets available. Ryerson’s flute gives the series a different instrumental voice for its conclusion, making the evening particularly appealing to readers interested in the range of sounds a small jazz group can produce.
**📅 Friday, November 13 · 7 PM
📍 Carl B. Taylor Auditorium · SUNY Schenectady · 78 Washington Avenue, Schenectady
🎟️ $25 general; students with ID $10 at the door**
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🔭 LONG-RANGE EARLY WARNING — NOVEMBER 16–FEBRUARY 15
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🏠 A Doll’s House — UAlbany
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House begins within a household whose apparent stability depends on expectations about marriage, money and a wife’s responsibilities. As Nora’s concealed actions become known, the play turns those expectations into a conflict over dignity and independence.
UAlbany presents the play in a new version by Amy Herzog, directed by visiting assistant professor of acting Kea Trevett in her university directing debut. That combination brings a contemporary playwright’s treatment of Ibsen to a new director’s interpretation of Nora’s carefully constructed world.
The five-day run offers a concentrated opportunity to encounter a drama whose arguments remain unsettled. Readers familiar with the original can consider what a new version brings forward; newcomers can experience the choices that have made Nora’s story a continuing subject of debate.
November 18–22 · UAlbany Performing Arts Center
Theater director Sara Lyons in Skidmore’s faculty portrait.
🎭 This Emancipation Thing — Skidmore
Director Sara Lyons works with queer and feminist theatrical forms, adaptation and archival material. Their work has appeared at venues including REDCAT, The Kitchen and La MaMa. This Emancipation Thing brings that practice to Skidmore through a participatory performance led by theater students.
The production revisits feminist consciousness-raising, placing historical material beside contemporary experiences of identity, bodies and freedom. Rather than asking an audience only to watch a story unfold, it invites people to listen and consider whether they want to take part in a shared conversation.
Its unusual format deserves an introduction before the production opens. The performance asks audiences to engage with an archive as something that can be questioned and activated in the present, making it a distinctive option for readers interested in theater, feminist history and public conversation.
**November 20–December 5 · Skidmore’s Black Box Theater
Ticket information forthcoming**
📖 Little Women: The Musical — Theatre Institute at Sage
Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters bring different ambitions to the same household. Little Women: The Musical places those ambitions in songs and scenes about family loyalty, creative work, romance and the difficulty of growing into a life of one’s own.
Russell Sage’s production is directed by Michael Musial, with a book by Allan Knee, music by Jason Howland and lyrics by Mindi Dickstein. It offers a musical version of a story many readers know through the novel or its film adaptations.
Tickets are already listed for the December run. For readers considering a family or group theater outing, this is an opportunity to choose a performance of an established literary adaptation while the presenting theater’s season is available for advance planning.
**December 2–10 · Schacht Fine Arts Center, Troy
Tickets listed at $15**
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🎭 FUTURE THEATER ON CAMPUS — OCTOBER 26–APRIL 25
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These are advance production dates. Check the presenting theater for individual performances, ticket availability and schedule changes.
DatesProductionCampusDetailsThrough October 28BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain — begins October 23SkidmoreDetailsOctober 30–November 8GreaseRussell Sage / Theatre Institute at SageDetails & TicketsNovember 12–21RentSienaDetailsNovember 18–22A Doll’s HouseUAlbanySeason DetailsNovember 20–December 5This Emancipation ThingSkidmoreDetailsDecember 2–10Little Women: The MusicalRussell Sage / Theatre Institute at SageSeason & TicketsFebruary 24–March 3ClueRussell Sage / Theatre Institute at SageSeason & TicketsMarch 3–7UAlbany Theatre musical — title forthcomingUAlbanySeason DetailsApril 8–17The Country WifeSienaDetailsApril 14–17FRESH ACTS: A Festival of New PlaysUAlbanySeason Details
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📅 BY DAY CALENDAR
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Monday, October 19
9–10 AM — Research Week opening program and Anna Topol keynote · UAlbany / ETEC
10:15–11:30 AM — Anne Marie Chaker: Storytelling and Messaging for Innovators · UAlbany / ETEC
3–4:30 PM — Aiesha Turman: What Are We Teaching Toward? · UAlbany
5 PM — Philip Beesley: Metastable Aether · RPI / EMPAC
5–6:30 PM — RISE Demo Day · UAlbany / ETEC
Tuesday, October 20
9:10–9:55 AM — President’s Fireside Chat: From Research to Real-World Impact · UAlbany / ETEC
10:10–11 AM — Public Impact, Plainly Told · UAlbany / ETEC
11 AM — Faculty Lightning Talks · UAlbany / ETEC
Noon–1 PM — Alex Davies: Chicken Cannons, Problem Bears & Test Engineering · HVCC
1 PM — Día de los Muertos Discussion with Malú Benton · HVCC
1–1:50 PM — Rooted in Place: University-Community Partnerships · UAlbany / ETEC
2–2:30 PM — Albany’s Next Chapter: Revitalization and UAlbany · UAlbany / ETEC
2:45–3:30 PM — Better Together: Partnership that Creates Impact · UAlbany / ETEC
3:35–4:30 PM — Facing New York’s Challenges Together · UAlbany / ETEC
4:30 PM — m.s. RedCherries · UAlbany
6–7 PM — Sarah Rivett: Raven’s Flight through American Literature · UAlbany
Wednesday, October 21
9:10–10 AM — K. “Vish” Viswanath: Communication, Equity & Wellbeing · UAlbany
10:10–11:30 AM — Pathbreaking Research Talks · UAlbany
11:30 AM–Noon — Vanguard Roundtable · UAlbany
1 PM — Ajit Prabhu: Entrepreneur of the Year ceremony and fireside chat · RPI / EMPAC
2:30 PM — Student and Faculty Pitch Competition · RPI / EMPAC
3:30 PM — Poster Session and Networking · RPI / EMPAC
4:30 PM — Pitch and Poster Awards · RPI / EMPAC
6 PM — Outrider screening · Skidmore / Tang
8 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
Thursday, October 22
Time not posted — Albany Nanotechnology Symposium, Day 1 · UAlbany / ETEC
Noon — Curator’s Tour of A Feeling of With · Skidmore / Tang
6:30–7:30 PM — Stage & Stanza with Robin Lewis and Jeffery Torres · Russell Sage / Opalka
8 PM — Garth Greenwell: Steloff Lecture · Skidmore / Tang
8 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
Friday, October 23
Time not posted — Albany Nanotechnology Symposium, Day 2 · UAlbany / ETEC
3 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
5 PM — Danielle Allen: Kuroda Symposium Lecture · Skidmore / Tang
7 PM — Lamentatio Herois · Union
7:30 PM — Ensemble Connect · Skidmore / Zankel
8–10 PM — BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain · Skidmore
Saturday, October 24
Noon–3 PM — ACPHS Health & Wellness Expo · Crossgates Mall
2 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
2–3:30 PM — Family Saturday · Skidmore / Tang
7 PM — Bard Conservatory Orchestra with Marcus Roberts Trio · Bard / Fisher Center
8 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
8–10 PM — BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain · Skidmore
Sunday, October 25
2 PM — University Orchestra & Concert Band · UAlbany
2 PM — Tang Guide Tour · Skidmore / Tang
2 PM — Bard Conservatory Orchestra with Marcus Roberts Trio · Bard / Fisher Center
2–4 PM — BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain · Skidmore
4 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
Also on view: The Films of Jennifer and Kevin McCoy through October 24; HVCC’s Día de Muertos altar through October 30; Opalka’s Light & Transient Causes through December 5.
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What would you like to see more of—music, science, history, literature, visual art or public affairs? Have you attended something that deserves a reader’s recommendation?
Send suggestions, corrections and field notes to Alan Koslow. If you organize a substantial public campus event, please include its official event page, date, time, location and attendance requirements.
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What’s worth your time at Capital Region colleges and universities.
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Capital Region Curated: October 19-25
Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events, with novelist Garth Greenwell, architect Philip Beesley, Beethoven at Union and more.
Alan Koslow
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Capital Region Curated, Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events.
What’s worth your time at Capital Region colleges and universities.
🏛️ 📚 🎶 🎭 🔬
LIVING ARCHITECTURE, AWARD-WINNING WRITERS, THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY & BEETHOVEN’S EROICA
Garth Greenwell at Skidmore; Philip Beesley at RPI; Sarah Rivett at UAlbany; Union’s ensembles performing Beethoven and contemporary music; and Marcus Roberts with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra. Plus UAlbany’s Research & Entrepreneurship Week, theater, exhibitions and concerts.
Novelist Garth Greenwell in a portrait by Bryan Schutmaat.
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🧭 START HERE: WHAT’S INSIDE THIS WEEK
⭐ Top Picks — Garth Greenwell; Philip Beesley; Union’s Lamentatio Herois; and Sarah Rivett.
🏛️ Ideas & Public Life — Living architecture, Black feminist teaching, democracy, entrepreneurship and scientific discovery.
📚 Books, Writers & Ideas — Award-winning fiction, Indigenous poetry, literary ravens and the hidden business of product testing.
🎭 Theater & Performance — The Drunken City, Beckett’s short plays and Stage & Stanza.
🎨 Art & Visual Culture — Anne Waldman on film, curator and student-led tours, family art-making and the McCoys’ film installations.
🎶 Music, Sound & Technology — Beethoven at Union, Ensemble Connect and UAlbany’s Orchestra and Concert Band.
🩺 Health & Community — ACPHS’s free community Health & Wellness Expo.
🌎 Regional Extension — Marcus Roberts Trio with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra.
🔥 Plan Ahead — Registration-based lectures, major jazz visitors and a music-and-dance anniversary collaboration.
📅 ADD THE COMPLETE WEEK
One calendar file adds this week’s events to Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook.
📅 ADD THE COMPLETE WEEK — GOOGLE · APPLE · OUTLOOK
For Google Calendar, download the file and import it through Settings → Import & export. Individual Google Calendar links appear with the events below.
🔐 VISITING A CAMPUS EVENT?
Some campus buildings have controlled or ID-card access, particularly during the day. If you’re attending a public event and find the doors locked, ask campus staff for assistance and explain that you’re a visitor coming for the program. Arriving a few minutes early for smaller daytime events is a good idea.
Check event pages for special registration, parking, accessibility or building-entry instructions.
💬 READER FIELD NOTES
Did you attend something listed in Capital Region Curated?
Leave a quick comment: what did you see, and would you recommend it? One sentence is enough.
⭐ TOP PICKS
📚 Garth Greenwell — 56th Annual Steloff Lecture
Skidmore · Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM
Garth Greenwell, whose novel Small Rain won the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award, returns to a campus where he spent six summers studying writing before becoming an instructor himself. His fiction examines desire, illness and intimacy through exceptionally attentive prose. The Steloff Lecture brings that literary career back to one of its formative places, with audience questions and an honorary doctorate presentation.
See 📚 Books, Writers & Ideas below.
🏗️ Philip Beesley — Metastable Aether: Systems for Living Architecture
RPI / EMPAC · Monday, October 19 · 5 PM
Architect, artist and University of Waterloo professor Philip Beesley builds installations that respond through light, sound and movement. His collaborations extend from engineering laboratories to designer Iris van Herpen’s couture. At EMPAC, he discusses “living architecture”: environments assembled from delicate structures, sensors and moving components that challenge the idea of a building as a passive container.
See 🏛️ Ideas, Public Life & Campus Conversations below.
🎶 Lamentatio Herois — Beethoven, Contemporary Voices & Union’s Ensembles
Union · Friday, October 23 · 7 PM
Union’s Schola Cantorum, Concert Choir and Philharmonic bring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica, into a program that also includes Steve Vai’s Liberty and music by contemporary choral composers. Guitarist Mark Visconti and drummer Jason Bowman join the ensembles. The combination promises a wider musical range than the title alone suggests, from Beethoven’s heroic scale to amplified instruments and modern choral writing.
See 🎶 Music, Sound & Technology below.
🪶 Sarah Rivett — Raven’s Flight through American Literature
UAlbany · Tuesday, October 20 · 6 PM
Sarah Rivett, Princeton’s Murray Professor of English Literature, follows the raven through Indigenous traditions and American writing. Her books have already challenged conventional accounts of colonial knowledge and the origins of American literature. This lecture draws on that scholarship to place a familiar literary bird within a much larger history of stories, languages and encounters.
See 📚 Books, Writers & Ideas below.
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🏛️ IDEAS, PUBLIC LIFE & CAMPUS CONVERSATIONS
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🏗️ Philip Beesley — Metastable Aether: Systems for Living Architecture
Philip Beesley works across architecture, visual art and engineering. A professor at the University of Waterloo and director of the Living Architecture Systems Group, he leads collaborations that bring together designers, researchers and fabricators. His longstanding work with fashion designer Iris van Herpen also places his experiments on the scale of the human body, where materials must respond to movement.
His installations often resemble intricate suspended landscapes: lightweight components assembled into environments containing sensors, actuators, sound and light. These elements allow a structure to register activity around it and respond. The technical work is inseparable from an artistic question—how does it feel to enter a space that appears to notice your presence?
Metastable Aether: Systems for Living Architecture, presented as RPI’s Lee Harris Pomeroy ’55 Lecture, introduces that practice. Beesley’s studio moves between public buildings, immersive installations and experimental materials, making the talk relevant to readers interested in architecture, interactive art, engineering or speculative ideas about the environments we may someday inhabit.
**📅 Monday, October 19 · 5 PM
📍 EMPAC Theater · 50 Eighth Street, Troy
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🌌 Aiesha Turman — What Are We Teaching Toward?
Aiesha Turman is an educator, writer and filmmaker whose scholarship connects Black cultural memory with speculative futures. She teaches in UAlbany’s Writing & Critical Inquiry Program and previously taught English and Africana Studies at several CUNY and SUNY institutions. Her documentary The Black Girl Project became the foundation for a decade-long social-action initiative.
Her dissertation, There’s Always Been an Afrofuture: Black Women’s Literature as Technology of Protest, examines the Black feminist literary roots of Afrofuturism. That background matters to this lecture: Turman approaches imagined futures through the histories, writing and lived experiences of Black women, rather than treating Afrofuturism simply as a visual style or a category of science fiction. Her research also considers how trauma shapes individual and collective memory.
In What Are We Teaching Toward? Black Feminist Pedagogy, Afrofuturism, and the Work of Possibility in Troubled Times, those interests meet the classroom. The question is about the ends of education—what students are being prepared to recognize, challenge and imagine. Teachers, readers of speculative fiction and anyone interested in the relationship between cultural history and education have a concrete reason to hear her.
**📅 Monday, October 19 · 3–4:30 PM
📍 Humanities Building, Room 354 · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Free and open to the public; an online option is also listed**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🔬 University at Albany Research & Entrepreneurship Week
UAlbany’s Research & Entrepreneurship Week brings scientists, scholars, entrepreneurs, journalists and community leaders together around a practical question: how does university work become useful beyond the university? Now in its fourth year, the program combines research presentations with discussions about communicating discoveries, building businesses and working with the communities affected by that research.
Monday — Innovation & Entrepreneurship
The week begins with Anna Topol, a former IBM Research chief technology officer who now leads quantum-technology startup QLITHIC. Her keynote examines the transition from corporate leadership to entrepreneurship. Former Wall Street Journal reporter Anne Marie Chaker follows with a workshop on explaining complex ideas to collaborators, customers and investors. RISE Demo Day gives research teams an opportunity to present the commercial potential of their innovations.
Tuesday — Research’s Public Impact
UAlbany President Havidán Rodríguez joins Angela Bednarek of The Pew Charitable Trusts to discuss research’s public value. A journalism panel addresses how findings reach readers and viewers. Afternoon conversations include university-community partnerships, Capitalize Albany President Ashley Mohl on the city’s revitalization, and collaborations involving Albany schools, mental-health services and local government.
Wednesday — Health Communication & Pathbreaking Research
Harvard’s K. “Vish” Viswanath speaks about communication, equity and wellbeing. UAlbany researchers Robert Rosenswig, Shawn Bushway, Dola Saha and Xin Li then present work spanning anthropology, public policy, wireless communication and computer science. The range is part of the attraction: the program places questions about human societies and public institutions alongside technological research.
Thursday & Friday — Albany Nanotechnology Symposium
The final two days feature the symposium described below. Its concentrated technical program warrants a closer look, while the whole-week program lets readers choose sessions that match their interests without committing to five full days.
**📅 Monday, October 19–Friday, October 23
🕒 Monday: 9 AM–8 PM listed; Tuesday: 8:30 AM–4:45 PM; Wednesday: 9 AM–5 PM listed. Consult the program for individual sessions.
📍 ETEC, Rooms 149/151 · 1220 Washington Avenue, Albany
📍 Wednesday: Campus Center Ballroom, CC 202 · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Monday–Wednesday programs are free, with daily registration. The symposium has separate registration.**
Full Week’s Program & Registration
Add individual Research Week sessions to your calendar
Monday, October 19
9 AM — Opening & Anna Topol keynote: Google · Apple/Outlook
10:15 AM — Anne Marie Chaker: Google · Apple/Outlook
5 PM — RISE Demo Day: Google · Apple/Outlook
Tuesday, October 20
9:10 AM — President’s Fireside Chat: Google · Apple/Outlook
10:10 AM — Public Impact, Plainly Told: Google · Apple/Outlook
11 AM — Faculty Lightning Talks: Google · Apple/Outlook
1 PM — Rooted in Place: Google · Apple/Outlook
2 PM — Albany’s Next Chapter: Google · Apple/Outlook
2:45 PM — Better Together: Google · Apple/Outlook
3:35 PM — Facing New York’s Challenges Together: Google · Apple/Outlook
Wednesday, October 21
9:10 AM — K. “Vish” Viswanath: Google · Apple/Outlook
10:10 AM — Pathbreaking Research Talks: Google · Apple/Outlook
11:30 AM — Vanguard Roundtable: Google · Apple/Outlook
Thursday and Friday’s symposium calendar links appear with its listing below.
🚀 Ajit Prabhu — From an RPI Startup to a Global Engineering Company
Ajit Prabhu co-founded Quest Global in 1997 while studying at RPI. Nearly three decades later, the company operates in more than twenty countries, with 104 delivery centers and more than 23,000 employees, according to RPI’s announcement. Its engineers work across aerospace, automotive manufacturing, energy, medical technology, rail and semiconductors—industries in which a design has to function reliably outside the drawing board.
That growth is why RPI’s Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship has selected Prabhu for the William F. Glaser ’53 Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Established in 1990, the award recognizes alumni whose business careers can provide substantive lessons for new entrepreneurs. Prabhu’s story offers a useful case: building an engineering-services company requires technical credibility, clients willing to trust a young business and the ability to organize teams across countries and specialties.
The public celebration begins with a fireside conversation with President Marty Schmidt, followed by a startup pitch competition and faculty-student poster presentations. Readers can hear an established founder discuss his experience, then see ideas at an earlier stage of development. For engineers, business owners and anyone curious about how a technically skilled team becomes a durable company, the afternoon has more substance than an award ceremony alone.
**📅 Wednesday, October 21 · Begins at 1 PM; full program concludes at 5:30 PM
🕒 Fireside conversation and awards: 1 PM; pitch competition: 2:30 PM; posters and networking: 3:30 PM; pitch and poster awards: 4:30 PM
📍 EMPAC Theater and Evelyn’s Café · 50 Eighth Street, Troy
🎟️ Free and open to the public; RSVP requested**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🏛️ Danielle Allen — America at 250: The Declaration’s Unfinished Promise
Danielle Allen is a political philosopher whose work asks how people acquire meaningful power in a democracy. Harvard’s James Bryant Conant University Professor, she directs the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation and the Democratic Knowledge Project. Those projects address electoral institutions, civic education and the practical conditions that allow citizens to participate.
Her book Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality gives this lecture a particular foundation. Allen has closely examined the Declaration as an argument about equality, rather than merely a familiar collection of quotations. Her later Justice by Means of Democracy connects political equality with the institutions and relationships through which people govern together.
At Skidmore’s 11th Kuroda Symposium Lecture, America at 250: The Declaration’s Unfinished Promise brings that scholarship to the anniversary of independence. The subject is the continuing work implied by the founding document: who has been able to exercise its promised equality, how exclusions persist and what democratic participation requires. Allen brings both historical interpretation and experience with contemporary civic reform, giving readers a reason to expect a discussion more specific than a ceremonial anniversary address.
**📅 Friday, October 23 · 5 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Wachenheim Gallery · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Researchers in protective clothing examine equipment used in nanoscale research.
⚛️ Albany Nanotechnology Symposium — Measuring the Chips Behind the AI Era
The Albany Nanotechnology Symposium brings more than two dozen speakers to ETEC for two days devoted to semiconductor, quantum and photonic technologies. This year’s emphasis is metrology: measuring the extraordinarily small features that determine whether a chip can be manufactured accurately and perform as intended. That problem becomes more demanding as devices shrink and computing workloads grow.
On the first day, Daniel Schmidt, chief technology officer at Laser Thermal, delivers Keeping the AI Era Cool: Thermal Metrology for Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing. The subject connects an everyday concern—heat—with the engineering of advanced chips. AI workloads place heavy demands on computing hardware; understanding where heat travels and accumulates is part of making that hardware reliable.
UAlbany’s preview also identifies talks about AI-assisted materials discovery and semiconductor production. Featured participants include Damon Tsai of Applied Materials and David Palsulich of Micron, alongside speakers from IBM, GlobalFoundries, RPI, New York University and UAlbany. The combination brings manufacturing problems and academic investigations into the same room.
The second day includes a metrology workshop marking forty years of Atomic Force Microscopy. The technique made it possible to examine and measure surfaces at extraordinarily small scales. Its anniversary provides a reason to consider how measurement tools change what scientists can discover and what engineers can build.
The symposium also explains something important about Albany’s semiconductor research: universities and companies here work within a connected research and manufacturing community. Shared facilities, specialized measurement tools and exchanges among academic and industrial researchers help turn discoveries into processes that can be used in production. The two-day program offers a close view of that collaboration and the problems now driving it. UAlbany’s symposium preview
**📅 Thursday–Friday, October 22–23
📍 ETEC · 1220 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Registration listed at $50 general / $10 students. Pre-registration deadline: October 12, now passed.**
Details & Registration Information
📅 October 22: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
📅 October 23: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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📚 BOOKS, WRITERS & IDEAS
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📚 Garth Greenwell — 56th Annual Steloff Lecture
Garth Greenwell has a substantial history with Skidmore: he attended its New York State Summer Writers Institute for six years and later returned to teach fiction. Now Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University, he comes back as the Steloff honoree, following a career that includes three novels, literary criticism and recognition for the quality of his prose.
His debut, What Belongs to You, received the British Book Award for Debut of the Year. Cleanness continued his exploration of desire and relationships, while Small Rain, winner of the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award, centers on a medical crisis. Its hospital setting brings physical vulnerability into contact with memory, love and the art that sustains a life.
Greenwell is worth hearing for the relationship between his subjects and his sentences: his fiction gives extended attention to experiences that people often struggle to describe. The lecture, audience questions and honorary doctorate presentation offer an encounter with a writer whose development is directly connected to this campus. Readers can arrive through his novels, his essays or an interest in how writing turns private experience into literature.
**📅 Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Payne Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
Details · About the Steloff Lecture
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Literary scholar Sarah Rivett in her Princeton faculty portrait.
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🪶 Sarah Rivett — Raven’s Flight through American Literature
Sarah Rivett studies the places where Indigenous histories, colonial knowledge and American literature meet. Princeton’s Murray Professor of English Literature and a professor of English and American Studies, she is the author of The Science of the Soul in Colonial New England and Unscripted America: Indigenous Languages and the Origins of a Literary Nation.
Her current book project, Raven’s Land: Indigenous Literature and the American Canon, provides the background for this lecture. The raven appears across traditions, but a reader whose first association is Poe may overlook its significance in Indigenous stories. Rivett’s work asks how those traditions intersect with the writing that has come to define American literature.
Raven’s Flight through American Literature offers a specific route into that larger question. Following a recurring figure allows listeners to compare stories, notice differences and reconsider which sources receive attention in literary history. For readers interested in American literature, Indigenous studies or the movement of stories across cultures, this is a chance to hear the research behind an evolving account of the canon.
**📅 Tuesday, October 20 · 6–7 PM
📍 Science Library, Standish Room, third floor · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
✍️ m.s. RedCherries — mother, Adoption & Reconnection
Poet m.s. RedCherries, a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, won an American Book Award and became a National Book Award finalist with her debut collection, mother. Those honors introduced a writer whose work uses poetry to carry a sustained story, crossing the usual boundary between lyric collection and fiction.
The book follows a young Native American adopted by white parents as she reconnects with her tribe, family, culture and ancestral land. Its subject is therefore more specific than a general search for identity: it considers what separation from community means and how belonging can be recovered through relationships, stories and place.
The Writers Institute appearance brings the author’s voice to a work in which inheritance is both personal and communal. Readers interested in contemporary poetry, adoption, Indigenous writing or stories of return have a strong point of entry. The program is co-sponsored by several UAlbany writing and academic programs, placing the book within a broader campus conversation about literature.
**📅 Tuesday, October 20 · 4:30 PM
📍 Campus Center Multipurpose Room · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🐻 Alex Davies — Chicken Cannons, Problem Bears & Breaking Things on Purpose
Alex Davies has reported for and led editorial teams at Wired, The Athletic and Business Insider. His earlier book, Driven, examined the race to develop autonomous cars. His new Kobuk the Destroyer follows another group of people whose work affects our daily lives but rarely receives much attention: test engineers.
Their job requires them to anticipate what users, weather, animals, impacts and accidents might do to a product. Davies’s examples include a cannon that fires birds into jet engines and a grizzly bear employed to test equipment. The memorable situations reveal a serious process: someone has to devise a test, decide what counts as passing and determine how closely the test resembles the world outside.
His HVCC lecture uses those stories to examine how safety is established through human judgment as well as measurement. It is especially well suited to readers who enjoy reported science writing, engineering history or an account of unfamiliar work told through the people doing it.
**📅 Tuesday, October 20 · Noon–1 PM
🎟️ Public VOICES library lecture**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🎭 THEATER & PERFORMANCE
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🍸 The Drunken City — A Celebration Goes Off Course
Three young women head into the city for a bachelorette celebration, expecting a night that confirms the future already planned for them. A chance encounter instead sends the bride-to-be off with a stranger, leaving her friends to confront both an immediate crisis and uncomfortable questions about their own expectations.
Adam Bock’s comedy makes that night out a test of friendship, commitment and self-knowledge. The premise provides plenty of room for panic and humor, but its emotional stakes come from the difference between choosing a life and continuing toward one because everyone assumes it is settled.
UAlbany’s production is directed by Desirée Chappelle Streeter in the Arena Theatre. The play’s search for the missing bride-to-be keeps its questions about love and independence grounded in the action of one increasingly chaotic night. Six performances include Friday and weekend matinees as well as evening shows.
**📅 Wednesday, October 21 · 8 PM
📅 Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM
📅 Friday, October 23 · 3 PM
📅 Saturday, October 24 · 2 PM and 8 PM
📅 Sunday, October 25 · 4 PM
📍 Arena Theatre, Performing Arts Center · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Advance: $20 general / $15 students, seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff. Day of show: $25 / $20.**
Details & Performance-Specific Tickets
Add a performance to your calendar
Wednesday, October 21 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Thursday, October 22 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Friday, October 23 · 3 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Saturday, October 24 · 2 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Saturday, October 24 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Sunday, October 25 · 4 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
🎭 BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain
Samuel Beckett’s shorter plays can build a theatrical world from remarkably little: a repeated movement, a voice, an object or the arrangement of bodies in space. Skidmore’s BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain brings together Act Without Words I & II, Rough for Theatre I & II, Quad, What Where and Rockaby.
Directed by Jared Klein, the production emphasizes the relationship between text and design. Beckett’s precise instructions make movement, lighting and space part of the dramatic argument; they do not merely illustrate dialogue. A program of several short works lets audiences see how differently he uses those elements.
For readers who know Beckett primarily through Waiting for Godot, this is a way to encounter the variety of his theater. The collection offers physical comedy, unsettling repetition and concentrated images of human dependence and persistence.
**📅 October 23–28 · Evening performances 8–10 PM; Sunday, October 25, 2–4 PM
📍 Skidmore Theater, Janet Kinghorn Bernhard Theater Building · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ $6.53 students / $11.83 non-students**
Add this week’s performances to your calendar
Friday, October 23 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Saturday, October 24 · 8 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM: Google · Apple/Outlook
🎙️ Stage & Stanza — Robin Lewis & Jeffery Torres
Opalka’s October Stage & Stanza brings together Robin Lewis, a Broadway and touring performer, and Jeffery Torres, a poet and playwright now based in the Capital Region. Poet Carol Durant and Theatre Institute at Sage’s David Baecker host the conversation.
Lewis’s credits include Fosse, Beauty and the Beast and Victor/Victoria, along with the first national tour of The Producers. His choreography also appeared in Richard Linklater’s film Bernie. Now teaching at Russell Sage, he brings experience of the demands of professional performance and an interest in preparing younger artists for both the craft and pressures of that work.
Torres’s writing has appeared in local poetry programs, and his play Wild Rice (We Are Cherokee) was performed in the 2026 Activated Artist Fest. Lewis brings the experience of major productions and professional touring; Torres brings poetry, playwriting and participation in the region’s emerging arts communities. Their conversation connects two different routes into a creative life.
**📅 Thursday, October 22 · 6:30–7:30 PM
📍 Opalka Gallery · Russell Sage College · 140 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Consult the official program page for attendance information**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🎨 ART & VISUAL CULTURE
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🎬 Outrider — Anne Waldman’s Life in Poetry
Poet, performer and activist Anne Waldman is the subject of Alystyre Julian’s Outrider, a feature-length film that approaches poetry as a performed and collaborative art. Its artistic circle includes Patti Smith, Meredith Monk, Bob Dylan, Laurie Anderson and Thurston Moore, showing the connections surrounding Waldman’s work.
Julian is herself a poet and filmmaker, with experience in documentary projects, film photography and writing instruction. Her portrait follows an artist whose presence and delivery are integral to the work. For viewers, that means encountering poetry through voice, movement and relationships as well as words.
Skidmore professors Ben Bogin and Maggie Greaves, who teach “Buddhism and Poetry,” introduce the screening. It also precedes Waldman’s October 29 public reading at the Tang, featured in Plan Ahead. The film can stand on its own as an encounter with an influential literary performer or provide background for hearing her in person.
**📅 Wednesday, October 21 · 6 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Somers Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🖼️ Curator’s Tour — A Feeling of With
Rachel Seligman, the Tang’s Malloy Curator and assistant director for curatorial affairs, leads a tour of an exhibition developed with faculty from several disciplines. A Feeling of With uses the museum’s collection to examine relationships through language, nature, mathematics and religion.
Its three parts give that broad idea concrete forms. Behind, Below, Within considers how language and bodily experience organize space. Human Nature examines our place in—and distance from—the natural world. The Forms of Things Unknown explores how pattern, numbers and geometry become ways of representing the sacred.
A curator’s tour is useful here because the exhibition’s organizing choices are part of its meaning. Seligman can connect objects with the questions that brought them together. Visitors can then continue through the galleries independently, testing those connections against what they see.
**📅 Thursday, October 22 · Noon
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Atrium · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
Tour Details · About the Exhibition
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🎨 Family Saturday — Looking, Discussing & Making Art Together
The Tang’s Family Saturday combines a visit to selected artworks with a hands-on art-making activity. Children and their adult companions look together, discuss what they notice and use that encounter as a starting point for making something themselves.
The program is designed for multigenerational participation: adults and children work through the same encounter with art rather than separating into a children’s workshop and an adult museum visit. The afternoon includes a tour of selected works and time for making.
The October 24 project has not been specified on the event page, but the format and access details are clear. Children ages five and older are welcome with an adult, supplies are provided while available, and no registration is required.
**📅 Saturday, October 24 · 2–3:30 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Payne Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free; ages 5+ with an adult; no registration; supplies first-come, first-served**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🖼️ Tang Guide Tour — A Student’s Route Through the Museum
Tang Guides are trained gallery ambassadors, many of them Skidmore students. Their Sunday tours introduce the museum and its current exhibitions while giving visitors an opportunity to ask questions and discuss what they encounter.
This week’s museum offers several different subjects to explore, from the relationships examined in A Feeling of With to Mark Thomas Gibson’s engagement with American history and citizenship. A guide provides a manageable route through a museum whose exhibitions can otherwise pull visitors in several directions.
The tour is particularly useful for a first visit, but returning visitors may find value in another person’s selection of details. Visitors are welcome to remain afterward and spend more time with the works that interest them.
**📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Atrium · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Sheep graze across a green landscape in a still from Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s film Quitter.
🎞️ Final Week — The Films of Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy earned their MFAs at RPI before developing an internationally exhibited practice in film, video and digital media. HVCC’s Teaching Gallery now brings together three cinematic installations—Broker, Cleaner and Quitter—that form a sequence begun in 2016.
The exhibition includes the first installation of Quitter, a 2025 experimental video featuring artist Eve Sussman and music by Lori Scacco. Its central question asks what life might look like without “lifestyle”: how a person might break with the habits, images and expectations that make contemporary life appear already organized.
Seeing the three works together allows viewers to follow the artists’ inquiry across several years rather than encounter one isolated film. October 24 is the final day, making this the week to visit if the exhibition has been on your list. The gallery is free, and its Wednesday evening hours provide an alternative to a daytime outing.
**📅 On view through Saturday, October 24
🕒 Tuesday, Thursday and Friday · 10 AM–4 PM; Wednesday · Noon–7 PM; Saturday · Noon–4 PM
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
🌼 Día de Muertos — A Conversation & Altar Exhibition
Professor Malú Benton discusses Mexican Day of the Dead traditions at HVCC, where an altar exhibition is also on view in the Marvin Library Learning Commons. The pairing allows visitors to encounter the tradition through both a conversation and a physical display.
Altars honor departed loved ones and ancestors through carefully chosen objects and decorations. The exhibition’s visual richness is therefore connected to remembrance: it makes relationships with those who have died visible within a shared cultural practice.
Tuesday’s discussion provides context for visitors who know the holiday chiefly through its imagery. Readers can attend the talk and visit the altar, or see the exhibition separately during library access hours through October 30.
**📅 Discussion: Tuesday, October 20 · 1 PM
📅 Altar exhibition: On view through Friday, October 30
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
Discussion Details · Exhibition Details
📅 Discussion: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🖼️ Light & Transient Causes — Whose Grievances Count?
Opalka’s exhibition takes its title from the Declaration of Independence’s caution against changing governments for “light and transient causes.” Curator Marisa Espe uses that phrase to consider a harder question: who decides that another person’s grievance is minor enough to ignore or temporary enough to postpone?
The ten participating artists include Deborah Dancy, Sky Hopinka, Wendy Red Star, Alisa Sikelianos-Carter and Jean-Marc Superville Sovak. Placing their work within the Declaration’s anniversary year turns the familiar document into a starting point for considering unequal experiences and judgments.
This gives the exhibition a clear relationship to the week’s public-life conversations, including Danielle Allen’s lecture. Visitors attending Stage & Stanza can spend time in the gallery beforehand, while a separate visit allows a slower encounter with the artists’ responses to the exhibition’s premise.
**📅 On view through December 5
🕒 Tuesday–Saturday · Noon–5 PM; Thursday until 8 PM; Monday by appointment
📍 Opalka Gallery · Russell Sage College · 140 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Free**
Exhibition Details · Visitor Information
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🎶 MUSIC, SOUND & TECHNOLOGY
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🎶 Lamentatio Herois — Beethoven’s Eroica & a Broader Musical Conversation
Union’s Schola Cantorum, Concert Choir and Philharmonic share a program featuring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica. The symphony’s scale, dramatic contrasts and famous funeral-march movement give the evening a substantial orchestral foundation.
The program also includes Steve Vai’s Liberty and music by Narverud, Whitacre, Lim, Thompson, Cho, Gjeilo and Davison. Guitarist Mark Visconti and drummer Jason Bowman appear as soloists. Those names and instruments suggest the breadth of the concert more clearly than a general description of “campus ensembles”: the evening brings orchestral, choral and amplified sounds together.
For listeners, the appeal lies in hearing those different musical languages within a single program. Memorial Chapel provides the setting, while the combined ensembles make this a substantial presentation of Union’s student music-making. Suggested donations support the ensembles directly.
**📅 Friday, October 23 · 7 PM
📍 Memorial Chapel · Union College · 807 Union Street, Schenectady
🎟️ Tickets at the door. Suggested donations: $15 general / $10 Union faculty, staff and alumni / $5 students, seniors and children under 12.**
Concert Program · Admission Information
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
🎻 Ensemble Connect — Ligeti, Loeffler, Kodály & Bartók
Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect returns to Skidmore with a program built around unusual instrumental combinations. Ligeti’s Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano, Loeffler’s Two Rhapsodies and Kodály’s Serenade offer contrasting ways of balancing individual voices within a small ensemble.
Bartók’s Contrasts supplies a particularly interesting connection between concert music and jazz. Written in response to requests from clarinetist Benny Goodman and violinist Joseph Szigeti, it brings clarinet, violin and piano into a work whose very title directs attention to differences in character and sound.
The program gives audiences specific things to listen for: the horn alongside violin and piano in Ligeti, the shifting colors of Loeffler’s writing and the interplay in Bartók’s trio. Ensemble Connect’s residency makes this a free opportunity to hear an adventurous professional chamber program in Zankel’s concert hall.
**📅 Friday, October 23 · 7:30 PM
🎟️ Free; advance ticket registration required**
Program Details · Register for Free Tickets
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
Two musicians perform together onstage.
ADVERTISEMENT
🎺 University Orchestra & Concert Band
UAlbany’s University Orchestra and Concert Band share a Sunday-afternoon concert in the Performing Arts Center’s Main Theatre. The program brings two of the university’s large student ensembles together in one performance.
The repertoire has not been announced on the official event page. The confirmed attraction is the shared concert itself: an opportunity to hear the work of both ensembles, with advance admission ranging from $3 for students to $10 for the general public.
The Sunday afternoon performance offers a straightforward campus music outing for families, students and readers who follow local ensemble concerts.
**📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM
📍 Main Theatre, Performing Arts Center · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Advance: $10 general / $6 seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff / $3 students. Day of show: $15 / $11 / $8.**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🩺 HEALTH & COMMUNITY
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🩺 ACPHS Health & Wellness Expo
The American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists at Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences brings its annual Health & Wellness Expo to Crossgates Mall. The location makes the program accessible to people who may not otherwise visit a campus health event.
The announced services include blood-pressure screening, a flu-shot clinic and bone-density screening, along with additional health information. Students take part through their professional organization, giving visitors an opportunity to meet future pharmacists engaged in community-facing work.
The value is practical: several services and conversations are gathered in one free afternoon program. Readers can stop by while visiting the mall or make a dedicated trip to learn what is offered. The official page provides the event’s service overview.
**📅 Saturday, October 24 · Noon–3 PM
📍 Crossgates Mall · 1 Crossgates Mall Road, Albany
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
📅 Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🌎 REGIONAL EXTENSION PICK — BARD COLLEGE
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🎹 Marcus Roberts Trio with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra
Marcus Roberts established his national reputation through six years touring and recording with Wynton Marsalis, then developed a career as a pianist, composer and bandleader. His work connects jazz traditions with orchestral music, and his approach to the trio gives each musician an active role in shaping tempo, texture and direction.
At Bard, the Marcus Roberts Trio joins the Conservatory Orchestra for James P. Johnson’s Yamecraw. Johnson was a central figure in Harlem stride piano, and this collaboration brings his music into an orchestral setting without losing the significance of the jazz musicians at its center. Roberts’s experience moving between improvising ensembles and symphony orchestras makes him particularly suited to that meeting.
The surrounding program includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 and Elgar’s Symphony No. 1. Those substantial orchestral works frame the jazz-classical collaboration, giving listeners a full concert rather than a brief guest appearance. Roberts’s participation is the reason this program earns a Regional Extension Pick: a nationally significant musician brings a distinctive artistic practice to a public campus performance. Bard faculty profile
**📅 Saturday, October 24 · 7 PM
📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM
📍 Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater · Bard College · 60 Manor Avenue, Annandale-on-Hudson
🎟️ $10–$26.50, depending on seating location**
📅 Saturday, October 24 · 7 PM: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
📅 Sunday, October 25 · 2 PM: Google Calendar · Apple/Outlook
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🔥 3-WEEK PLAN AHEAD — OCTOBER 26–NOVEMBER 15
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⚖️ Richard Rifkin Memorial Lecture — Public Service & the Work of Government
Richard Rifkin spent more than four decades in New York public service, including roles as deputy attorney general, executive director of the State Ethics Commission and special counsel to a governor. As legal director of Albany Law’s Government Law Center, he continued advising on problems facing state and local governments until his death in 2024.
This memorial program includes remarks from former New York Attorney General Robert Abrams, placing Rifkin’s career within the institutions and public-law questions he helped address. Registration is available now for the lecture and reception, making this a program readers can reserve ahead of the event week.
**📅 Monday, October 26 · Lecture 6–7:30 PM; reception follows
📍 Dean Alexander Moot Court Room, Room 421 · Albany Law School’s 1928 Building · 80 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Registration requested; consult the event page for arrangements**
✍️ Anne Waldman — Dharma Gaze
Anne Waldman’s career encompasses more than seventy volumes of poetry, poetics and anthologies, as well as performance, recordings and the creation of literary communities. A co-founder of Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, she has helped shape a tradition in which poetry is an embodied, collaborative and public art.
Her Tang reading offers a direct encounter with that performance practice. The October 21 screening of Outrider, featured in this issue, gives readers a chance to explore her artistic life first, then hear her poetry in person the following week. That connection makes the advance notice useful: the two programs form a fuller encounter than either alone.
**📅 Thursday, October 29 · 6 PM
📍 Tang Teaching Museum, Payne Room · Skidmore College · 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs
🎟️ Free and open to the public**
A portrait of saxophonist Ernie Watts.
🎷 Ernie Watts Quartet
Ernie Watts’s career includes two Grammy Awards, work with Charlie Haden’s Quartet West and extensive recordings across jazz, film and popular music. His quartet brings that history into a setting centered on improvisation, with Marc Seales on piano, Bruce Lett on bass and Bob Leatherbarrow on drums.
A Place for Jazz presents the group for one local concert, with advance tickets already available. The attraction is the opportunity to hear a major saxophonist with musicians who have developed a sustained musical relationship, giving the quartet room to move beyond the demands of studio and supporting work.
**📅 Friday, October 30 · 7 PM
📍 Carl B. Taylor Auditorium · SUNY Schenectady · 78 Washington Avenue, Schenectady
🎟️ $25 general; students with ID $10 at the door**
⚖️ Dorothy Roberts — The Mixed Marriage Project
Dorothy Roberts, the University of Pennsylvania’s George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology, has reshaped debates about race, reproductive justice and child welfare through books including Killing the Black Body, Fatal Invention and Torn Apart. Her scholarship examines how institutions make racial categories consequential in people’s lives.
At Albany Law’s 12th Katheryn D. Katz ’70 Memorial Lecture, she turns to The Mixed Marriage Project: Lessons from the History of Interracial Marriage on Race, Love, and Law. The appearance connects her newest book with the lecture series’ longstanding attention to family law and inequality. Registration is open, and early notice gives readers time to explore the book before hearing Roberts discuss its questions.
**📅 Wednesday, November 4 · 5:30 PM; reception follows
📍 Dean Alexander Moot Court Room · Albany Law School · 80 New Scotland Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Registration available for in-person attendance; an online option is also offered**
🎻 Capital Duo & Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company — Anniversaries in Music & Movement
Pianist Duncan Cumming and violinist Hilary Cumming mark thirty years of performing together as Capital Duo, while Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company concludes its thirty-fifth anniversary year. Their joint program brings live chamber music and contemporary dance together through artists with long connections to the Capital Region.
The evening includes a premiere set to music by Icelandic composer María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, a return to a 2018 collaboration, musical interludes by Bartók and Smetana, and Gershwin in music and movement. This is a single ticketed anniversary performance, with advance sales available—a specific collaboration worth reserving rather than a routine concert date. UAlbany ticket page
**📅 Saturday, November 7 · 7:30 PM
📍 Main Theatre, Performing Arts Center · University at Albany · 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany
🎟️ Ticket page lists a $16 base admission; eligible price categories appear during selection**
A portrait of jazz flutist Ali Ryerson.
🎷 Ali Ryerson Quartet
Ali Ryerson has built an international career as a jazz flutist, with appearances at major concert halls, clubs and festivals. Her recordings and Jazz Flute Big Band work have helped demonstrate the instrument’s possibilities beyond its more familiar orchestral role. Her quartet includes Larry Ham on piano, Lou Pappas on bass and Tom Melito on drums.
This is the final concert in A Place for Jazz’s announced fall series, with advance tickets available. Ryerson’s flute gives the series a different instrumental voice for its conclusion, making the evening particularly appealing to readers interested in the range of sounds a small jazz group can produce.
**📅 Friday, November 13 · 7 PM
📍 Carl B. Taylor Auditorium · SUNY Schenectady · 78 Washington Avenue, Schenectady
🎟️ $25 general; students with ID $10 at the door**
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🔭 LONG-RANGE EARLY WARNING — NOVEMBER 16–FEBRUARY 15
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🏠 A Doll’s House — UAlbany
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House begins within a household whose apparent stability depends on expectations about marriage, money and a wife’s responsibilities. As Nora’s concealed actions become known, the play turns those expectations into a conflict over dignity and independence.
UAlbany presents the play in a new version by Amy Herzog, directed by visiting assistant professor of acting Kea Trevett in her university directing debut. That combination brings a contemporary playwright’s treatment of Ibsen to a new director’s interpretation of Nora’s carefully constructed world.
The five-day run offers a concentrated opportunity to encounter a drama whose arguments remain unsettled. Readers familiar with the original can consider what a new version brings forward; newcomers can experience the choices that have made Nora’s story a continuing subject of debate.
November 18–22 · UAlbany Performing Arts Center
Theater director Sara Lyons in Skidmore’s faculty portrait.
🎭 This Emancipation Thing — Skidmore
Director Sara Lyons works with queer and feminist theatrical forms, adaptation and archival material. Their work has appeared at venues including REDCAT, The Kitchen and La MaMa. This Emancipation Thing brings that practice to Skidmore through a participatory performance led by theater students.
The production revisits feminist consciousness-raising, placing historical material beside contemporary experiences of identity, bodies and freedom. Rather than asking an audience only to watch a story unfold, it invites people to listen and consider whether they want to take part in a shared conversation.
Its unusual format deserves an introduction before the production opens. The performance asks audiences to engage with an archive as something that can be questioned and activated in the present, making it a distinctive option for readers interested in theater, feminist history and public conversation.
**November 20–December 5 · Skidmore’s Black Box Theater
Ticket information forthcoming**
📖 Little Women: The Musical — Theatre Institute at Sage
Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters bring different ambitions to the same household. Little Women: The Musical places those ambitions in songs and scenes about family loyalty, creative work, romance and the difficulty of growing into a life of one’s own.
Russell Sage’s production is directed by Michael Musial, with a book by Allan Knee, music by Jason Howland and lyrics by Mindi Dickstein. It offers a musical version of a story many readers know through the novel or its film adaptations.
Tickets are already listed for the December run. For readers considering a family or group theater outing, this is an opportunity to choose a performance of an established literary adaptation while the presenting theater’s season is available for advance planning.
**December 2–10 · Schacht Fine Arts Center, Troy
Tickets listed at $15**
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🎭 FUTURE THEATER ON CAMPUS — OCTOBER 26–APRIL 25
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These are advance production dates. Check the presenting theater for individual performances, ticket availability and schedule changes.
DatesProductionCampusDetailsThrough October 28BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain — begins October 23SkidmoreDetailsOctober 30–November 8GreaseRussell Sage / Theatre Institute at SageDetails & TicketsNovember 12–21RentSienaDetailsNovember 18–22A Doll’s HouseUAlbanySeason DetailsNovember 20–December 5This Emancipation ThingSkidmoreDetailsDecember 2–10Little Women: The MusicalRussell Sage / Theatre Institute at SageSeason & TicketsFebruary 24–March 3ClueRussell Sage / Theatre Institute at SageSeason & TicketsMarch 3–7UAlbany Theatre musical — title forthcomingUAlbanySeason DetailsApril 8–17The Country WifeSienaDetailsApril 14–17FRESH ACTS: A Festival of New PlaysUAlbanySeason Details
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📅 BY DAY CALENDAR
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Monday, October 19
9–10 AM — Research Week opening program and Anna Topol keynote · UAlbany / ETEC
10:15–11:30 AM — Anne Marie Chaker: Storytelling and Messaging for Innovators · UAlbany / ETEC
3–4:30 PM — Aiesha Turman: What Are We Teaching Toward? · UAlbany
5 PM — Philip Beesley: Metastable Aether · RPI / EMPAC
5–6:30 PM — RISE Demo Day · UAlbany / ETEC
Tuesday, October 20
9:10–9:55 AM — President’s Fireside Chat: From Research to Real-World Impact · UAlbany / ETEC
10:10–11 AM — Public Impact, Plainly Told · UAlbany / ETEC
11 AM — Faculty Lightning Talks · UAlbany / ETEC
Noon–1 PM — Alex Davies: Chicken Cannons, Problem Bears & Test Engineering · HVCC
1 PM — Día de los Muertos Discussion with Malú Benton · HVCC
1–1:50 PM — Rooted in Place: University-Community Partnerships · UAlbany / ETEC
2–2:30 PM — Albany’s Next Chapter: Revitalization and UAlbany · UAlbany / ETEC
2:45–3:30 PM — Better Together: Partnership that Creates Impact · UAlbany / ETEC
3:35–4:30 PM — Facing New York’s Challenges Together · UAlbany / ETEC
4:30 PM — m.s. RedCherries · UAlbany
6–7 PM — Sarah Rivett: Raven’s Flight through American Literature · UAlbany
Wednesday, October 21
9:10–10 AM — K. “Vish” Viswanath: Communication, Equity & Wellbeing · UAlbany
10:10–11:30 AM — Pathbreaking Research Talks · UAlbany
11:30 AM–Noon — Vanguard Roundtable · UAlbany
1 PM — Ajit Prabhu: Entrepreneur of the Year ceremony and fireside chat · RPI / EMPAC
2:30 PM — Student and Faculty Pitch Competition · RPI / EMPAC
3:30 PM — Poster Session and Networking · RPI / EMPAC
4:30 PM — Pitch and Poster Awards · RPI / EMPAC
6 PM — Outrider screening · Skidmore / Tang
8 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
Thursday, October 22
Time not posted — Albany Nanotechnology Symposium, Day 1 · UAlbany / ETEC
Noon — Curator’s Tour of A Feeling of With · Skidmore / Tang
6:30–7:30 PM — Stage & Stanza with Robin Lewis and Jeffery Torres · Russell Sage / Opalka
8 PM — Garth Greenwell: Steloff Lecture · Skidmore / Tang
8 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
Friday, October 23
Time not posted — Albany Nanotechnology Symposium, Day 2 · UAlbany / ETEC
3 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
5 PM — Danielle Allen: Kuroda Symposium Lecture · Skidmore / Tang
7 PM — Lamentatio Herois · Union
7:30 PM — Ensemble Connect · Skidmore / Zankel
8–10 PM — BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain · Skidmore
Saturday, October 24
Noon–3 PM — ACPHS Health & Wellness Expo · Crossgates Mall
2 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
2–3:30 PM — Family Saturday · Skidmore / Tang
7 PM — Bard Conservatory Orchestra with Marcus Roberts Trio · Bard / Fisher Center
8 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
8–10 PM — BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain · Skidmore
Sunday, October 25
2 PM — University Orchestra & Concert Band · UAlbany
2 PM — Tang Guide Tour · Skidmore / Tang
2 PM — Bard Conservatory Orchestra with Marcus Roberts Trio · Bard / Fisher Center
2–4 PM — BECKETT: Nothing Is Certain · Skidmore
4 PM — The Drunken City · UAlbany
Also on view: The Films of Jennifer and Kevin McCoy through October 24; HVCC’s Día de Muertos altar through October 30; Opalka’s Light & Transient Causes through December 5.
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HELP SHAPE CAPITAL REGION CURATED
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What would you like to see more of—music, science, history, literature, visual art or public affairs? Have you attended something that deserves a reader’s recommendation?
Send suggestions, corrections and field notes to Alan Koslow. If you organize a substantial public campus event, please include its official event page, date, time, location and attendance requirements.
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Designed and Developed by Ta-Da Studios
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Designed and Developed by Ta-Da Studios