The Best of Upstate New York, in your inbox every Sunday.
Footage: ConnectHV
The maples are nearly bare, the cider is pressed, and the valley is turning inward toward small rooms and good company. Photographs that play with who holds the power in love, a quince cider poured to flamenco, and an afternoon of breath and performance in Kingston. Here is what's worth planning around over the next three weeks.
About 45 staged portraits Pixy Liao made with her partner Moro. They're tender, funny, and they quietly swap who holds the power in a relationship. Go Thursday Oct 29 at 6 PM and stay for CPW's free Meet the Artist night with Jarod Lew and John Shen.
See the Show
The 32 Sounds filmmaker follows everyone who has held the title of oldest person alive. Sari Botton of Oldster Magazine moderates the conversation afterward, so stay in your seat.
Get Tickets
Treasury opens its new quince cider with a Spanish cheese and chorizo board. Flamenco guitar plays on the porch until 6, which is the hour to arrive.
See Details
Ninety minutes of gentle movement and circular breathing set to music, in one of Kingston's calmest rooms. Come in carrying the week and walk back out onto Broadway lighter.
Book a Spot
A four-hour gathering for actors and artists of every kind: Integrative Breathwork, movement, then witnessed performance in the circle. You leave more present, bolder and more truthful. Led by Evan Williams and Millana Snow; more sessions Dec 3 and Dec 17.
Save Your SpotArts Mid-Hudson opens a shop of handmade work by local artists for the holiday season. A good early chance to buy gifts that support makers directly.
The first survey of Diné weaver and math teacher Marilou Schultz covers 65 years at the loom. Its center is her hand-woven rugs based on computer-chip circuitry, including the Pentium replica Intel commissioned in 1994, hung alongside pieces by her mother, grandmother and niece. It is a beautiful show about craft, lineage and technology, curated by Candice Hopkins.
A two-decade survey of the upstate-based, Somali-born painter, whose dense, kaleidoscopic canvases draw on her training in Arabic calligraphy and on the natural world. She often paints with her fingers and stitches found fabrics into her canvases. Pair it with the Schultz show in the same building for an unhurried afternoon.
The Wassaic Project's artists build a haunted barn that is spooky in the most handmade way. The 21+ costume ball is already sold out, so plan on the barn.
The famous haunted hayride and houses, back for one last week of the season. Evening attractions are best for ages 13 and up.
A theatrical haunted house with advance reservations. Not for very young children.
Regional designers each take a room of an empty Saugerties house and fill it with local craft, furniture and ideas. A rich source of inspiration for anyone working on a home, and only two weekends remain.
A 90-minute train ride along the old Ulster & Delaware line to a pumpkin patch, where everyone picks one to take home.
An hour among the old stones of one of the valley's oldest burying grounds, with the Revolutionary-era stories of the people buried there. The dusk tour on the 24th is the moodiest one.
A free, self-guided weekend inside working studios in eastern Dutchess's quieter hamlets. You meet makers where they work and buy straight from them.
Little ones make a Halloween craft and hunt for clues around the historic stone houses. A sweet, low-key family morning.
The last weekends of the harvest season at a family-run orchard, with apple picking, espresso from a visiting cart and Treasury Cider on the porch. A good way to say goodbye to fall.
About 45 staged portraits Pixy Liao made with her partner Moro. They're tender, funny, and they quietly swap who holds the power in a relationship. Go Thursday Oct 29 at 6 PM and stay for CPW's free Meet the Artist night with Jarod Lew and John Shen.
Marianna McClellan's weekly somatic movement class, open to all bodies and abilities, mixing structured strength work with guided creative movement.
Beth Reichheld leads a walk along the Sawkill between two of Woodstock's beloved swimming holes, tied to the watershed mapping show now at WAAM. A slow way to learn the creek that runs through town.
Slow Food Hudson Valley gathers more than a dozen regional cider and fruit-spirit makers in the orchard, with a cidery tour and wood-fired pizza.
A solo show alongside WAAM's fall exhibitions, including Feathered Friends: A Woodstock Aviary.
Schumann and Ethel Smyth alongside the Black British composer Eleanor Alberga, played in the restored 1855 opera house on Warren Street.
A four-course dinner built around the botanical folklore of Italian amaro, with a potion to blend and a handmade spellbook to take home. Costumes are optional, and the night is 21+.
Upstate Films' new series of jazz, poetry and film: the Grammy-nominated bandleader's quartet plays with poets Phillip Levine and Sparrow on a New York City theme.
Layered mixed-media works on Black identity and desire, curated by Mickalene Thomas. It closes in a month, so pair it with a long lunch by the fire.
The Seneca artist, curator and longtime steward of Ganondagan, known for his paintings on brown paper bags drawn from Haudenosaunee thought, talks about an exhibition that shaped his practice. The series is organized by the Indigenous-led Forge Project, and it lands just as Jemison serves as a commissioned artist and curator for the 2026 Carnegie International.
The Hudson Valley physician known for his Lyme disease work talks about his new book at one of the valley's best bookstores.
The Rosendale Theatre Roadshow shows Neil Marshall's cave-horror classic inside a real limestone mine for Halloween week. Bring a layer.
A Pilates class on the covered wraparound porch overlooking the orchard, then a glass of the farm's own cider. Movement and a toast in one evening.
Two Asian American photographers from CPW's Woodstock residency talk about their work. Shen builds his own cameras and uses infrared to explore memory and belonging.
The 32 Sounds filmmaker follows everyone who has held the title of oldest person alive. Sari Botton of Oldster Magazine moderates the conversation afterward, so stay in your seat.
Omri Riss Chbarbi performs and gives context for the music of the queer Black minimalist composer, two days after what would have been his 86th birthday.
The Honduran-born pianist brings his trio to the listening room on John Street.
Treasury opens its new quince cider with a Spanish cheese and chorizo board. Flamenco guitar plays on the porch until 6, which is the hour to arrive.
Greta Schiller's documentary about the women of the Left Bank, newly restored. Schiller and writer Andrea Weiss join for a Q&A, likely on Friday.
One of the most adventurous string quartets working today plays a small, community-run room in Saugerties. Expect chamber music up close, with the warmth of a listening crowd. Tickets at TheLocalSaugerties.com.
Magic and mentalism for Halloween weekend in Catskill's beloved little theater.
Kingston's community parade goes full pirate this year, with a treasure and treat hunt along Broadway plus music, food and games. Bring the kids, or bring a crew and march.
Trick-or-treating along a street of 1700s stone houses, then stay on for New Paltz's Halloween parade night. One of the most charming Halloween settings in the valley.
A small Saugerties gallery opens a new solo show (through Dec 6) on a Halloween afternoon. An easy, neighborly stop before the evening begins.
The Rock Academy Showband leads a costumed parade through town, followed by a costume contest for all ages (pets too) and trick-or-treating at local shops. Pure small-town Woodstock.
The village's Halloween night parade, right after trick-or-treating on Huguenot Street.
A Halloween supper club in the CIA's grand hall, with food, drinks, tax and service all included.
A 21+ Halloween circus party at Keegan Ales. Costumes encouraged.
Keep the costume on and dance into Halloween night at the Unicorn.
One of the boldest alto saxophonists working today, and director of jazz at Princeton, brings his trio to a small room. They play fresh, original arrangements of the music that formed him, from Charlie Parker and Sonny Rollins to Ornette Coleman. An early Sunday set in a listening room this intimate is a treat.
Two weeks of prix-fixe menus across the region. A good excuse to finally book the place you keep driving past.
Ninety minutes of gentle movement and circular breathing set to music, in one of Kingston's calmest rooms. Come in carrying the week and walk back out onto Broadway lighter.
New choreography from Bard's dance program in the Gehry-designed Fisher Center. It's free and full of young, experimental energy, though seats need reserving.
New choreography in ASK's Broadway space.
Artist makers, live music, local food and fire pits spread across Harvey Fite's bluestone sculpture park on its last open weekend of the season. A gentle, handmade way to say goodbye to fall close to home.
A one-day version of Beacon's artist-run biennial festival, with music, art and food trucks inside a former school turned art center. Grassroots and community-built.
Listen to the Sawkill underwater. Sound artist and nature recordist Zaneta leads a session with hydrophones and portable recorders, part of Mapping the Sawkill, treating listening and field recording as a ritual of connection with the river and the land.
The countertenor sings a Sunday afternoon recital in Hudson's historic opera house.
A new Veterans Day song cycle by Patrick Zimmerli, built from wartime letters written from the Revolution through the Gulf War.
A four-hour gathering for actors and artists of every kind: Integrative Breathwork, movement, then witnessed performance in the circle. You leave more present, bolder and more truthful. Led by Evan Williams and Millana Snow; more sessions Dec 3 and Dec 17.
The cult heavy band fills the old riverside foundry. Loud, slow and enveloping.
David Greaves completes his father William Greaves's 16mm footage of a 1972 gathering of Harlem Renaissance figures. A homecoming of a film.
Afrobeat from a Fela-schooled guitarist and his Brooklyn band. Expect to dance.
A hands-on herbal day with a weed walk and a wild-food lunch, covering elder, echinacea, boneset and sage for the cold months.
Sit down with the artist and stitch alongside neighbors at the Wassaic Project.
A Thanksgiving-style, three-course, family-style meal at communal tables, with new wine releases from one of the valley's most serious estates. It's a lovely run-up to the holidays (check the price when tickets go on sale).
One night only: Wayward Daughter Theatre Company stages Marsha Norman's Pulitzer Prize-winning two-hander, with Oscar-winning actor Melissa Leo and Hannah Munson. Directed by Jessica Bauman.
The Brazilian singer-songwriter and artist-activist moves easily between soul, blues, Afrobeat, reggae and conscious rap, and she performs with real fire and warmth. It is a big voice in a small Saugerties room on a Saturday night.
A production tour and covered wagon ride through the orchard, finished with five tasting pours.
A hands-on workshop on finding and harvesting roots as the ground cools.
Nothing in that mix this week. Try another town or type.
Worth the Drive, the full itinerary and new guides, in your inbox before the weekend.
