The Roxbury Arts Group Celebrates Its 36th Anniversary - 2015 Season is Announced!

F O R   I M M E D I A T E   R E L E A S E

Telephone:     607.326.7908
Email:             mcullen@ roxburyartsgroup.org

The Roxbury Arts Group Celebrates Its 36th Anniversary!

2015 Season is Announced and Includes Salsa, Noir-Indie-Pop, Classical and more!
Performances, Exhibits, Workshops, Youth Camps

The snow is melting, the mountains are alive with the songs of spring birds and the Roxbury Arts Group is bursting with news about their upcoming 36th season, starting in May! The roster of performances, events and workshops is designed for all ages to enjoy and includes an 11- piece Salsa Band, an Evening of Dance, a Folk & Roots based outdoor music series, the very popular Essential Thursdays series, the return of the Villalobos Brothers, a classical quintet playing Mozart to Radiohead, a Noir-Indie-Pop band with accordion, horns, drum and an ukulele and much much more! For full season details and tickets, visit the Roxbury Arts Group website at www.roxburyartsgroup.org. or call 607.326.7908.

Opening the 2015 summer performance season on May 23rd is the electrifying 11-piece Salsa Band – Orquesta SCC at the Roxbury Arts Center! Be prepared to have every cell in your body dancing, even if you never leave your seat. The bands album ‘Renacimiento’ topped the Latin charts and won best salsa album multiple times around the world. Plan to come early for the free salsa dance lesson and then let the music do the rest.

Contemporary dance takes center stage at the June 13th performance at the Roxbury Arts Center featuring sheer beauty in motion when Blakeley White-McGuire, currently Principal Dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company in New York City, takes the stage. White-McGuire is joined this year by dancers and twin sisters Hsiao-Wei and Hsiao-Ting, and award-winning cellist Nan-Cheng Chen.

The very popular Essential Thursdays series returns to the Old School Baptist Church in the idyllic Denver-Vega Valley, boasting a roster of some of the world’s finest classical musicians. Violins and a cello will play Mozart, Beethoven and Piazzolla Tangos on July 9 and selections from American classical composers Gershwin, Copland and Porter will fill the air with the resonances of an oboe and trombone duo on July 30. This exquisite performance series closes on August 20 when a clarinet, violin and cello bringing clarity to the end of the series through the stylings of Neo-Classical composers such as Stravinsky and Ingolf Dahl. Come early and enjoy a bite to eat before entering the Old School Baptist Church, the venue the Roxbury Arts Group shamelessly claims to be ‘the best little acoustic house this side of the Susquehanna!’

For those hot summer nights, pack a cooler, grab the kids and friends and come on down to the new gazebo in Stamford’s Veteran’s Memorial Park for an early evening outdoor concert series. It’s all Roots, Folk Americana and Country music featuring regional performers Sara Milonovich & Greg Anderson on June 14, immediately following the Flag Day Parade. Jeff Wilkinson & The Shutterdogs will perform on July 23, and this outdoor summer concert series closes on August 13 when Country Express plans to have everyone dancing in the square.

As the summer sizzles on, July 25th marks the return of the ‘Contemporary High-Octane Mexican Fiddling’ group, the Villalobos Brothers!  L.A. Noir-Indie-Pop Band with accordion, horns, drums and ukulele, The Leftover Cuties arrive September 19th.  And on Sunday, October 11th, FIDDLERS! 22 will this year celebrate in memoriam Hilt Kelly.  Honoring the renowned Catskill region’s legendary fiddler and caller, FIDDLERS! 22 roster of entertainers includes The Tremperskill Boys, Laura Kortright and Steve Jacobi, Brittany Haas & Nic Gareiss, Linsey Beckett and more.

Community favorites, For Arts’ Sake and The Follies, both return, as does the Holiday Local Arts Market which features many of the region’s greatest artisans.  Writers’ Evening, continues every 3rd Monday at the Stamford Village Library and Youth Dance Classes for age groups 4 through 12, offers Ballet and Plié & Play on Thursdays, at the Stamford Central School.  The Haunted House returns to the Delaware Inn in October, and the Roxbury Arts Group will be looking for ghoulies and spooky folk to help make a haunting!

Art classes are planned throughout the year and for details and updates, please refer to roxburyartsgroup.org.  The next class being offered is a two-day monoprint workshop on May 30th & 31st, instructed by artist Lisbeth Firmin, with assistance from fellow artist Helene Manzo. Scheduled for the Exhibition Series in the Walt Meade Gallery this year, exhibits include the current show “Large Works; followed by Lisbeth Firmin: Working the Light opening  May 2nd; an exhibit focusing on the art of the Harvest opens August 1st; between October 16th through the 18th, a retrospective show titled “Walt Meade: 100 Years” will include an opening reception and a slide show; and on November 7th the exhibition “Small Works” will fill the gallery walls.

And summer is not summer without camp for the kids!  For ages 8 through 13, the very popular Rock n’ Pop Theater Camp returns for its 6th summer of theater, writing, acting, performing and of course, singing!  Youth educator / director Malissa Kano-White returns to direct campers through a week of training and rehearsals culminating in a musical written specifically for them and an encore concert performance.

“We are bubbling over in excitement with this year’s season” says Jenny Rosenzweig, Executive Director of the Roxbury Arts Group.  “We know our audience will have a multitude of events and performances to their liking to choose from, but knowing we have a high level of excellence in all our programming we are hoping that they will be inspired to also experience performances and workshops which they normally would not choose to attend. This would be such a great validation to the Roxbury Arts Group’s mission of ‘bringing the arts to the community’,” sited Rosenzweig.

For more information and ticket reservations please visit www.roxburyartsgroup.org, or call the Roxbury Arts Group at 607.326.7908.

All programs offered by the Roxbury Arts Group are supported by the New York State Council on the Arts, the A. Lindsay and Olive B. O’Connor Foundation, the Robinson-Broadhurst Foundation, and the generosity of our business sponsors and individual donors like you.