Though the Hobbit quiz was recently created to mark the opening of Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” its genesis goes back to 1964 when Jan Howard Finder first encountered J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings.
“I just got finished with my master’s in physical chemistry,” said Finder, 73, in a recent interview. “It was just a masterful story. I just got lost in it. I drove around and wondered, ‘Where in Middle-earth am I?’”
Finder wasn’t alone in his fascination. Tolkien’s books have sold in the hundreds of millions.
The now-retired Finder, an Albany resident, is more than just a fan of Tolkien; he’s also the main organizer of the Conference on Middle-earth, in which people present papers or speak on panels about the author, his works and his influence. (more…)
You’ll be a bit disappointed if you go to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s annual holiday concert expecting to hear the group to play its holiday rock opera “Christmas Eve and Other Stories.”
They’re not doing that this year.
Instead, the bombastic rock act has chosen to rock “The Lost Christmas Eve,” the final chapter of its popular Christmas trilogy—which began with 1996’s “Christmas Eve.” “The Lost Christmas Eve” — which will be played in its entirety — focuses on people in a rundown hotel, an old toy store, a blues bar, and a Gothic cathedral in New York City on Christmas Eve. But don’t worry.
The TSO will heat up its huge light and laser show and dust off yuletide favorites such as “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24” during the second half of the concert. 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Times Union Center, 51 S. Pearl St., Albany. $33-$73. 487-2000; http://timesunion.com
Brubeck was no stranger to the Capital Region. The venues he performed in include the Saratoga Jazz Festival at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Proctors in Schenectady, Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, the Massry Center for the Arts at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, Mass., His most recent performance was with his son’s band, Chris Brubeck Triple Play in June 10, 2011, at Zankel Center at Skidmore College.
Trey Anastasio Band will return to the Capital Region to play on Saturday, Jan. 26, at the Palace Theatre in Albany, Live Nation has announced.
The band is touring in support of Anastasio’s latest solo release, the album “Traveler,” which was released in October by ATO Records.
Rolling Stone magazine called the recording “gorgeous” and said of the song “Pigtail”:”all class-clown philosophizing and noodle-dance groove – is the slam-dunk: a reminder of what he does better than anyone else.”
The band’s line-up includes Cyro Baptista, James Casey, Natalie Cressman, Jennifer Hartswick, Russ Lawton, Tony Markellis and Ray Paczkowski.
Tickets for the show will be $42.50 go onsale at 10 a.m. Dec. 15. They can be purchased via LiveNation.com, at the Palace Theatre box office at 19 Clinton Ave. in Albany or charge by phone at 800-745-3000.
Family fun
There’s just something magical about trains and Christmas. The sight of a Lionel engine, billowing smoke from its toy smokestack as it chugs around the tree, is heartwarming—and quite common during the first half of the 20th century. A visit to the Great Train Extravaganza will bring those memories flooding back. The annual model train showcase, presented by the Upstate Train Associates and the Hudson-Berkshire Division of the National Model Railroad Association, will feature more than 200 tables of model trains of all gauges, train sets, parts, accessories, books and railroad memorabilia. And this year, there will be a “massive” train layout made of Legos. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. today (Sunday, 12/2). $7; free for kids under 12. Empire State Plaza Convention Center, Albany. 668-9892; http://www.gtealbany.com
Kids didn’t watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas” for the music. But its Vince Guaraldi’s stellar jazz soundtrack from the classic Christmas special that brings back yuletide memories for Baby Boomers. Guaraldi’s instrumental takes on “Christmas Time Is Here,” “Oh Christmas Tree,” and “Linus and Lucy” are quintessential holiday fare. Guaraldi’s genius will be celebrated in “It’s A Jazzy Christmas!,” a concert featuring The Peanut Gallery Jazz Trio. The group — local pianist David Gleason, Schenectady school district music teacher Mike Lawrence and drummer Pete Sweeney — will play Guaraldi’s holiday faves. 3 and 5 p.m. today (Sunday, 12/2). $10-$20; free for children under 6 (ticket is required). Kathleen McManus Picotte Recital Hall, Massry Center for The Arts, The College of St. Rose, 1002 Madison Ave., Albany. 337-4871; http://bit.ly/Ukp2Yi
Think about the items you choose to decorate your home. Are they simply there to beautify your walls or do you have a deeper connection to them? For the 27 contributors to “The Muse at Home” at Skidmore’s Schick Gallery, it’s deeply personal. The artworks they choose to surround themselves with are like old friends, sometimes created by friends.
Rebecca Shepard, curatorial assistant to the director of the Schick Gallery, says that within the idea of a show about collecting, she felt the focus should be on exploring more fully how people feel about the art they own.
“It’s really more about what people get from living with the work in their home,” says Shepard. A call was sent out to everyone involved in visual art at Skidmore. Faculty and staff from the Tang Teaching Museum, the studio art and art history departments and the visual resources area of the library responded. Fifteen of the 27 contributors are working artists themselves. (more…)
Richard Florida, who coined the term creative class — about how the development of cities can be dependent upon the rise of a class of professionals involved in creative industries — recently published a study in the Atlantic Online about the most popular music scenes in the U.S. (A hat tip to my colleague Leigh Hornbeck to pointing me to this map on the Idiotsbeingidiots blog.)
Florida’s post offers four maps:
Raw Number of Musical Acts (LA is on top, followed by NYC and Chicago)
Density of Musical Acts per 10,000 (This is the map above, with LA on top, followed by Napa, Calif., and Las Vegas — the Albany metro area comes in ninth)
Music Popularity Index (in millions) This comes from MySpace data in 2007 (!) and has LA, NYC and Atlanta in the top 3
Popularity Index per Capita (Nashville tops this list, followed by LA and Atlanta)
The article states that the data come from MySpace in 2007, so it can be out of date. Florida writes:
In early 2007, at the peak of the site’s popularity (it had more visitors than Google at the time), my team at the Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI) and I organized and collated information on the more than three million artists that were listed. We cleaned the data, organizing it by location, popularity (as reflected by fans, plays, and page views), and key musical genres. Overall, we were able to code almost two million acts to metro areas.
It is stunning that Albany area is so highly ranked in the density of musical acts with 154 for 10,000 people.
Now this doesn’t mean the city of Albany, but the metropolitan statistical area, which includes the four counties of the Capital Region (Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga Springs and Schenectady) and more than 800,000 people. But if the math is correct, and you take that 154 per 10,000 and apply it to a population of 800,000, that means in 2007 there were 12,320 musical acts in the Capital Region.
To me this study, and Albany’s rank in it, means a few things:
It confirms what I’ve long suspected and what other data, like a recent Preview survey, has said: going to see music is one of the top entertainment activities in the region.
Many of the people who go to see musical acts are also involved in their own musical act.
New technologies have made it easier than ever for people to create, record and distribute music, and this region is a vibrant place for that creation.
Despite all of this vibrancy, the music doesn’t have much of a reach, in that it doesn’t rate highly on the popularity index. That could mean that not enough people are hearing the music being created in this area, because the new tools for recording and distribution aren’t enough to make it big in the music world, if Albany has to compete with Nashville and LA, for example. Then again, it could also mean that the music isn’t all that good.
It also means that, with so many musical acts, that you, dear reader, likely know at least one person who plays music in a band, if not several,
Carrie Underwood returns to the Capital Region on Tuesday, Dec. 4. It is hard to believe that it has been more than seven years since she became part of the pop culture firmament with her winning turn on the fourth season of American Idol. To celebrate her return, which will feature her American Music Award best Country album: “Blown Away,” check out these photos to relive the past seven years of her rise from AI contestant to superstar. You can read the review of her 2010 concert at Times Union Center here.
At a glance
Carrie Underwood
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 4
Where: Times Union Center, 51 S. Pearl St., Albany
