Festivity in the Hudson Valley usually shifts into high gear around Halloween, with local historic sites such as Washington Irving’s Sunnyside…
She didn’t get the bird she was looking for, but Scarsdale High School senior Anastasia Stefanou made the most of her time standing out in the cold on a blustery day at Jones Beach. The result was an award-winning photograph that Stefanou entered in the Audubon national photography contest. …
Given everything 2020 has thrown at us so far, who among us wouldn’t like to escape — if not from the year itself, at least from the monotony of staying home? A getaway is, sadly, rather difficult to arrange right now. But crack open “The Bluebell Girls,” the third novel by Scarsdale residen…
On March 11, life as we knew it in Westchester changed abruptly. A cluster of cases of the novel coronavirus erupted in New Rochelle, which led state officials to set up a containment zone in which residents could move about, but not leave.
Before COVID-19 became 2020’s boldface shocker, Americans were fixated on another story: the college admissions scandal. The public first got wind of the tawdry tale in the spring of 2019, when U.S. federal prosecutors announced their investigation into the matter, code-named Operation Varsi…
This year has brought us a terrifying pandemic along with devastating fires. Did anyone have an alien invasion on their 2020 Bingo card, too?
Scarsdale High School graduate Sam Friedman (’20) and SHS junior Jake Lubin are the recipients of the 2020 Best Shorts Film Competition Award of Merit for their production, “Boy on the Moon,” a 10-minute dramatic vignette about three teenagers in a dicey situation and facing feelings of frie…
“The show must go on” may sound trite, but it has never been more true than it is now, as performing artists face unprecedented challenges practicing their craft in the age of COVID and shape-shifting to adapt to new media.
Scarsdale resident Jill Krutick, a contemporary abstract expressionist who uses texture, form and color to suggest the intense beauty and constant flux of nature — galaxies, skies, blossoms and tides — was one of the artists selected for the MvVO Ad Art Show taking place in New York City dur…
When St. George’s Choral Society kicks off its first performance on Nov. 21, choir members — anywhere from 25 to 250 of them — will sing their hearts out individually and remotely. Joining their prerecorded portions will be four soloists and a seven-member chamber ensemble performing live. W…
For music lovers eager to put live performances back into their datebooks, Caramoor in Katonah is offering “Beginner’s Ear,” a unique series designed to bring mindfulness to the concert experience. Caramoor’s Sunken Garden provides a fitting setting to clear the mind and nourish the spirit w…
Donna Rubin cried the day American Legends was forced to close its doors in March due to growing concerns over COVID-19. From the time the cards, comics and collectibles store on Central Avenue reopened June 9 through Topps National Baseball Card Day (NBCD) on Saturday, Aug. 8, she hasn’t st…
The Hudson River Museum reopened to the public Saturday, July 25, four and a half months after COVID-19 shut it down on March 13.
An annual exhibition of sound art marks the continuing expansion of Caramoor’s programming. For the current exhibition, artists have worked with sonic materials outside the traditions of concert music, and each artist draws inspiration from their chosen location.
While writing a story from the point of view of a quirky 12-year-old boy with learning differences, Edgemont resident Diana Harmon Asher approached the task by summoning her own inner child.
Early on in the pandemic, Quaker Ridge resident Lauren Kessler took a walk around town. Meandering through Heathcote, she happened upon something unusual. “I saw a bunch of painted rocks on Lincoln Road. They looked like they were done by kids,” she said.
Like all cultural institutions, the Katonah Museum of Art has struggled to continue to function during the coronavirus crisis. But even being unable to allow visitors into the building or to hold its big annual spring fundraiser, KMA has managed to remain a vital community resource through a…
Historic Hudson River Towns’ new app-guided audio tour series is a timely solution to the question of what to do during this summer’s “staycation.”
There’s probably not a soul in America unfamiliar with the refrain, “We Shall Overcome,” but it’s doubtful anyone has heard the wealth of songs RiverArts is offering in a three-part series, “Songs of Protest: a Survey from the Mid-Twentieth Century to the Black Lives Matter Movement.”
Clocktower Players, the resident theater company of the Irvington Theater, can’t stage productions in its historic auditorium anytime soon. But the pandemic isn’t stopping the company from engaging the community through online acting classes, dance and vocal lessons and improvisation worksho…
When Jordan Cascade, Jake Lubin and Will Reed set out to document the COVID-19 pandemic through the “lens” of Scarsdale, their hometown, little did they know what they would come away with.
While most of us have found little more than monotony in quarantine, some have discovered opportunity — a chance to clean out a long-neglected attic, for example, or start a new exercise routine. For Hanna Eisenstein, 20, of Quaker Ridge, the pandemic has given her a chance to achieve a drea…
Dr. John Boockvar is used to making big decisions. While many involve life and death, others have been less dire, but equally impactful.
Growing up in Edgemont and Scarsdale (class of ’87) Christina Chiu said she “didn’t fit the Asian nerd stereotype at all.”
Moving from the city to the suburbs can be a big adjustment — and not always a smooth one. It’s something psychologist and writer Stephanie Newman, Ph.D., understands extremely well. She’s captured this major life event, in all its pain and hilarity, in a new novel, “Barbarians at the PTA.”
Caramoor has had to pivot quickly from the full summer season that was originally planned to finding new ways of inspiring audiences safely in light of pandemic restrictions. The Katonah cultural arts destination, with more than 80 acres of woodlands, gardens, sound art and outdoor performan…
Kids can let their imaginations flow with Written Out Loud, a storytelling school for young adults that’s adapted its courses to offer online summer classes for creative teens stuck at home this summer.
The mission set forth by Virginia Hoff and Joyce Barthelson, founders of Hoff-Barthelson Music School, in 1944 was to spread the joy of music and make available education access to reach as wide an audience as possible. In looking back during its 75th anniversary year, Hoff-Barthelson decide…
The Scarsdale High School Drama Club (SHSDC) is breathing new life into the classic theater idiom, “The show must go on.”
At a Scarsdale Adult School board meeting March 2, Executive Director Jill Serling reported the best year ever, with an enrollment of 6,000 students, “the size of a small liberal arts college.” But the distant rumblings of a highly contagious coronavirus outbreak worried her. She told the bo…
When we check in with friends these days, there’s so much ground to cover: Are they healthy? Feeling stir crazy? Doing okay with the whole remote-work thing?
Billy Collins found his voice while living and writing in a little cottage on a larger estate on Old Army Road in Edgemont in the late 1980s. When he moved to Somers in 1989, Collins took the voice that has been the most recognized among American poets of the last 30 years with him.
Jared Diamond had two goals when he began his career as a professional sportswriter at age 22: 1) To become a beat writer covering a Major League Baseball team and 2) to write a book.
Updated March 21: This exhibit is postponed due to the mandated closure of the venue in Scarsdale.
From heart pounding thrillers to heartwarming rom-coms, movie scores can set the tone for an entire cinematic experience, transporting us to another time and place.
Art. Science. While generally thought of as separate, some might even say opposing disciplines, others refute this dichotomy to point out that both stem from a common quest: to discover ways to improve the human condition.
For millennia, humans have been drawing lines between the stars to create pictures called constellations. They navigated by them, and made up celestial characters that became part of folklore and religion. Constellations provoked heated debates between scholars and soothsayers. And through t…
An art festival is slated to take place this summer with the goal to bring a variety of visual art to Scarsdale and offer a boost to the downtown business community.
Shakespeare’s work doesn’t get wackier than “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” — his 1595 fantasy-comedy — or the 20th-century compendium of his output, “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged).” M&M Performing Arts Co. is offering both in rotating repertory from Feb. 28 through Ma…
Caramoor will celebrate its 75th season this summer in peak form, unveiling a legion of campus improvements resulting from the Inspire capital campaign. Improvements include a new entrance to the Venetian Theater, a new box office and new landscaping, all with the audience experience in mind…
If you like juicy whodunits — and the idea of supporting our local authors — you’ll want to visit Bronx River Books in Scarsdale Village Sunday, March 1, between 4 and 6 p.m. That’s when longtime Scarsdale resident Ellen Shapiro will be on hand to read from and sign copies of her debut novel…
In his acclaimed book, “Land of Hope — An Invitation to the Great American Story,” Professor Wilfred McClay doesn’t try to rewrite history. Instead, he sets out to bring America’s pivotal moments into sharper focus and explore a more complete narrative that, he says, has been routinely overl…
With frigid winds whipping through the village, it’s understandable that one might long for summer. Luckily, you can easily satisfy your yearning for the sultry season’s pleasures: “The Lilac House,” a new novel by Scarsdale writer and teacher Barbara Solomon Josselsohn, is available for pre…
Award-winning documentary filmmaker Emily Driscoll hopes to inspire the next generation of women in science and show how researchers’ challenges actually can lead to motivation.
French artist Sandrine Kern will share insights about her recent paintings at an opening tonight, Friday, Jan. 24, for her first solo exhibition with Madelyn Jordon Fine Art gallery in Scarsdale, where her work will be on exhibit through March 7.
Editor's note: The second performance was cancelled due to snow. The rescheduled date is Friday, Jan. 24, at 7:30 p.m. See below for ticket details.
Sea serpents crushing ships. Seven-foot-tall giants. Visitors will see these and other oddities when they explore the Bruce Museum’s new exhibition, “Collecting Reimagined: A 2D Curiosity Cabinet,” which is open in the Bantle Lecture Gallery of the museum through March 29.
Pamela Sklar always knew she would be a musician. Hailing from a family of professional musicians, she never decided she was going to become one — it was something she always just “knew.” A flutist and composer, Sklar has collaborated with ensembles playing all types of music from classic, r…
It may not always be easy growing up in a competitive place like Scarsdale but, on the other hand, the struggles and the magic of a sheltered youth can be great fodder for creative art.
Scarsdale resident Caleb Reece Paul, fresh from his tour with Broadway’s “Finding Neverland,” wasted no time getting back onto the stage.
