September 2020

NEWS. ARTS. LIFE. | SEPTEMBER 2020 | FREE SINCE 1971 COMMENTARY

NEW BEATS

PUBLIC LIVES

MONROE COUNTY'S DEFECTIVE DEMOCRATS

SKITZO LUVHARTD RAPS ON MENTAL ILLNESS

ASHLEY GANTT'S ORGANIZING PRINCIPLES

WHO'S GOING TO CLEAN UP THE MESS IN PLEX?

roccitynews.org

CITY 1

2 CITY

SEPTEMBER 2020

TABLE OF CONTENTS OPENING SHOT Artist Shawn Dunwoody’s ‘Black Lives Matter’ on Broad Street.

PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

NEWS

6

FIFTY YEARS OF POLICE REFORM

Why the ills of yesteryear still haunt Rochester.

ARTS

24

BY GINO FANELLI

10

FULL-HEARTED HIP-HOP

Tyshawn Pettway confronts racism, mental illness as Skitzo LuvHartd.

LIFE

42

ASHLEY GANTT’S ORGANIZING PRINCIPLES

An emerging voice opens up.

BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

BY RENÉE HEININGER

LESLI-MYERS SMALL IS NO ‘YES’ PERSON

Rochester’s superintendent is moving fast and breaking eggs.

36

FRINGE’S SHEEN GOES TO THE SCREEN

How Rochester Fringe’s 9th annual festival went virtual.

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

RANDOM ROCHESTER:

44

BY REBECCA RAFFERTY

OUR ‘FORGOTTEN’ NEIGHBORHOOD

The abandoned Vacuum Oil plant in PLEX is a symbol of decay and a stubborn obstacle to revitalization.

HE’S THE ‘PIGEON MAN’

Why Michael Picow has been feeding the pigeons on Division St. for 35 years.

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

ON THE COVER

14

PUBLIC LIVES:

46

WHEN THE SHOW MUST GO ON

There are signs of theatrical life – if you know where to look for them.

BY LEAH STACY

54

AUTUMN ALES THAT HIT THE SPOT

Easy-drinking beers that are perfect for the sunset of summer.

BY GINO FANELLI

BY JEREMY MOULE

MORE NEWS, ARTS, AND LIFE INSIDE, INCLUDING OUR ANNUAL FALL GUIDE STARTING ON PG 46 roccitynews.org

CITY 3

WELCOME

A new CITY steps into the light About a year ago, I somehow convinced the powers that be at WXXI Public Media, the parent company of CITY, that I was the right person to edit their newly acquired, award-winning weekly newspaper.

After nearly 20 years of writing for daily newspapers here and in other cities big and small, I had the knowhow to not only keep the machine humming, but to move it in new directions, I told them. I had knowledge to impart, so the pitch went.

Over the last year, though, I’ve learned far more than I’ve taught — the greatest lesson being that of humility.

Editing a newspaper with a proud history of nearly half a century that ceases printing six months into the job can have that effect on a person.

Anyone whose plans for their future were likewise pulverized by a global pandemic can relate.

My guess is that means pretty much anyone reading this.

But I also learned about patience, resilience, camaraderie, collaboration, and community.

When CITY stopped the presses in March, we never stopped reporting. We delivered as much information as we could online about your government at work, your health, arts and culture, the soundtrack of our community.

We were able to do that because of the generosity of readers who supported us through our CITY Champions initiative, advertisers who stuck with us where and when they could, and guidance from our WXXI family. For those things, we are grateful.

Through the months, we also never stopped looking for opportunities to return to newsstands.

Reinventing CITY as a monthly magazine was that opportunity. To use the most overused word of the pandemic, we pivoted.

We know the weekly newspaper was a mainstay for many readers. We hope, though, that they’ll see our evolution not as losing an old friend, but as gaining a more muscular, better looking companion with a broader perspective on the world around them.

CITY, the magazine, in many ways picks up where its weekly predecessor left off, holding up a mirror to Rochester and its suburbs for an enlightening, entertaining, and honest reflection of life in our community. You know it’s not all rainbows, butterflies, and unicorns, and we don’t pretend it is. CITY chronicles the real Rochester — what makes it great, and its warts.

The magazine does all that with a little more gloss on its pages, plenty more pop in its photographs and illustrations, and a lot more robust news, arts, and life reporting. Every issue blends an array of news and commentary with street-level coverage of the arts, music, food and drink, and culture with an eye toward galvanizing people around shared interests and igniting important conversations that propel our community forward.

And, yes, CITY is still free and still reporting daily online at roccitynews.org.

Five months ago, when we were thrust into the dark tunnel of the pandemic, I wrote in what would end up being the final edition of CITY Newspaper that we at CITY would slog through the tunnel with you and that, when we reached the light, we would stand in it together.

We know that the slog continues and that the health crisis and its fiscal aftershocks are still convulsing.

But in this magazine we see the light, and we hope you do, too.

David Andreatta, Editor

Thoughts about the new CITY? Tell us at feedback@rochester-citynews.com 4 CITY

SEPTEMBER 2020

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

NEWS. MUSIC. LIFE. September, 2020 Vol 49 No 1

Monroe County’s Defective Democrats

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

On the cover: Photograph by Max Schulte 280 State Street Rochester, New York 14614 feedback@rochester-citynews.com phone (585) 244-3329 roccitynews.org Publisher: Rochester Area Media Partners LLC, Norm Silverstein, chairman EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT themail@rochester-citynews.com Editor: David Andreatta News editor: Jeremy Moule Staff writer: Gino Fanelli Arts & entertainment editor: Rebecca Rafferty Music editor: Daniel J. Kushner Music writer: Frank De Blase Calendar editor: Kate Stathis Contributing writers: Adam Lubitow, Leah Stacy CREATIVE DEPARTMENT artdept@rochester-citynews.com Creative director/Operations manager: Ryan Williamson Designer/Photographer: Jacob Walsh Digital content strategist: Renée Heininger ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT ads@rochester-citynews.com Sales manager: Alison Zero Jones Advertising consultant/ Project mananger: David White OPERATIONS/CIRCULATION Operations manager: Ryan Williamson Circulation manager: Katherine Stathis kstathis@rochester-citynews.com CITY is available free of charge. Additional copies of the current issue may be purchased by calling 585-784-3503. CITY may be distributed only by authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of CITY, take more than one copy of each monthly issue.

CITY (ISSN 1551-3262) is published monthly 12 times per year by Rochester Area Media Partners, a subsidiary of WXXI Public Broadcasting. Periodical postage paid at Rochester, NY (USPS 022-138). Address changes: CITY, 280 State Street, Rochester, NY 14614. Member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and the New York Press Association.

Copyright by Rochester Area Media Partners LLC, 2020 - all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, photocopying, recording or by any information storage retrieval system without permission of the copyright owner.

@roccitynews

@DAVID_ANDREATTA

Democrats in Monroe County should be appalled at the shambles that is their party.

Less than a year ago, they came within a hair’s breadth of seizing both branches of county government for the first time in a generation, winning the county executive’s race and falling just one seat shy of taking the majority in the County Legislature.

The victories should have unified Democrats to work toward finishing the job in the future while pressuring Republican legislators to push a progressive agenda in the meantime.

Instead, the party has unraveled in spectacular fashion, spurred by a knockdown, drag-out brawl over who would be the party’s next county Board of Elections commissioner.

Recently, a majority of Democratic legislators ousted their ranking member, Legislator Vincent Felder, as their minority leader — a move that Felder, as of this writing, has refused to recognize as legitimate.

Then, in a startling display of chutzpah, four Democratic legislators who were tight with Felder declared themselves an independent caucus, effectively breaking away from their party colleagues.

To solidify their defection, they introduced a bill that would allow them to siphon to their bloc some $65,000 in funding that had been allocated to the Democratic legislative office to pay for clerks, computers, and other things the minority needs to function.

The defectors cast their split as a racial divide. They claimed to need their coalition, which they called the Black and Asian Caucus, to push “a bold progressive agenda” sensitive to the needs of people of color that they said have

DANDREATTA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

been ignored by County Executive Adam Bello and the mostly white legislators who ousted Felder.

They laid out a platform of diversifying county government, improving social and child protective services, and reforming county probation and criminal justice programs.

But make no mistake: Reform and progressivism had nothing to do with it. The mostly white Democratic legislators who ousted Felder have no record of voting against that platform and some of the planks were central themes of Bello’s campaign last year.

This is about a faction of Democrats aligned with Mayor Lovely Warren and the recently deceased Assembly member David Gantt that is losing control and devising ways to retain control. It is about holding on to power and the patronage jobs that come with it.

Over the course of Warren’s tenure as mayor, political operatives in the Warren-Gantt orbit found their way into key positions in local governments, mainly through formidable get-out-the-vote efforts mobilized by Gantt.

Felder, a legislative aide to Gantt, and the four defector Democratic county legislators were among them. Warren’s campaign manager, Brittaney Wells, became

the chair of the Monroe County Democratic Party.

In the last year, though, candidates backed by the WarrenGantt machine for a variety of offices did not fare well, losing to insurgents of all racial and ethnic stripes who galvanized progressive voters fed up with what they perceive as party-boss politics.

Even the Assembly seat Gantt held was lost.

It is worth noting that insurgent candidates have also disrupted the other powerful Democratic machine in Monroe County operated by Rep. Joe Morelle and his protégés, namely Bello.

Against this backdrop, the job of Democratic elections commissioner opened up in March and was filled on an interim basis by Lashana Boose, a protégé of Warren and Gantt. She filled in by virtue of being the deputy commissioner, a post she had been given with little experience just six months earlier.

Installing Boose on a permanent basis was a chance for the Warren-Gantt camp to consolidate power. The post oversees about 25 patronage jobs, many of which Boose filled during her interim tenure.

As of this writing, however, the Democratic legislators who ousted Felder appointed City Council member Jackie Ortiz, whom members of the county Democratic Party elected to be the next commissioner.

September will likely see the breakaway Democratic legislators contest that appointment and the ouster of Felder; the Republican legislators, who would be crazy to pass up a chance to sow discord among the opposition, hand the defectors the independent caucus want, and a lot more chaos in a Democratic Party that was poised for a resurgence.

roccitynews.org

CITY 5

NEWS

JUSTICE

Police confront demonstrators on Broad Street during a Black Lives Matter protest on May 30. PHOTO BY GINO FANELLI

Fifty years of police reform yielded few returns

BY GINO FANELLI

@GINOFANELLI

The earliest blooms of police reform in Rochester, measures intended to address ills that still haunt the city today, sprung from what is now a vacant lot on Thurston Road on a November night in 1975.

There, in a basement unit of what was then the Apollo Apartments, a teenage mother argued with her husband, who was said to have had a thing for pushing her around. That night, 18-year-old Denise Hawkins would be pushed so far she would wind up dead.

The argument got physical, as it often did, and the couple tussled into the kitchen, where Hawkins brandished 6 CITY

SEPTEMBER 2020

GFANELLI@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

a knife and slashed her husband’s cheek.

Minutes later, there was a pounding at the front door.

“Police!” an officer yelled from the other side, the door reportedly bowing outward from the battering inside.

“Look out, she’s coming out with a knife!” the husband shouted.

Hawkins, still gripping the knife tightly in her hand, spilled into the exterior hallway, where two officers awaited with guns drawn. “Drop it!” the officers shouted in unison.

She took two more steps before one of the officers, Michael Leach, a 22-yearold rookie, put a bullet in her chest,

killing her instantly.

The circumstances of her death and its aftermath are familiar: Hawkins was Black, Leach was white and on duty, and the Black community erupted at the idea of another white cop being too quick to the pull the trigger on a person of color.

Leach would be exonerated by a grand jury and go on to retire from the Rochester Police Department as a captain nearly 30 years later.

He would, however, wind up doing a stretch in jail at one point in retirement for fatally shooting his own son in the motel room they shared after mistaking him for an intruder.

Denise Hawkins, 18, was shot and killed by Rochester November 1975. This photo of Hawkins is from the 19

Outrage over Hawkins’ death and what was regarded by many to be a sham of an investigation into Leach moved City Council to appoint a blueribbon panel to examine how policing in Rochester could improve. The Citizens Committee on Police Affairs, dubbed the Crimi Committee after its chairman and local lawyer Charles Crimi, would recommend sweeping changes to the Rochester Police Department.

Most of the changes would ostensibly be adopted, at least on paper.

Yet now, a new task force is asking the same questions about policing that were raised and supposedly addressed by the Crimi Committee nearly a half-century ago, including matters of domestic disputes, recruitment, neighborhood relations, psychological testing of officers, and firearms training.

Evolutions in policing and the city offer the task force new ground to mine.

But the similarities between Hawkins’ death and those of so many people of color at the hands of police in Rochester and elsewhere around the country in the decades since, have task force members revisiting old ground for whether the Crimi Commission recommendations worked or, worse, whether they were implemented at all.

“That’s the right question,” said Bill Johnson, the former mayor of Rochester and a co-chair of the new Racial and Structural Equity (RASE) Commission.

“There’s a lot of stuff that’s happened in the community, and what’s important is for us to not only know what happened, but what didn’t,” Johnson said. “Did any change materialize as a result of all of this work? Did these recommendations get phased out, or upgraded?”

NINETY-SEVEN RECOMMENDATIONS The RASE Commission, a joint initiative of the administrations of Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren and Monroe County Executive Adam Bello, is less a police reform task force than it is an ambitiously broad effort to identify and address the roots of structural racism.

The commission, a panel of 21 people led by Johnson along with Muhammad

r Police Department officer Michael Leach in 974 Madison High School yearbook. PROVIDED PHOTO

Former Action for a Better Community director James McCuller led a charge for police reform after his daughter, Alecia McCuller, was killed by officer Thomas Whitmore in November 1983.

FILE PHOTO

Shafiq, a religious studies professor at Nazareth College, and Arline Santiago, a senior vice president at ESL Federal Credit Union, is expected to publish a report on its findings early next year. The report is supposed to touch on topics as varied as education, equitable housing, business development, and policing.

On the latter, Johnson has been there before; he served on the Crimi Committee and led his own program as mayor in 2004 called Pathways to Better Police-Community Relations.

“There were real changes in reporting and policy that came as the result of that (Crimi Committee) document, and that’s

over 40 years old,” Johnson said in a phone interview. “That’s my benchmark.”

The Crimi Committee made 97 recommendations, 85 of which were approved by the City Council in 1977. A descendant of those recommendations is the fledgling Police Accountability Board, which evolved from a recommendation that internal police investigations into alleged officer misconduct include examination by a civilian review panel. The so-called Complaint Investigation Committee, for the first time, added a lone civilian to the misconduct review process.

But many of the Crimi Committee’s recommendations appear to have gone nowhere.

For instance, the committee called for officers to be better educated, citing a 1973 National Advisory Commission recommendation that all police officers by 1978 should have three years of college education.

The RPD currently requires its officers to have a high school diploma or equivalent.

The committee also noted that recruiting minority candidates would go a long way toward building credibility in city neighborhoods, and recommended “seriously considering” requiring officers to live in the city as a condition of their employment.

The city charter requires employees in the uppermost tiers of city government to live in Rochester, but carves out an exception for first responders. The state Public Officers Law exempts police officers and firefighters from municipal residency requirements. The most the city can require is that officers live in Monroe County or one of its five adjacent counties.

By the time Johnson launched his Pathways program, 28.5 percent of the RPD force was minority. Today, just 13 percent of Rochester police officers are non-white, and less than 15 percent live in the city, according to the RPD’s official roster.

Then there’s the Family Crisis Intervention (FACIT) program. FACIT is a mobile team made up of social work professionals designated to respond to domestic violence, attempted suicides, family crises, mental health calls, rapes, child abuse, and other issues where a social element is at play.

The Crimi Committee recommended that FACIT receive more support, and specifically called on the City Council to take steps to fully fund the program and expand it, if necessary.

When that recommendation was made in 1977, FACIT had eight social workers. Today, the team has 10 and was estimated to have taken 3,500 calls last year, when domestic violence complaints alone accounted for nearly 30,000 of the RPD’s calls for service.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

roccitynews.org

CITY 7

Rochester Police Locust Club President Michael Mazzeo addressed police reform issues at a news conference in July. PHOTO BY GINO FANELLI

MENTAL HEALTH A PRIORITY There is little agreement between police and reform advocates about what change could and should look like. Where there is common ground, however, is in the belief that police should not be the first resort for mental health crises.

“There’s certain things we don’t want police officers learning as they go,” said Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary.

“There’s no amount of training I can offer, outside of policing, that is going to equate to what a social worker has or what a family therapist or mental health therapist has.”

One model for handling mental health calls that has caught the attention of some city officials and reform advocates is something called CAHOOTS, a nonprofit mobile crisis intervention program out of Eugene, Oregon. Instead of police being deployed to calls for service for mental health crises such as 8 CITY

SEPTEMBER 2020

welfare checks, disorientation, and non-violent disputes, the program mobilizes two-person teams of a medic and a social worker.

“The last few incidents that involved someone in crisis, from viewing body camera footage, have been escalated primarily by the officers showing up on the scene,” said City Council member Mary Lupien. “They end up hurting the person by their escalation and lack of awareness of mental health issues.”

This is not a new revelation. The Crimi Committee highlighted family crises as among those situations that have the most potential to spiral out of control and become dangerous. Likewise, a report from the non-profit Treatment Advocacy Center said people with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed by police than people without mental illness.

Monroe County Sheriff Todd Baxter lamented that police so often get dispatched to such situations

and blamed what he called a societal “addiction to 911.”

“We’re the quickest form of government, and we’ve been asked to solve a lot of the world’s problems with a 911 phone call,” Baxter said. “Which, in some of those situations, a police officer, or a police department, is not designed to solve those problems.”

The Crimi Committee touched on that decades ago, pointing out that, at the time, just 10 percent of police activities were related to enforcing the law. The remainder of their time was spent responding to service calls.

IF ALL YOU HAVE IS A HAMMER...

Nearly eight years to the day after Hawkins was shot and killed, another young Black mother was fatally shot by Rochester police.

Alecia McCuller was just 21 years old when she was shot twice in the chest by Officer Thomas Whitmore.

McCuller was allegedly wielding a knife

and attempting to stab her boyfriend outside of her home on Mead Street.

She died instantly.

There was a deep irony to her death that stretched beyond the similarities to Hawkins. McCuller was the daughter of James McCuller, then executive-director of Action for a Better Community, and a member of the Crimi Committee.

Her death in 1983 became the first to be evaluated by the Complaint Investigation Committee borne of the committee. When her killer was cleared of wrongdoing, her father publicly denounced the review process he had helped create as a sham.

“When the last ounce of breath left my daughter’s body, the Crimi Committee report was dead, D-EA-D dead,” McCuller told the Democrat and Chronicle in 1984.

“You don’t go up to tombstones and start asking questions.”

Spurred in part by McCuller’s death and other high-profile police shootings of Black New Yorkers, then Gov. Mario Cuomo assembled a commission to evaluate racial bias in policing.

In 1987, the commission concluded there was no evidence of racial prejudice in police shootings, and that Black leaders were “acting on emotion rather than fact” when calling out systemic racism in policing.

“Exaggerated and emotional claims of police brutality by some minority representatives erodes their credibility and undermines their suggestions to ameliorate relationships,” the commission report read.

Studies since have widely countered that conclusion.

Data from Mapping Police Violence, a nonprofit that tracks killings by police, shows that, between 2013 and 2019, police in New York killed 71 Black people and 53 white people. Adjusted for population, Black people were more than five times more likely to be killed by police than whites.

Prompted by mass demonstrations and looting in cities across New York in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis, Gov. Andrew Cuomo followed in his father’s footsteps in June and signed an executive order mandating local police agencies to come up with a plan to “reinvent and modernize” police strategies based on

community input by April 2021, or risk losing state funding.

The RASE Commission was formed in part to help with that task.

For many activists hungry for systemic change, phrases like “reinventing and modernizing” police are platitudes. They instead want to “defund” police departments, that is strip them of their budgets altogether, and reinvest the monies into impoverished neighborhoods.

Danielle Ponder, a Monroe County public defender who is perhaps best known as a musician whose crooning protest anthems have become a staple of Black Lives Matter rallies, is a proponent of the “defund” movement.

“What I think I’m realizing is the police were a system created in a flawed way, it was created in a racist manner,” Ponder said. “That system has to be eradicated. We essentially have a system that takes young white men, mostly from the suburbs who don’t have much experience with people of color, we give them guns, and tell them go police Black neighborhoods.”

Ponder believes policing in Rochester today too often targets petty crime in underserved, particularly Black, communities, and points to arrest statistics to bolster her view.

Of the 12,589 arrests Rochester police made last year, 8,355 were for misdemeanors. Roughly one in four arrests were for property crimes, according to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. Countywide, nearly half of all the people arrested were Black, despite Black residents accounting for just 16 percent of the population.

“When all you have is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail,” Ponder said. “When all you have is the police, every problem becomes a crime.”

Following the death of Floyd, the Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously to dismantle their police department and create a new public safety model. While it remains uncertain what form that new model may take, the move fueled the national dialogue about defunding.

Activists in Rochester petitioned the City Council to cut the police budget in half. Lawmakers settled on decreasing spending on police by 5 percent and diverting the projected savings of $750,000 into a task force on

police reform that ultimately became the RASE Commission.

“Folks were excited when they heard what was happening in Minneapolis, but did you read the fine print,” said City Council member Jackie Ortiz. “When?

How? That still has to be thought through, you’re not going to say, ‘Sorry, nobody come to work.’”

MAYBE THE RIGHT TIME IS NOW As the history of police reform in Rochester shows, substantive change can be a long and arduous process. But months of nationwide civil unrest has many stakeholders believing this time will be different.

“I’ve been a cop here for 35 years, I’ve never seen the chief and sheriff get together on a Friday night and say, ‘What happened in Minneapolis, we need to call it as it is, we got to make a statement,’” Baxter said. “I think we have an opportunity now that we didn’t have before.”

Willie Lightfoot, a Rochester City Council member and liaison to the RASE Commission, said he believes the time is ripe for a sea change in local policing in the next year or two.

“This is going to drive not just the government, but it will drive unions, it will drive police officers and their conduct” Lightfoot said. “Everything is being viewed by the community, and the community is at the point where they have a no tolerance attitude, as they should.”

Even representatives of police unions, which have traditionally been resistant to reform, have expressed some openness to change.

Michael Mazzeo, president of the Rochester Police Locust Club, the police union, has publicly acknowledged that “there is some level of systemic racism” in the RPD and that something has to give.

At the same time, his union has chipped away at the powers of the Police Accountability Board, and he has said he does not see progress stemming from any task force or commission.

“You see these police chiefs that look like a police chief, they talk more like police information officers, because I don’t see any action, I don’t see any leadership,” Mazzeo said, at a news conference in July, following the city’s announcement that all police

Former Rochester Police Department Chief Delmar Leach (left) and Deputy Chief Terence Rickard attending City Council hearing on police brutality in December 1984. PHOTO PROVIDED

disciplinary files will be put online.

“I don’t see any new initiatives that will bring us to a better place. They talk about transparency until you’re nauseous over it, yet I don’t see any transparency.”

Still, those remarks are a far cry from the antagonistic rhetoric of his predecessor, Ronald Evangelista, when it came to police reform. In a 2005 op-ed in the Democrat and Chronicle, Evangelista called Johnson’s Pathways program “hypocrisy at its finest” and denounced recommendations like placing cameras in police cars.

Asked during a wide-ranging interview with the Democrat and Chronicle in 1984 about tensions between police and communities of color, Evangelista grew indignant.

“You haven’t figured it out yet? You haven’t figured out why? The answer to the question, and no one ever wants to say it, is because Black people are responsible for most of the street crime in this country,” Evangelista said. “And by having a Black leader getting up and supporting Black people, he’s supporting his type of people. That’s very popular.

Minorities, not just Blacks, are not popular with police, who are mostly white, middle-classed people.”

“Is there any way to change that?” the interviewer asked.

Evangelista responded: “Go tell the Black leaders to promote education instead of police mistrust.”

But killings and beatings of unarmed people of color by white Rochester police in the years since have perpetuated the mistrust.

There was Calvin Green, who was 30 when he was fatally shot five times at close range by Officer Gary Smith in 1988 while cowering in a crawlspace in his East Main Street apartment.

Rickey Bryant was 17 when police knocked him off his bicycle on Remington Street, pepper sprayed him, and beat him in a case of mistaken identity in 2016. The city paid $360,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by his family.

Two years later, in 2018, Christopher Pate was beaten and tased by police while walking on Bloss Street in another case of mistaken identity.

One of the officers, Michael Sippel, was later convicted of assault.

Of course, people of color do turn to police for help all the time. Calls for help from Black people were what prompted police to respond in the shooting deaths of Green, and before him, McCuller, and before her, Hawkins.

In the case of Hawkins, she and her husband were fighting in an apartment rented by her sister, Miranda Roach, who later testified before a grand jury that she called 911 after watching the violence against her sister escalate.

Where it all went down is now an empty lot that stands as a silent memorial to Rochester’s first true swing at a change to policing. roccitynews.org

CITY 9

NEWS

MAKING THE GRADE

Rochester’s superintendent is moving fast and breaking eggs Lesli Myers-Small is shaking things up as she tries to rebuild the broken RCSD. But as her grandmother taught her, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

@DAVID_ANDREATTA

Lesli Myers-Small had already been up for three hours, baked four dozen cookies and three quiches and replied to at least two dozen emails, when she shuffled into her office a little winded shortly after 8 o’clock in the morning apologizing for running late.

She had broken a nail on her French-manicured thumb. “I was trying to find the glue to fix it,” she explained as she set down the armload of books, the purse, and the high heels she was clutching, took a seat at a conference table, let out a “whew,” and reminded her spokesman in the room that she had a 9 o’clock.

Three months into what could be the toughest job in education in the country, Myers-Small seemed to be living the Silicon Valley mantra of moving fast and breaking things.

Her job as the superintendent of Rochester public schools is to fix the troubled school district she inherited, but Myers-Small learned from her grandmother, who instilled in her a love for the culinary arts and whom she invokes often, that you can’t make an omelet — or a quiche — without breaking a few eggs.

Myers-Small would break more than a few eggs in the coming week.

That morning, schools were to open in four weeks to the day. The next day, Myers-Small pushed the opening back a week and replaced her 10 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

DANDREATTA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

plan for a hybrid learning schedule for the youngest students with a remote learning model for all students at least through Thanksgiving — a decision she would call “gut-wrenching.”

Five days later, the superintendent announced she would slash the district’s budget by 20 percent — roughly $130 million — in response to a looming threat from Albany to cut state education funding by the same proportion.

“The key thing is we have to start creating savings and look at how are we going to do more with less,” Myers-Small said. “I know that we’ve said that previously, but we really have to do that now.”

She spoke from an office on the second floor of the Rochester City School District headquarters on Broad Street whose naked walls suggested just how busy she had been since becoming superintendent. Lining the edges of the room on the floor were framed pictures, diplomas, and letters that she could not get around to hanging. In one frame was her acceptance letter to the University of Rochester from 1987. She would later earn advanced degrees, including her doctorate, from St. John Fisher.

“It’s very busy,” Myers-Small said.

“Having the responsibility for 25,000plus students is something I don’t take lightly . . . How do I cope? Honestly, I bake and I cook.”

In less than an hour she would join members of her cabinet on the third floor for an antiracism retreat followed by a friendly cooking competition.

The last year has been something of a whirlwind for Myers-Small.

Just five months before a desperate Rochester Board of Education tapped her to replace Terry Dade, who unexpectedly resigned after only nine months, Myers-Small left a longtime post as superintendent in Brockport for a job with the state Education Department. As the assistant commissioner of school reform and innovation, Myers-Small was responsible for helping districts turn around struggling schools.

Now, she has the seemingly impossible task of turning around a struggling school district. To do that, Myers-Small is putting in 16 to 18 hours a day by her estimation and that of people who work with her closely.

The district’s chief communications officer, Carlos Garcia, described routinely receiving emails from her timestamped at 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.

“I thought Terry walked into a storm,” Garcia said while waiting for

Myers-Small to arrive in her office that morning. “She came right in the middle of the storm.”

Six days later, in a sign that eggs were still being broken, MyersSmall announced in a late-night news release that Garcia had been let go. No reason was given, but his departure was one of many at the highest levels of her administration since May. Myers-Small, who is 51, had applied for the RCSD superintendency in 2019, but was passed over for Dade. When he hastily left for a job leading an affluent suburban school district in the Hudson Valley, the spurned and red-faced Board of Education went crawling back to Myers-Small.

The board’s interest in her was twofold. First, she was local, upping the odds that she would stick around in a district that had seen six superintendents in 10 years. Second, she was qualified.

Before her nearly eight-year tenure at Brockport, Myers-Small spent five years as an assistant superintendent in Ithaca.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

Lesli Myers-Small might have the toughest job in American education. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

roccitynews.org CITY 11

Like our journalism? Get in our corner at roccitynews.org/rochester/citychampion/Page

Rochester Superintendent Lesli Myers-Small fields questions from reporters outside School of the Arts. PHOTO BY JAMES BROWN

“I’m pushing them,” Myers-Small said of her relationship with the board. “I am not a ‘yes’ person.”

She also worked as an administrator in Greece and began her career in Rochester as a guidance counselor at Wilson Magnet High School. Among her students there was Mayor Lovely Warren.

From the outset of her administration, Myers-Small has cast herself as an independent thinker willing to push back against a board notorious for micromanaging superintendents.

“I’m pushing them,” she said of her relationship with the board. “I am not a ‘yes’ person.”

Adam Urbanski, president of the Rochester Teachers Association, said Myers-Small’s willingness to reverse course on her plans for reopening schools suggested she was open to self-examination. The union had been pushing for a remote learning model, citing health concerns.

“A typical superintendent would say, ‘No, I already submitted a plan,’” Urbanski said. “But she didn’t do that.

She reversed herself, which I think says a lot about her leadership, that’s she’s 12 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

not afraid to rethink conclusions.”

Born in Concord, Massachusetts, Myers-Small spent her early years in nearby Stow before her parents moved their family to Pittsford in the late 1970s.

“I did have some difficulty there,” Myers-Small told WXXI’s “Connections” in May of her experience in Pittsford schools. “Back then, our family was one of few families of color. Unfortunately, the n-word was used on the bus and in school and my parents had to help me negotiate that very difficult situation.”

Like most families of color, if not all, hers had been touched by racism.

As she tells it, her grandfather, Lloyd Mills, was an outspoken advocate for the advancement of people of color before he was lynched on Valentine’s Day in Chase City, Virginia, in 1940. There is no official record of the event, but family lore has it that Mills was a businessman who worked on horseback and that his wife discovered him dead dragging behind his horse, his foot

caught in the stirrup. The story goes that his death was ruled an accident, with the authorities saying that Mills fell off his horse when the animal got spooked by thunder and lightning and bolted. His wife, however, the grandmother who would teach Myers-Small to bake and break eggs, became convinced that foul play was involved when she examined her husband’s body and found what looked to her like rope burns around his neck. Mills was survived by their 10 children, the youngest being Myers-Small’s mother.

Myers-Small doesn’t have children of her own, but she became a stepmother to four when she married her husband last year. The children, ages 13 to 25, call her “Ms. Lesli.”

Superintendents are fond of referring to children as the future.

Myers-Small calls them the present.

Her welcome page on the RCSD website opens with the words “Kasserian Engeri,” a greeting of Masaai warriors that translates to, “How are the children?” The traditional

response would be, “All the children are well.”

Anyone familiar with the general malaise of Rochester public schools over the last 25 years knows no adult in the system could give that response with a straight face. Rochester is by many measures the lowest-achieving school district in the state. The city ranks third in the nation in childhood poverty.

Every superintendent who has tried to right the ship has played on some variation of the theme “children first.” Myers-Small said she hopes her legacy will be upholding the concept of child wellness — mind, body, and home. She said that will be the focus of a strategic plan for the district she expects to release this month.

“It sounds really simplistic, like, ‘Yeah, Les, that’s what everybody should do,’” she said. “But you’d be surprised how many people don’t keep that as their focus — asking if the children are well.”

Then she slipped on her heels and prepared to meet her cabinet, with whom she would break more eggs.

roccitynews.org CITY 13

At its peak, the Vacuum Oil works covered 40 acres along the Genesee River, from Violetta Street to Cottage Street. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE 14 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

An old office phone dangles from a window at the former Vacuum Oil plant at 5 Flint Street in the Plymouth-Exchange neighborhood. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

WHO’S GOING TO CLEAN UP THE MESS IN PLEX?

BY JEREMY MOULE

@JFMOULE

JMOULE@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

When Janet Williams bought her home on Exchange Street all those years ago, she of course knew about the decrepit former oil refinery behind it. The hulking, abandoned Vacuum Oil building looms over her neighborhood like a crumbling monument to a bygone industrial era.

What she didn’t know was the extent of the contamination there. She still recalls her shock at receiving a letter from a government agency shortly after she moved in explaining that 400 tons of petroleum sludge had been extracted from the property and that more testing was expected.

“When I moved here, of course there’s no one behind me, there was no one on either side of me, so there were no neighbors to talk to and say, ‘Did you get this letter?’” Williams said.

“And I didn’t know very many people.”

Twenty-two years later, much has changed in her neighborhood, known as PLEX for the Plymouth and Exchange streets corridor at its heart. For one thing, Williams has neighbors.

Massive investment by the University of Rochester in a hotel and student dorms in nearby Brooks Landing drew young homesteaders who have since formed a tightly-knit group that has bonded over parenthood, planting gardens, and protecting their property values.

To that end, they have also unified over what to do about what hasn’t changed: The blight that is the 24 acres of polluted parcels that make up the Vacuum Oil brownfields along the Genesee River and the derelict refinery and storage plants that bore the company name.

The ruins are a ghost town of graffiti, garbage, busted windows, and unruly vegetation that are both a symbol of Rochester’s decay and a stubborn obstacle to the revitalization of a neighborhood desperate to shake its reputation as a tattered riverside community.

“To me, that’s my backyard,” Williams said.

Twelve years ago, one of the city’s most prolific developers, DHD Ventures, bought two of the parcels on nearby Flint Street, numbers 5 and 15, and planned to build housing. But nothing has happened.

The city owns the rest of the land, including two key properties on the river. Officials say they hope to transfer them to a developer and get them back on the tax rolls. But they’ve been saying that for years. Efforts to improve the brownfields have been plagued by false starts and seemingly endless cleanup initiatives that make no visible progress.

The prospects for improvement only worsened this year when a bank initiated foreclosure proceedings against DHD, specifically targeting its Flint Street holdings. Complicating matters further is the company’s protracted court battle with Vacuum Oil’s successor company, the petroleum and gas giant ExxonMobil, over liability for decontaminating the property.

In the meantime, residents live with what is by any measure a junkyard on what should be prime waterfront real estate.

“There’s a lot of dumping that goes on there that they don’t take care of and the city doesn’t take care of, so it just feels like this abandoned landscape back there,” resident Luke Stodola said.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

roccitynews.org CITY 15

VACUUM OIL THROUGH THE YEARS 1866 - Matthew Ewing and Hiram Everest patent a vacuum distillation method to produce kerosene from petroleum. They start the Vacuum Oil Company within the year.

1879 - Standard Oil Company purchases the Vacuum Oil Company.

1887 - Hiram Everest and his son, Charles, are convicted of conspiring to blow up and destroy a competing lubricating oil company in Buffalo.

The father and son were reportedly acting in league with large Standard Oil stock holders and officials.

1887 - A pipe between the Vacuum Oil and a municipal utility leaks and spills thousands of gallons of naphtha into city sewers.

The volatile fuel ignites, sending flames shooting through manholes and leveling three High Falls mills. The next year a county grand jury indicts the company on three counts of “maintaining a public nuisance” for the blast and for polluting the city.

1911 - Vacuum Oil becomes independent of Standard Oil again after the companies were broken apart under the Sherman Antitrust Act. The two companies merged again in 1931.

1935 - Standard Oil shuts down Vacuum Oil. 16 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

Frances Walker, stood in her Riverview Place yard and explained that the thick vegetation on the Vacuum Oil site provides cover for people up to no good. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

He spoke from the porch of a tidy, 19th-century A-frame house with a lush garden in the front yard that he bought in 2016. Stodola works down the street managing The Refinery, an aptly-named former warehouse that’s been converted to commercial and studio space, from which he has a close-up view of the devastation of the Vacuum Oil wasteland.

Records show the debris on the property had gotten so bad in July that city sanitation crews stepped in and charged DHD $264.37 for its removal. City crews also boarded up the vacant building three separate times between April and May. The place carries an aura of foreboding to Sarah Spano, who has lived in PLEX for seven years and calls the neighborhood “a little bit of a forgotten corner of the city.” She won’t allow her 5-year-old son Arlo to splash in the puddles that gather in the potholes there, and they don’t go near the Genesee River Trail that runs through it after dark.

“That place and that land is just covered with poison ivy and garbage and trash,” Spano said. “When you look at it you think, ‘Oh, nobody cares. This is a place that I can go and get away with whatever.’”

In its heyday, the Vacuum Oil Co. got away with a lot. The company was formed in 1866, the

year its founders Matthew Ewing and Hiram Everest patented a method to produce kerosene from crude oil using vacuum distillation.

It wasn’t long before the first buildings of the refinery went up on Flint Street at the river’s edge and caught the attention of John D. Rockefeller.

His Standard Oil bought a controlling interest in Vacuum Oil in 1879.

By the time the company ceased operations there in 1935, the site had expanded to 40 acres along the river, from Violetta Street to the north and Cottage Street to the south, with the plant at Flint Street at the heart.

During the decades in between, Vacuum Oil and its successor companies produced everything from kerosene to lubricating oils for machinery and naphtha gas for street lighting, all of which through a variety of ways seeped deep into the soil.

Refining oil has always been a dirty business, literally and figuratively.

In 1887, Everest and his son, Charles, were convicted of conspiring to blow up and destroy a competing lubricating oil company in Buffalo. It was revealed in court that the manager of the company set 250 barrels of crude petroleum on fire after the Everests threatened him with financial ruin.

The father and son were reportedly acting in league with large Standard Oil stock holders and officials. Sitting

in court every day of the trial were John D. and William A. Rockefeller.

The company got its comeuppance later that year, when a series of explosions ripped through Rochester.

The blasts, which left three High Falls mills in ruins, were traced to a twomile long pipeline through which Vacuum Oil was pumping naphtha to a gas and light utility downtown.

A few months later, in 1888, a grand jury indicted Vacuum Oil on three counts of “maintaining a public nuisance.” The company was accused of the unsafe storage of explosive substances, burning its refining waste, blanketing the neighborhood with greasy soot and “noisome odors and noxious gases,” and dumping oil, grease, acid, and sludge into the Genesee River.

Public complaints about Vacuum Oil swelled. The noted horticulturalist George Ellwanger called the company an “unsufferable nuisance” in the Democrat and Chronicle.

“The foul odors from it taint the air all through the southern part of the city,” Ellwanger was quoted as saying. “The smoke and soot from its mammoth chimneys destroy and defigure everything in the neighborhood. These works which have so long menaced the life and health of our citizens ought to and must be removed.”

Sarah Spano tosses a sungold tomato from her Exchange Street garden to her son, Arlo. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

But the remnants of the oil works remain and today are a different kind of nuisance. They provide cover for drug users, vandals, squatters, and people up to no good, residents say.

Frances Walker lives on Riverview Place in a house that backs on to the site. She recalled one of her neighbors returning from a walk along the trail with her two sons in tears after they had been robbed for $7.

“The scariest part is when the boys run through there or the police be chasing them and you never know what’s going down,” Walker said.

Once upon a time, development of the Vacuum Oil site seemed imminent.

In 2015, the city devised a detailed plan shaped partly through community input to guide investment in PLEX. It included improving the Genesee River Trail to connect it with different areas of the neighborhood, and envisioned public canoe and kayak launches.

The city and DHD conducted indepth studies to understand the extent of the site’s pollution. They found

that the properties were thoroughly contaminated with petroleum and its byproducts, metals such as lead and arsenic, PCB’s, and volatile organic compounds.

Consequently, DHD in 2017 submitted to the state Department of Environmental Conservation a proposal to clean up the property.

The company estimated it would cost $17 million to knock down the buildings at 5 and 15 Flint Street, remove contaminated soil, and take other remedial measures. But DHD withdrew that proposal.

Alan Knauf, an environmental lawyer representing DHD, explained that the work would have been too costly and taken as long as two years, during which trucks loaded with contaminants would have to drive through the neighborhood.

Now, Knauf said, the company is considering what he described as a “more economical cleanup,” one that would require removing only the most saturated soil and capping and venting the rest.

Part of that consideration is footing the bill, which DHD is

Piles of tires and other junk remain on a parcel off of Flint Street. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

attempting to pin on ExxonMobil, the successor of Standard Oil and all its interests, including Vacuum Oil. Courts have ruled that ExxonMobil is liable for the historic pollution on the site, and that the company and DHD would have to

litigate the costs. Knauf said that case is still active and that DHD and ExxonMobil have ongoing conversations about the cleanup.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

roccitynews.org CITY 17

Lindsey Downey brings a peach to her neighbor, Janet Williams. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

Testing wells protrude from the ground across the Vacuum Oil brownfield sites.

PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

18 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

“We’re trying to get Exxon to just step up and just end this and get it done,” Knauf said.

An ExxonMobil spokesperson did not respond to questions about the company’s role in the remediation process.

But Dana Miller, the city’s director of business and housing development, said the city has been talking with ExxonMobil about its obligations.

“We’re still working with them to determine exactly what level of cleanup would be acceptable to us and how much of that cost they’d be willing to help cover,” Miller said.

The Flint Street parcels are part of the state’s Brownfield Cleanup Program, which would entitle DHD to tax credits after the parcels have been remediated.

The credits could come in handy

considering the mounting legal and financial troubles facing DHD and its principals, Thomas Masaschi and Jason Teller.

Late last year, U.S. Income Partners, a Henrietta-based lending institution that specializes in financing real estate developments, filed a string of foreclosure proceedings and other legal actions against DHD-held properties, accusing the company of defaulting on tens of millions of dollars in loans.

Among those were the Flint Street parcels. The lender alleged DHD had defaulted on $1.6 million in loans on those parcels alone.

While some of the cases have been referred to mediation, the Flint Street foreclosure filing hasn’t yet been assigned to a judge.

The developer is also being taken to court over some properties it holds outside of Rochester. In June, a court ruled that Masaschi and Teller personally owed $3.6 million to a lender after a DHD-owned student apartment complex in Buffalo went into foreclosure and was sold at auction for substantially less than the firm owed.

Recently, DHD has begun unloading properties it owned in downtown Rochester, including a gleaming glass-façade residential and office tower at 88 Elm Street that the company refurbished and the overhauled Terminal Building on Broad Street.

Masaschi did not respond to calls seeking comment.

The PLEX neighborhood has never been a wealthy one.

It is part of the city’s former 3rd Ward, which census data show was home to mostly Italian and Irish immigrant laborers in the 1930s. Back then, a small contingent of Black and poor residents had begun to settle on and around Clarissa Street in the adjacent Corn Hill neighborhood.

In the coming decades, disinvestment fueled in part by redlining and an exodus of white families to the suburbs spurred a massive demographic shift in PLEX. Many of the white families that left held on to their aging homes and rented them

Janet Williams bought her house next to the Vacuum Oil site 22 years ago. The neighborhood has changed, she said, but the former industrial site has not. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

to new Black families that had migrated to Rochester from the South and were steered to PLEX because of its proximity to Corn Hill.

Today, census data show that Black people account for nearly three out of every four PLEX residents, and that an estimated 65 percent of households in the neighborhood have incomes under $25,000 a year.

But over the last 10 years, a new wave of homebuyers and investors began to take interest in the area, spurred in part by the construction of a footbridge over the Genesee River connecting PLEX to the University of Rochester.

“What we’ve seen in the PLEX area has been an increase in rental units that have been purchased, rehabbed, and then rented to students,” Miller said. “That’s been a major change right along the Plymouth Avenue-Barton Street-Cottage, some of the streets that are right in the central part of the PLEX area.”

When the city reassessed houses earlier this year, its first reassessment in four years, home values in PLEX rose almost 20 percent. The median home value climbed to $37,500 from $32,000 and the average home value increased to $41,937 from $34,955.

“I was a waitress with a baby when I bought this house,” said Spano, who now teaches at Genesee Community Charter School. “I wouldn’t have been able to buy a house anywhere else.”

Her home had been vacant and neglected before she got her hands on it. The backyard was covered in poison ivy. Now, she grows tomatoes, kale, squash, zucchini, and broccoli there. The vegetable patch complements a handsome flower garden at the front of the house.

“I like to think I bring value and community to this neighborhood,” Spano said.

The residents around the Vacuum Oil site see potential in it and recognize that any improvement would have a dramatic effect on the neighborhood and its character.

But many residents are pessimistic that any change is imminent and complain that they have been shut out of the planning process.

Miller said DHD principles met with city officials in January to discuss a mix of affordable, marketrate, and student apartments on the Flint Street properties. He described the affordable units as catering to renters with incomes that are below 60 percent of the area median income.

“We’ve not been informed of anything at all that would say those plans are not active,” Miller said.

Residents said they welcome more housing. Anything would be an improvement over the wasteland there now. But their

main concern is that any project benefits people who already live in the neighborhood and doesn’t drive them out.

The PLEX Neighborhood Association had been working with Masaschi to develop a community benefits agreement — a contract that would lock the developer into making good on certain conditions.

Fashioning a park out of some of the vacant land was high on the list.

But Dorian Hall, the association’s vice president, said those talks stopped after the City Council approved a zoning change for the property in 2018 that converted the land to a highdensity residential zone from a lowdensity residential zone.

“He hasn’t been back to the table, so I don’t know what’s been going on,” Hall said. “It’s been crickets.” roccitynews.org CITY 19

3 ARTS

MUSIC SPOTLIGHT

ARTISTS TO WATCH

BY FRANK DE BLASE

You can dig into Rochester’s deep grab bag of sound and pull out something totally different each time. Many local musicians are playing in multiple, overlapping styles, in search of their own hybrid strain.

These three musical artists are worth watching for the way they modify the classics with a mishmash of genres.

The Low Spirits are (left to right) Ryan Moore, Michael Maier, Richie DeJohn, and Zachary Koch. PHOTO BY RENÉE HEININGER 20 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

FRANK@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

THE LOW SPIRITS Though the engine that was the Rochester rock band St. Phillip’s Escalator roars no more, two former members — guitarist Ryan Moore and drummer Zachary Koch — have channeled its energy into an authentic shake, rattle, and wail that rock ‘n’ rollers crave.

Enter The Low Spirits, whose twin-guitar attack, augmented by the pump and wail of classic Farfisa organ, churns out heavy rock with garage-band leanings. Guitar player Michael Maier (of the folk-based group The Incantations) and bassist Richie DeJohn (from the punk outfit Rational Animals), help Moore and Koch suss out the sound.

“We wanted to target garage rock more and not just have elements of garage,” Koch says.

The Low Spirits’ music has plenty of primal preening. The band is focused on primitive garage punk, mining influence in the works of Nuggets, Blue Cheer, Cream, and Jimi Hendrix.

But their approach more than merely plug-in-and-peel-out. Moore, for instance, has reigned in his guitar’s volume and violence to share space sonically with Maier. Their shifts in volume and speed are dynamic.

“I’ve never played with a second guitar player before,” Moore says. “You can do so much more.”

Taking on the role of sound engineer, Maier recorded one of The Low Spirits’ early shows in May of last year and posted it on its Bandcamp page. The resulting three-song EP, “Live at Photo City” — with all its snotty defiance and swagger — is a window into the band’s future direction.

“Live at Photo City” was recorded loose and loud, with plenty of room for

headbangin’ and hip shakin’, but there are also excellent dynamics and control throughout.

The sound is similar to The Kinks’ treatment of The Plague’s “Go Away.”

Fans who dig vintage rock — and even those who don’t know they do — will love it. And though the sound isn’t St. Phillip’s Escalator, it has gotten a collective thumbs-up from SPE boosters.

For the moment, the band is sequestered in an undisclosed rehearsal lair, hammering out their sound without overthinking it.

“We usually come to the table with the bones of a song and just kind of work them out from there,” Koch says.

The Low Spirits have their eyes on stamping out a seven-inch record, but they have little interest in releasing a fulllength album.

“It’s just not how people consume music anymore,” says Moore.

THE REVEREND KINGFISH The Reverend Kingfish is a bit of an oddity, an outlier seemingly plucked from the Jazz Age. In his natty duds and cocked fedora, he waxes profane in a world he’s made for himself. Anyone who find themself at a Reverend Kingfish show will hear songs about characters who are “hellbound,” but whether that’s good or bad is a matter of perspective.

His songs are about infidelity, booze, violence, and death, as well as tunes from the Great American Songbook. With laconic twists of phrase and rhythm changes on his arch-top guitar, he’ll remind you of the late singer-songwriter Leon Redbone.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 22

VOTE TODAY AT ROCCITYNEWS.ORG | FIND THE RESULTS IN OUR OCTOBER ISSUE

Reverend Kingfish performing at The Spirit Room. PHOTO BY AARON WINTERS

“The problem is the songs I write are distasteful to a lot of people,” the good Reverend, a.k.a. Stephen O’Brien, says. “And they tend to focus on uncomfortable topics.”

Kingfish’s style is a casual lope across mellow jazz progressions. Cover tunes — from Fats Waller and Jimmie Rodgers to Bessie Smith, Jelly Roll Morton, and Blind Blake — are also a big part of what he does.

His jazz-infected blues sound like lullabies sung by Anton LaVey. They are beautiful, with classic panache and parlance, which seemingly fly in the face of the Reverend’s dark worldview and gallows humor. The songs contain a pinch of noirish sarcasm, too.

“Sometimes I feel like the Mister Rogers of depravity,” he says. “I want people to be comfortable in their own skin. Even if society doesn’t. I don’t think I can do it any other way. It just happens naturally.’’

Perhaps unsettling to some, Kingfish presents macabre subject matter with nonchalance and sunshine in his voice. “Graveyard, graveyard, I don’t wanna live no more,” he sings casually, but with conviction, on “Graveyard Blues.”

“I like to talk and sing about the inside of people, the part they won’t let out, the part they are hiding,” he says. “Everybody’s got it. I like bringing this to the surface. Not just because it’s fun, but to let people know you can have these feelings, even if society doesn’t accept them. You’re still 22 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

OK as long as you’re not hurting anyone. Rochester is a fairly hip place, you can get away with a lot more than you can in, say, a place like Biloxi.”

The Reverend Kingfish has roots here. He graduated from Penfield High School before packing a grip and heading out west for a “business-type career.” He came back east two years ago and began performing, which is something he’d never done before.

“I hadn’t had any inspiration,” he says of his delayed creative endeavors. “Now, my music comes in two parts. I cover old blues and jazz from the ‘20’s, and soon after arriving back in Rochester, I started to get my own ideas for writing my own songs.”

But don’t hold your breath for a Reverend Kingfish record. He ain’t doin’ it.

“I don’t really have any interest in recording,” he says. “It sounds like a pain in the ass and from what I hear, it’s expensive. I’m only interested in performing in front of an audience.”

If that sounds like he’s selling himself short, it’s because he is.

“I’m good at that,” he says.

ALEX PATRICK AND THE NOISE Rochester musician Alex Patrick and his new band The Noise, have an undeniable reverence for classic American songcraft.

You may know Patrick as the frontman for Dangerbyrd, a band that plays the kind of music that was instrumental in the initial big bang of rock ‘n’ roll. His passion for the music and its history is palpable.

But The Noise began as an intentional departure from Dangerbyrd two years ago. It all started when Patrick haphazardly booked a gig without a backing band in place.

He was having trouble assembling the entire quintet, and Patrick found himself routinely turning down gigs that had been scheduled for Dangerbyrd.

His patience was running out. He was going to have to start another band. The Noise was the result.

“I was starting to get frustrated having to turn down so many gig offers,” he says. “I figured I could find something to do that was fun by the time a show that Dangerbyrd couldn’t do rolled around.”

Patrick enlisted the remaining members of Dangerbyrd — bassist Schuyler Skuse and Chris Coon, who switched from keyboards to saxophone — to play with him under The Noise banner. Drummer Aaron Mika, who had played with Alex Patrick. PROVIDED PHOTO

Skuse in the soul band The Shine, also came on board.

Despite Patrick’s leadership roles in both Dangerbyrd and The Noise, there are noticeable differences between the two acts.

Dangerbyrd is a collective of songwriters and singers who play mainly original music. Patrick considers it electrified folk with a rock ’n’ roll beat.

The Noise, on the other hand, is about pure fun, with less emphasis on rehearsing. The band provides Patrick with the opportunity to see friends, sing and scream loud, riff on guitar, and play music that deserves to be heard.

Patrick feels he’s tapping into the same musical spirit as hometown heroes such as Son House, John Ellison and the Soul Brothers Six, Greg Prevost, and Joe Beard.

“Both bands are bar bands with ultimately the same purpose — making people dance and drink — but they fit into that scenario in opposite ways,” he says.

Because Patrick and his musicians had only a week to prepare for the first Noise show — in August 2019 at Skylark Lounge — performing songs he had already internalized seemed the best option.

“It’s nearly all Black rock ‘n’ roll and blues music,” he says. “That is what was on my mind back then, and still even now. That music has shaped my entire life and I owe everything to it. Rock ‘n’ roll was created by Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Little Richard, queer persons of color that still don’t get the recognition they deserve.”

The Noise’s leader is keen to differentiate between a good song and a great song.

“I think a good song is one that can be interrupted and played in many fashions,” he says. “That’s what folk, blues, country, and jazz artists do. If a song can be played fast, slow, in minor or major, and still move the audience, then it’s a good song.

“A great song does that, but alters one’s life in a meaningful way.

Great melodies inspire great lyrics.

Those songs are forever. I hope to catch one someday.”

ADOPT A LOCAL BUSINESS Support your favorite local business with a print or digital ad You can support your favorite small business and local journalism in one fell swoop!

Consider helping your go-tos thrive via promotion across CITY platforms.

Inquire for details and special rate information.

ADS@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM 585-730-2666 roccitynews.org CITY 23

ARTS

NEW BEATS

FULL-HEARTED HIP -HOP Rapper Skitzo LuvHartd — a.k.a. Tyshawn Pettway — confronts race, mental health

BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

@DANIELJKUSHNER

In an industry awash with “Lil” rappers and “ASAP” MCs, Tyshawn Pettway’s hip-hop moniker casts a conspicuous shadow: Skitzo LuvHartd.

The 24-year-old artist from Rochester wasn’t after swagger or bravado with his stage name (pronounced Skitso-LoveHearted), but rather a reflection of himself and the inspiration for his music.

Pettway has schizophrenia.

“I realized I was talking to the voices in my head,” he says. “And to take myself more seriously and to be more honest with my music, I took my diagnosis — schizophrenia — and I took my love for music, and I put that into a name.”

Pettway is intimately transparent about how his life and art intersect. To speak with him, or to listen to his new album “Full Body” — which was released digitally in August — is like opening a book, with all its insides laid bare in black and white and the textured remains of pulp embedded in the pages.

Three years ago, as he recalls, Pettway was living in Atlanta, when a string of sudden bad luck left him without a girlfriend, a car, or money.

Distraught and hopeless, he says he contemplated suicide, and charged police claiming falsely that he had a gun. The officers, all of them white, trained their guns on him, he says, but tased him instead.

Another time, Pettway says, he approached police with a knife to his throat, threatening to kill himself. The officers took him to the hospital.

“It was people you wouldn’t think that saved me,” he says, “and you would be surprised who turned their back.”

Pettway started life in Rochester, but split time between homes here and in Kentucky after his parents separated when he was a toddler. His mother, Tawana Bain, who sometimes acts as his manager, recalls that he showed an early interest in music. When Pettway was 12, Bain booked time for him at a studio to record his first album, the eight-track collection “For Better 24 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

DKUSHNER@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

Tyshawn Pettway openly addresses his diagnosis of schizophrenia through his music as Skitzo Luvhartd. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

Days,” which he originally cut under a different stage name.

But Pettway was already showing signs of mental illness: increased anger, paranoia, and his insistence that he was hearing voices, Bain says. She took him to see several psychiatrists, none of whom found anything wrong with him.

“He’d walk into a room, and he would look just like an average kid, and he’d talk his way out of what it was that I

thought was wrong,” Bain says.

Pettway would go undiagnosed until he was 18, when he was admitted to a psychiatric ward in Louisville and medicated. Not unlike many sufferers of schizophrenia, Pettway’s path from awareness of his illness to proactively managing it was a long one.

After his diagnosis, he was in denial for two years, bouncing from city to city in Kentucky and Florida and Georgia,

where he threatened suicide-by-cop.

He eventually found his way back to Rochester, where he was admitted to a mental health ward, and later lived with his father. Still, he took his medication only intermittently, and at one point, stopped altogether.

That was when Bain gave her son an ultimatum: Take his medication or she would cut off the modest monthly allowance she had been giving him and turn off his cell phone.

Pettway accepted and, with the help of counseling, says he has come to terms with his illness and channeled it into writing and producing music. He scrapped the series of stage names he had been using, and settled on Skitzo LuvHartd.

“When he landed on Skitzo LuvHartd I thought I was going to jump through my skin, because that was the first time that I realized that he’s beginning to accept his condition, that he’s embracing, like, ‘OK, I might have this, but I can use this for good,’” Bain says.

Pettway, who currently lives with his sister in Rochester, will have been on track for a full year come December, the month he turns 25.

“I had to learn to concentrate beyond the voices,” he says. “You gotta understand what reality is, 100 percent of the time, otherwise you’ll get lost in a fantasy world and make no sense.

“And I have to really hone in and really focus on the topic,” he goes on.

“It sounds like I’m all over the place, but there is a general idea that sparks many, many thoughts. And this is what you get when you get my music.”

His hip-hop is a vivid hybrid of established and emerging rap styles that combines the pop aesthetics of mumble rap with concise, potent lyrical messages and “boom bap” beats of such artists as Talib Kweli and Mos Def. CONTINUED ON PAGE 31

SEPTEMBER HIGHLIGHTS INSIDE WXXI PUBLIC MEDIA | WXXI-TV PBS AM 1370 NPR | CLASSICAL 91.5 FM WRUR 88.5 FM | THE LITTLE THEATRE

WXXI is proud to have a regular presence in this new publication, where we’ll share information about upcoming documentaries, PBS and NPR programs, specials on Classical 91.5, AM 1370, and WRUR-FM 88.5, (virtual) movies at the Little Theatre, and community events.

WXXI officially acquired CITY Newspaper under Rochester Area Media Partners (RAMP), a for-profit subsidiary of WXXI in 2019.

Since then, CITY and WXXI News have worked closely together to expand and enhance its news and arts coverage.

This special section is just another way WXXI and CITY are providing more items of interest for the Rochester community.

We hope you enjoy learning more about Rochester’s Public Media services. roccitynews.org CITY 25

WXXI-TV • THIS MONTH WXXI Live Forum: Reopening Schools Tuesday, September 1 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV & AM 1370 WXXI hosts this live forum that explores what K-12 education will look like in the fall in the era of COVID-19. Hosted by Evan Dawson of WXXI News’ Connections, the broadcast will cover local districts’ plans for educating students; questions and concerns from teachers, parents, and students; and how superintendents, pediatricians, and local leaders are preparing for the challenges ahead.

It will also stream on WXXINews.org and @WXXINews on Facebook Live. The taped version will repeat on WXXI-TV Sunday, September 6 at 7 p.m.

Van Der Valk on Masterpiece Sunday, September 13 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV Amsterdam—city of bikes, boats, and bodies. At least, that’s the way steelyeyed cop Piet Van der Valk sees his murder-infested beat. Marc Warren stars as Van der Valk in this all-new, three-part series based on Nicolas Freeling’s legendary crime thrillers. Maimie McCoy co-stars as Van der Valk’s right-hand woman, Lucienne Hassell along with Luke Allen-Gale as the scruffy sergeant, Brad de Vries, and Elliot Barnes-Worrell as the squad’s brainy new guy, Job Cloovers. Together they face a trio of challenging cases that gives a new slant to Amsterdam’s renowned sophistication, for it appears that the city’s stylishness and toleration go hand in hand with murder.

[VanDerValk/ Credit: Courtesy of © Company Pictures and all3media international]

Frontline: The Choice 2020 Trump vs. Biden Tuesday, September 22 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV In the midst of an historic pandemic, surging unemployment and growing economic uncertainty, American voters will head to the polls this fall to decide whether President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden will lead the country for the next four years. And as it has for every election since 1988, Frontline’s acclaimed series The Choice will investigate the life stories of the two candidates: the roots of their drive to be president, the moments that shaped them, and the life method that has brought them to this point.

WXXI-TV l DT 21.1/cable 11 + 1221 CREATE l DT 21.3/cable 1276 26 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

WORLD l DT 21.2/cable 1275 WXXI-Kids 24/7 l DT 21.4/cable 1277

FROM WXXI EDUCATION WXXI offers PBS Kids Programming to Families When They Want It, Where They Want It Committed to providing educational children’s programming that sparks kids’ imaginations and fosters a life-long love of learning, WXXI Kids 24/7 (21.4/cable 1277) is a TV channel and livestream dedicated to PBS KIDS programming when and where you want it. Designed to meet the needs of today’s kids, WXXI Kids 24/7 provides learning opportunities for every child, especially those at risk.

To learn more and to access the schedule visit WXXI.org/kids247.

Elinor Wonders Why Weekdays at 10:30 a.m. on WXXI-TV & Daily at 3:30 p.m. on WXXI-Kids 24/7 This newly animated series from PBS Kids for preschoolers encourages children to follow their curiosity, ask questions when they don’t understand, and find answers using science inquiry skills. Elinor, the most observant and curious bunny rabbit in Animal Town, introduces kids to nature and community through adventures with her friends Ari, a funny and imaginative bat, and Olive, a perceptive and warm elephant. As kids explore Animal Town, they meet all kinds of interesting, funny, and quirky characters, each with something to teach us about respecting others, the importance of diversity, caring for the environment, and working together to solve problems.

[Elinor/Credit: Courtesy of Pipeline Studios, © SHOE Ink]

roccitynews.org CITY 27

TURN TO CLASSIC CLASSICAL 91.5 FOR MUSIC PERFECTLY TUNED TO YOUR DAY. Classical 91.5 & WXXI Present a Free Screening of Harbor from the Holocaust

High Holy Day Services from Temple B’rith Kodesh Broadcast Live on Classical 91.5 Although houses of worship are still closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, online services have sustained many faith communities. Classical 91.5 offers two special broadcasts from Temple B’rith Kodesh for the High Holy Days.

On Friday, September 18 at 8 p.m., tune in for the broadcast celebrating the Jewish New Year.

28 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

On Sunday, September 27 at 8 p.m., WXXI brings you the evening service for the Day of Atonement.

Senior Rabbi Peter Stein, Assistant Rabbi Rochelle Tulik, Cantor Keri Berger, and Choir Director Jason Berger lead the services live.

Both of the Kol Nidrei Services broadcast live Classical 91.5 FM, WXXY 90.3 FM in Houghton, and WITH 90.1 HD2 in Ithaca.

These two broadcasts are made possible with support from the Louis S. and Molly B. Wolk Foundation.

Join Classical 91.5 and WXXI for a special screening of Harbor from the Holocaust, followed by a discussion at the Virtual Little Theatre on September 3rd at 6:30 p.m. The film shares the story of 20,000 Jewish refugees who fled Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II to the city of Shanghai. The onehour film explores the extraordinary relationship the refugees, known as “Shanghailanders,” had with their adopted city, through the bitter years of Japanese occupation 19371945 and the Chinese civil war that followed.

The screening will be followed by a discussion on the film and how the music in the film evokes the time, the fear, the pain and the joy of the “Shanghailanders.”

WXXI Classical 91.5 host Mona Seghatoleslami will introduce the film and moderate the discussion with a guest panel. To learn more and updates on the panelists, visit WXXI.org/events.

Harbor from the Holocaust airs on WXXITV Tuesday, September 8 at 10 p.m.

AM 1370, YOUR NPR NEWS STATION + WRUR-FM 88.5, DIFFERENT RADIO Black at Mizzou: Confronting Race on Campus Sunday, September 6 at 9 p.m. on AM 1370

NPR Special Coverage of the Presidential Debate Tuesday, September 29 at 9 p.m. on AM 1370 President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden go head to head in their first of three presidential debates. Held at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio, NPR will be there to bring you live coverage and analysis.

[graphic provided by APM reports]

In 2015, Lauren Brown left her mostly black neighborhood in Chicago for the University of Missouri. Moving to a predominantly white college was a huge shock, made even more difficult by the racial harassment she faced that fall. That same semester, the campus erupted in protests that made international news after several instances of racial harassment set off a movement led by black students to change the school.

[Raina/Photo Credit: Britney Townsend]

World Café with Raina Douris Weekdays at 2 p.m. on WRUR-FM 88.5 Hosted by Raina Douris, World Cafe introduces you to an eclectic blend of contemporary sounds from both legendary and up-and-coming artists, through exclusive interviews, performances and special features. Douris brings her love and knowledge of music to the show daily.

Those protests inspired movements on college campuses across the country, but few of them got as much media coverage as the University of Missouri.

News reports seemed to treat the racism that black students endured at Mizzou as an aberration, but Lauren and other black students knew that it wasn’t just a recent spate of racist incidents that lead to the student uprisings — it was years and years of them.

In this documentary, we learn about the long history of student activism and demands for change that set the stage for the protests at Missouri. The only way to really understand what has changed, and what bound black students together in the fight for change, is to understand what students call “Black Mizzou.” Lauren is our guide to this campus within a campus that was fundamental to the 2015 movement at the University of Missouri, to Lauren’s decision to ultimately stay and graduate from the school and to holding administrators accountable for change today. roccitynews.org CITY 29

Support The Little Theatre!

As The Little approaches the six-month mark of its temporary closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s more vital than ever to support your local art house landmark.

Here’s how to help: Donate: thelittle.org/donate Become a Little Member: thelittle.org/membership Buy gift certificates and a 90-day Popcorn Pass: shopthelittle.org

Represent

Leave a positive review of The Little on Yelp, Facebook, Google, etc.

NOW

OPEN! We’re fortunate to have such a dedicated, passionate, and smart film community here in the Little Theatre District. Thank you for your support during this unprecedented and unpredictable time - it’s truly appreciated. While at the moment you cannot come to us, we’d like to bring The Little experience to you. Visit thelittle.org to rent our library of new releases. Current titles include Represent (a One Take Film Festival 2020 selection about women politicians) and The Fight (a thrilling look at the important work by ACLU lawyers).

30 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

The Fight

PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

“Full Body” focuses on racism in America with empathy, particularly when Pettway dwells on the voices neither he nor anyone else can hear anymore — those of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, whose deaths at the hands of police sparked protests of racial injustice across the country.

On the album’s fourth track, “Never,” with production by Readhead, Pettway lets loose with a disarming spitfire delivery: “Surrounded land/ By white man/ Why man?/ One of me/ Son and man/ Murder me?”

“I tried to embody fear, fully,” Pettway says. “I tried to embody what it felt like to be a target, even if I never experienced the direct hate, as they did.”

The album is a departure from his earlier work, the album “Playdead,” with its seductive, slow-jam R&B samples and nuanced, multi-textured production in songs such as “LIQuor N LiFE.” But “Full Body” is an evolution of Skitzo LuvHartd’s four-song EP “ThankYouEarl” and its hard-hitting sociopolitical commentary. “hung Lynch rope.,” a single from “ThankYouEarl,” lasts only two minutes and 13 seconds, and it doesn’t take long

for Pettway to get to the blistering and blunt point: “How they found me: lynched, hanging, from the edge of wisdom’s grip/ I was runnin’ from some n****s, ran into some racist pricks/ Fuck a side, I’d rather die here on the fence/ To Mr. Black and Mr. Pig, I’m just lynched.”

The song concludes with the haunting voice of author and activist James Baldwin, speaking about how longterm racial oppression can destroy the psyche and a sense of worth on the PBS television program “SOUL!” in 1971.

“I’ve seen the same people in every color — in every color, in every race, every culture,” he says. “I said it just last night: I’m the most flawed person in the room, and so are you. So we are equal.

And we do bleed the same.”

Of “Full Body,” Pettway says he hopes his audience can relate and find the meaning of his music in their own lives.

“I didn’t want you to just rap it because it felt good,” he says. “I want you to feel where I’m coming from.”

“People are always complaining about a pain that I can relate to,” he says.

roccitynews.org CITY 31

ARTS

INDOOR VOICES

SEQUESTERED RECORDING SESSIONS Three stories of local music made in quarantine

BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

@DANIELJKUSHNER

DKUSHNER@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

Capturing a creative spark can be elusive for artists in normal times.

Under the forced isolation brought on by COVID-19, it can be like scrambling for embers buried in sand.

Some local musicians found the extended time in quarantine to be a creative boon, particularly during the first few months of the pandemic. For them, the quarantine was not only a time for writing and recording new material, it was a pivotal shift in their careers, a much-needed return to productive habits, and a time for fresh collaboration.

Here are a few of their stories:

SALLY LOUISE CHANGES HER TUNE Soprano Sally Drutman was nearing the end of her first year as a master’s student at Eastman School of Music, pursuing a degree in vocal performance, when the coronavirus struck. She started taking her classes online, and soon after, began to question whether she wanted to continue pursuing a life as a professional opera singer - a career she had been chasing for a decade.

Drutman realized she was unhappy.

She was faced with cancelled and postponed opera gigs, in an industry in which meeting the demanding expectations of opera company officials, agents, and other professional insiders is all-important. She was tired of trying to please others.

Traveling frequently — including moves to Salt Lake City, Berlin, and now Rochester, to study and gain experience — meant less time to spend with family and friends, all for what Drutman saw as baby steps of career advancement.

“I was finally faced with this internal dilemma,” she says. “Do you keep going at this, feeling frustrated and at this point, feeling like a slave 32 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

During the pandemic, opera singer Sally Drutman stopped singing arias and started writing her own songs. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

to the art form? Or do you figure out some other way to have a different, healthier relationship with music, which is my life and something I would never want to lose?”

Drutman had written songs sporadically in college, and would sometimes hum musical ideas into her phone, but never brought those ideas to fruition because of her focus on opera.

With the arrival of COVID-19, she had a revelation.

“It empowered me to take control of how I wanted my life

to turn out,” Drutman says, “and take control of my music career a lot more — by making my own recordings, making my own music, and just doing it myself, and not waiting for someone else.”

Drutman says she gets restless at the idea of being inactive; perhaps not surprising for someone who has performed across the United States and in nine different countries. She says that being stuck at home unexpectedly motivated her to use songwriting to cope.

Within the first six weeks of the pandemic, Drutman wrote and

completed more than 20 songs.

Drutman released her first single, “Milky Blue,” on July 1, under the moniker Sally Louise. With only her voice and a classical guitar borrowed from her boyfriend, she dug into the software program GarageBand. The result is a breezy, textured composition featuring a ready-made gamelan sample and found nature sounds she had recorded while living in Utah (on Antelope Island, near Salt Lake City), Germany (in Berlin), and now in Rochester (along the Genesee River).

“I just wanted to create this musical fog of dreamy, ethereal kind of sounds,” she says. That fog begins to clear two-thirds into the song, when hazy textures give way to bird calls and the clarity of open sonic space. Wordless vocalizations, previously sung on an “ooh” vowel, shift to the more open “ahh” vowel, suggesting feelings of relief and contentment.

Drutman says “Milky Blue” articulates her realization that “I had been trying to people-please when I really wasn’t listening to that inner voice.”

Her next single, “Bodily Exile” — to be released digitally via streaming platforms on September 12 — bears a similar message of reconnecting with one’s authentic self and the freedom that it brings.

“Call me renewed, call it desire/ Fetch me myself, I’ll start a fire,” she sings with easygoing confidence over an R&B groove and a simple four-chord progression.

Drutman has decided to not return to Eastman to complete her master’s degree, though she will be staying in Rochester for the foreseeable future. She plans to release a full-length album by summer 2021.

And although opera is still an influence — along with Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, folk, R&B, and jazz — she won’t be pursuing it full-time as she once did.

“It’s just not as important in my life,” Drutman says. “And I realize it’s not who I am right now.”

Luke Cornwell wrote and recorded a song each day in April, resulting in the 30-track album “Sweaters in Coffee.” PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

LUKE CORNWELL AND HIS SONG-A-DAY STREAK The creative impulse can be a hard thing to corral during a pandemic. And maintaining the will to be productive can be even more difficult.

That’s what makes multiinstrumentalist Luke Cornwell’s latest album, the 30-track “Sweaters in Coffee,” particularly impressive.

Though he serves as bassist in Seth Faergolzia’s mercurial band Multibird, and as keyboardist in the sci-fi rock band Treasure Plate, his new solo music was the direct result of his ambitious project to write and record one song each day for the entire month of April.

Cornwell says it’s more accurate to call the pursuit “obsessive.” But it’s not the first time he’s attempted such a rigorous creative schedule.

In July 2012, the summer after Cornwell completed high school, he used a TASCAM four-track recorder to produce the album “July,” using his own performances on piano, guitar, bass guitar, and saxophone.

In 2020, faced with quarantine, he decided to duplicate the process — this time with additional instrumentation, including ukulele, the mandocello (or baritone mandolin), and synthesizers, as well as digitally altered field recordings.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 34

roccitynews.org CITY 33

UGLY DUCK COFFEE COFFEE ISP

LE P EO

@UGLYDUCKCOFFEE 89 CHARLOTTE ST. ROC NY ORDER AHEAD: MONDAY - FRIDAY 7AM - 5PM UGLYDUCKCOFFEE.COM SATURDAY - SUNDAY 8AM - 5PM

34 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

In creating 30 disparate songs and instrumentals, Cornwell says he had a single mindset: “I just exist here now — in this room, in this house, on this street.”

“Sweaters in Coffee” is a delightfully quirky collection of bedroom recordings — intentionally raw, sometimes nonsensical, and often self-reflective. The songwriter admits that the balance between high and low frequencies isn’t always consistent; the vocals are sometimes farther back in the mix than is ideal, and the intonation is sometimes slightly off.

“The reason it works for me is because these songs don’t have a history of being played or toured or anything,” Cornwell says. “They were generated and then they were recorded.”

Cornwell says that creating “Sweaters in Coffee” helped him progress as a songwriter. The project left him no time to second-guess himself and he avoided the writer’s block that plagued him in the past.

Most of the songs were recorded on the same day they were written. After the original sessions in April, he went back to re-record individual parts or create overdubs on about one-third of the tracks, in order to give the music more longevity.

Musically, the listener can hear the inventive, melodically restless freak-folk influence of Faergolzia. This is perhaps most prominent on the opening song “Bagel Duffy,” about a hungry and opportunistic mouse, and on “This Is Fine,” which is about receiving a smoothie in the mail. But the eccentricity can also be heard on “One Day,” an odd but touching a cappella song that sounds like a contemporary Irish folk tune.

Lyrically, Cornwell can be lighthearted and silly, but there are plenty of wistful and bittersweet moments as well: in the pop-rock hook of “You Have Grown in Me, the reverb-laden “Go Home,” and perhaps most notably, on “We’ll Be Back.”

On the latter song — maybe the most beautifully written of the “Sweaters in Coffee” set — it seems Cornwell is injecting optimism into his disaffected world. Everyday things on which he could rely pre-coronavirus — “free student parking, insurance, vitamins” — are no longer as readily available. Under this interpretation, “We’ll Be Back” is the promise of a return to normalcy.

When writing the instrumental tracks, Cornwell sometimes left things to chance, constructing melodies at random using a die — with each individual note associated with different numbers on the die. He’d determine the number of notes needed to complete a given musical phrase, roll the die, and arrange those notes as he saw fit.

There are also atmospheric compositions that demonstrate his love for more abstract textures.

Cornwell says that at times, he values the timbre of the music over harmonic consonance, preferring the creation of sounds to the crafting of songs. That is evident in compositions such as “Granules.”

But that song is immediately followed by “Above Us All,” an ardent, ukulele-driven ballad, and the album’s closing track. Cornwell has an appreciation for both straightforward, folk-inspired songwriting and avantgarde composition.

“Sometimes I like to be Colin Hay or like James Taylor, and sometimes I like to be like Pierre Boulez and Iannis Xenakis,” he says.

LUXURY ROBE CREATES ITS ‘HONEYMOON RECORD’ Prior to COVID-19, Alex Northrup and Sam Hirsh - who have been dating for over a year - had never had a real creative collaboration.

They had their separate musical projects, and they contributed to each other’s solo albums, with Hirsh providing guitar work for Northrup’s newly released “Popular Songs That Will Live Forever,” and Northrup adding keys to Hirsh’s forthcoming album “Secret Islands.”

But they had never truly collaborated.

Then circumstances changed, and the instrumental dream-pop duo now known as Luxury Robe, along with its subsequent debut album “Murmurs,” was born.

Hirsh had been working as bartender and splitting time between Rochester and Syracuse. When he lost his job as a result of the pandemic, he moved in with Northrup, whose day job is in CAD drafting.

“Murmurs” is “almost like a honeymoon record,” Hirsh replies when asked if the musical partnership on the album mirrors their personal partnership.

MUSIC EVENTS Acoustic/Folk

The Archive Ravens. Virtual Little Cafe, Online. thelittle.org/music. Tue., Sep. 15, 7 p.m.

Summer Sunset Series. Genesee Country

Village & Museum, 1410 Flint Hill Rd. Mumford. gcv.org. Fri., Sep. 4, 5-9 p.m. Sept 4: Midlife Crisis. Reservations required. $7.

Turtle Hill Virtual Folk Festival. Livestream, Online. goldenlink.org. Sep. 11-13.

Virtual Sing Around. Livestream, Online. goldenlink.org. Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m.

Americana

The Blind Owl Band, Folkfaces. Lincoln

Hill Farms, 3792 Rte 247. Canandaigua. lincolnhillfarms.com. Sat., Sep. 26, 5 p.m. $15/$20.

Blues

Daddy Long Legs. Abilene, 153 Liberty

Pole Way. 232-3230. Tue., Sep. 15, 8 p.m. $10/$15.

Hanna PK. Outdoors Little Café, 240 East Ave. thelittle.org/music. Fri., Sep. 4, 6 p.m.

Classical

Sam Hirsh (left) and Alex Northrup formed Luxury Robe while quarantined together in their house. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

The instrument duties are divided evenly, with Hirsh creating the guitar riffs and drum programming, and Northrup playing the bass guitar and most of the keyboard instruments — including the Farfisa organ.

The music on “Murmurs,” though slightly psychedelic, owes much of its synth-soaked ambiance and pop guitar licks to the ’80s. That guitar work is at the core of the album’s overall sound.

Hirsh achieved the specific guitar tone for the album with a Digitech Whammy pedal, set to harmonize with his playing in fifths, along with the use of a flanger effect and multiple delay pedals, all of which contribute to what the guitarist refers to as the “wash.”

He points to The Police, Cocteau Twins, The Cure, and The Smiths as influences.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, in between writing original tunes, Hirsh and Northrup would play covers of The Smiths’ songs. Hirsh saw playing the covers as a way to further develop his chops. For Northrup, it was a diversion during a difficult period of quarantine.

“We were happy that we were together, and now living together, but it wasn’t exactly the happiest time in

the world,” he says. “And even though we’re stuck in the house, there’s really no escaping what’s going on. It’s still coming in, in your social media and what you’re watching on TV. It can make you bummed out for sure.”

Though the music isn’t peppy, it isn’t overly dark, either. The feelings invoked tend to be contemplative and ambiguous.

Northrup attributes this to the absence of lyrics, which could otherwise influence the emotional response of the listener.

In lieu of voices, the Farfisa organ takes on the role of the melody much of the time, similar to the way guitar was so central in early rock ‘n’ roll instrumentals such as “Sleep Walk.”

“I tried to create those melodies in such a way that they were like vocal melodies,” Northrup says. “You should be able to sing ‘em.”

When asked if Luxury Robe is a project that might see the light of day as a live act, Northrup doesn’t rule it out.

“I do miss playing in a room with a group of people, but I also equally enjoy having the track, sitting in a room by myself, and coming up with the part,” he says. “It’s just a different form of collaboration.”

Bravo Nights. Virtual Little Cafe, Online. thelittle.org/music. Tue., Sep. 29, 7-9 p.m.

Classical Guitar Night. Virtual Little Cafe, Online. thelittle.org. First Sunday of every month, 7 p.m.

Dowland’s Grand Tour: Paul O’Dette, lute.

Livestream, Online. pegasusearlymusic.org.

Fri., Sep. 25, 7:30 p.m. and Sun., Sep. 27, 4 p.m. Pegasus Early Music.

Live at Lunchtime: Emily Hutchinson & Olivia Bradstreet. Livestream, Online.

cobblestoneartscenter.com. Fri., Sep. 18, 12:15-12:45 p.m. Cobblestone Arts Center.

RPO Living Room Series. Livestream, Online.

Saturdays, 6 p.m. Live on FB.

Jazz

Annie Wells. Virtual Little Cafe, Online. thelittle. org/music. Mon., Sep. 14, 7:30 p.m.

The Djangoners. Outdoors Little Café, 240 East Ave. Sun., Sep. 20, 6 p.m.

JAVA. Outdoors Little Café, 240 East Ave.

thelittle.org/music. Thu., Sep. 3, 6 p.m.

Jon Seiger: Piano Bar & Trumpet Happy Hour. Livestream, Online. Saturdays, 5 p.m. Live on FB. Laura Dubin & Antonio Guerrero. Laura Dubin Jazz, lauradubin.com. Ongoing, 8:30 p.m. Live on FB.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL | ‘It Can’t Not Be Dance Music’ Following its “Glass Works” project with artist Judith Schaechter and the Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester chamber ensemble fivebyfive continues its fascination with visual art when it gives the world premieres of two new compositions inspired by the photography of James Welling, as part of this year’s KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival. At a virtual event entitled “It Can’t Not Be Dance Music” on Sunday, September 20 at 1p.m., in conjunction with George Eastman Museum and its current exhibition “James Welling: Choreograph,” fivebyfive will present the musical pieces in the form of music videos created by audio and video engineer Marc Webster, a frequent collaborator.

Wellington’s photographic meditations on movement feature vibrant color washes, abstract textures, and the suggestion that to dance is a transcendent act. The local contemporary classical quintet, in turn, commissioned composers Kamala Sankaram and Bob Lydecker to create works of sound inspired by that photography. Sankaram is an emotive and rhythmically innovative composer known for multiple operas, including “Taking Up Serpents” and “Thumbprint.” The Emmy-nominated Lydecker has a penchant for highly kinetic, cinematic compositions, having written music for the shows “Iron Fist” produced by Marvel and Netflix and “Lethal Weapon” from Fox and Warner Bros.

The music video premieres will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A with the members of fivebyfive, Webster, Welling, and the composers. For more information go to rochesterfringe.com, facebook. com/GeorgeEastmanMuseum, and fivebyfivemusic.com/choreograph.

— BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

Ska

Pop/Rock

Live at the Patio: 5HEAD. Abilene, 153 Liberty

4909 Culver Rd. 323-1020. Fri., Sep. 4, 7 p.m.

Traditional

Alicia & The Sideburns. Marge’s Lakeside Inn, Amanda Ashley: Afternoon Cocktail.

Livestream, Online. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, 1 p.m. Live on FB.

Pole Way. $5. Sat., Sep. 5, 6:30 p.m.

Alyssa Rodriguez. Outdoors Little Café, 240 East Ave. Sat., Sep. 19, 6 p.m.

Elvis & Friends Tribute: Spring with the King.

Churchville Moose Lodge, 2244 Route 33A. Fri., Sep. 11, 7 p.m. $12.

Green Jelly. Montage Music Hall, 50 Chestnut St. 232-1520. Fri., Sep. 25, 8 p.m. $15/$20.

Junkyardfieldtrip. Livestream, Online. threeheadsbrewing.com. Sun., Sep. 6, 7 p.m.

McKinley James Band, Alex Patrick. Abilene, 153 Liberty Pole Way. 232-3230. Fri., Sep. 18, 9 p.m. $8/$12.

Sarah Eide. Outdoors Little Café, 240 East Ave. Mon., Sep. 14, 7:30 p.m.

With evolving NYS guidelines for live music, events are highly subject to change or cancellation. It’s wise to check with individual venues to confirm performances and protocols.

roccitynews.org CITY 35

ARTS

FESTIVALS

Rochester Fringe favorites, the Las Vegas-based performers Matt & Heidi Morgan will present a new iteration of their bawdy, audienceinteractive, Bard-based drinking game, “Shotspeare,” over a virtual platform. PHOTO COURTESY ROCHESTER FRINGE FESTIVAL

to travel, and from her counterparts at Fringes in other cities earlier in the festival season that went entirely virtual.

“We don’t have another choice,” Fee recalled concluding. “We’re going fully virtual.”

THE SHOW MUST GO ON(LINE)

FRINGE’S SHEEN GOES TO THE SCREEN Rochester Fringe’s 9th annual festival will be presented as an experimental, virtual version of itself

BY REBECCA RAFFERTY

It is September in the city, and something is amiss downtown at the corner of Main and Gibbs streets.

For the first time in nine years at the intersection, there isn’t the bejeweled Spiegeltent staple of the KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival.

Indeed, there is no Spiegelgarden with food and drink trucks and games and film screenings. There are no B-Boys competing for glory and there are no massive illuminated inflatable planets hovering high above Parcel 5.

At a glance, it would be tempting to conclude that the popular latesummer festival of hundreds of live performances has been canceled, 36 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

@RSRAFFERTY

BECCA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

another victim of the pandemic’s pummeling of the performing arts.

But Rochester Fringe 2020 lives as a virtual festival, in which a blend of pre-recorded and live performances will be presented over a variety of digital platforms from September 15 through September 26. While the unabashed spectacle of previous Fringes is missing, the spirit of the festival isn’t. With about 175 productions, this year’s event boasts nearly as many acts as the usual, which is close to 200 unique productions.

“The dust is still settling for us,” the festival’s executive director, Erica Fee, said in late August, a time of year so frantic for Fee that she referred to the

stretch as “Death by Fringe” on her Twitter account and only half-jokingly wrote, “Bury me in cyberspace.” A week later she would reveal the festival’s lineup of shows to the public.

This Fringe wasn’t supposed to be this way. When it was announced in June that the show would go on, festival organizers envisioned a mix of digital acts and some live, outdoor performances.

But Fee, a classically-trained actress whose credits include performing in London off -West End, knows how to take a cue. In the ensuing weeks she took more than one — from the draconian state restrictions on the performing arts, from headliners unable or unwilling

Fringe organizers began consulting with the U.S. Association of Fringe Festivals — there are nearly 40 festivals across the country — and a global trade group called World Fringe and gleaning what they could about best practices for a virtual event.

Orlando Fringe, which was presented virtually in mid-May, was something of a guinea pig for Rochester. Producers there decided in late March to pivot to a virtual event, about two weeks after canceling their festival in anticipation of a state lockdown.

“We were going back and forth about it, like, ‘Should we do something, or should we not?’” Orlando Fringe Theater Producer Lindsay Taylor said.

“We decided to go for it because it’s year 29, and our patrons expected something.

And we wanted to still do some Fringe offerings, and then it just turned into this huge monster.”

The festival drew 107 programs — a mix of shows and workshops and interviews — that represented a modest dip from its typical lineup of about 130 shows. Everything was presented via Facebook Live.

“Not all of them were shows, so it wasn’t exactly like our festival,” Taylor said.

Last year, Orlando Fringe drew about 75,000 people. This year, there were no tickets and the programs were presented for free with an option to donate to artists. The arrangement made measuring attendance difficult, but Taylor said audiences were engaged on the festival’s social media channels.

Rochester Fringe productions will be presented two ways: As pre-recorded, on-demand shows, and as live-streamed performances. Artists were allowed to choose from different platforms, such as YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch, Zoom, and Facebook Live, to suit their productions.

It is too early to tell how audiences will respond, but artists seem enthusiastic.

Fee said Fringe has seen an uptick in participation from non-local artists, with

In past years spectacular shows such as “Cirque du Fringe” dazzled live audiences in the Spiegeltent downtown. This year’s entirely virtual Fringe will feature that and more than 170 other shows, streamed to audiences at home. PHOTO COURTESY ROCHESTER FRINGE FESTIVAL

about 40 percent of the acts hailing from outside Rochester.

Among the roughly 175 shows are some returning favorites, including Matt and Heidi Morgan, the Las Vegas-based couple who annually present a new iteration of their “Cirque du Fringe,” a circus-variety show of charmingly madcap acts of derring-do, in the Spiegeltent. The Morgans have a new show for Rochester, but instead of presenting to an audience in a tent that acted as a theater-in-the-round, they’ll be on a flat screen. The show, “Cirque du Fringe: Quarantini,” is a series of pre-recorded acts from an array of artists paired with an interview with a circus performer, much like an evening talkentertainment show.

Rochester Fringe is also bringing back the Morgans’ “Shotspeare,” the tipsy, audience-interactive parody of The Bard, which will be presented live over Zoom.

Of course, streaming acts comes with its own set of headaches. Organizers in Orlando had to contend with unforeseen factors, like abiding by the rules for digital music licensing, which are different from music licensing at live performances. Conveying that to artists was another worry.

Then there was adapting to the technical needs for pulling off a virtual event.

“We had to learn how to run, essentially, a TV show,” Taylor said.

“Running the programming, running pre-recorded videos, dealing with technical difficulties for people on our staff who don’t have that experience.”

“We ended up really stepping out of our comfort zone to make this happen,” she went on, “but it was very rewarding.”

VIRTUALLY UNFORESEEN BENEFITS Xela Batchelder, executive director of the Pittsburgh Fringe, which held a virtual festival in May, said some of the most effective shows at her event were the ones presented live that fed off audience feedback.

“That makes it feel more like a live performance, because laughter is contagious,” Batchelder said. “You can see the other audience members and react with them and hear what they say. Hear them gasp at parts, you know what I mean? It’s so much more fun and kind of brings that community feel back in.”

Known among Fringe organizers as “Dr. Fringe” for her vast experience producing festivals, Batchelder said Pittsburgh Fringe was a week out from its typical 2020 production in April when Pennsylvania was shut down.

Like a lot of American Fringe festivals, Pittsburgh draws mainly local acts. When the festival committed to going virtual, however, participation from international artists rose and the audience broadened.

“What you find is the audience expands when you go virtual,” Batchelder said. “It’s all over the world.”

An ancillary benefit for Pittsburgh artists was exposure. The festival there is quaint by Rochester standards, with some 30 acts performed over a long CONTINUED ON PAGE 38

roccitynews.org CITY 37

weekend. This year, Pittsburgh presented 25 shows that were only performed once, but streamed for a month. Several shows got picked up and have since gone on to other virtual Fringe festivals.

“A chunk of the Fringe mission is to help artists and give them a platform,” Batchelder said. “So by doing the virtual festivals, we’re still trying to give artists a platform this year, a way to present their work and get it out to an audience.”

ARTISTS’ LAST HOPE Pivoting to a virtual festival rather than canceling has given a lot of artists a badly-needed platform at a time when work has dried up.

Whether people realize it, the inability of artists and art organizations to produce right now translates to a huge sector of the economy being shut down. In 2018, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analyses and the National Endowment for the Arts figured the arts contributed $764 billion to the U.S. economy annually and employed 4.9 million workers with earnings of more than $370 billion.

Rochester Fringe performers this year will see 100 percent of the ticket sales from their productions. In previous years, the festival took a 10 percent cut of ticket sales, and individual Fringe venues worked out deals with the artists they hosted. Virtual Fringe ticket prices range from free to about $25, and the average price is $10, lower than a typical festival, Fee said.

Some traditional Fringe venues are also getting in on the act. The staff at theaters that would normally host performances, for instance, have submitted their own shows as a way to earn a little something off the festival.

“One of the reasons that we do Fringe is to bring new audiences into our venues, so that we can keep downtown performing arts venues vibrant,” Fee said. “And, unfortunately, with the pandemic, those venues are still closed.”

“We want to make sure that performing artists exist, and that venues exist when this is all over,” Fee said.

Local audiences might not realize it, but the 12-day grand spectacle that is Rochester Fringe is unique among American Fringe festivals, many of which span a few days to a week.

While Rochester follows the model of the granddaddy of all Fringe festivals — Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest 38 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

arts festival in the world — which calls for curating a portion of its high-impact and dazzling shows, most American Fringes follow the Canadian model, which is open-access, uncurated, and entirely a negotiation between venues and performers.

Around the nation, you’re more likely to see an emphasis on creative oddities than professional acrobats dance-rappelling down the sides of high-rise buildings, sculptural machinery belching flames into the night sky, or British rockers clad in Spandex leading a city block packed with people in pop-song karaoke, like we have in Rochester.

Some shows that are perennial favorites of Rochester Fringe fans aren’t in the virtual lineup, including Gospel Sunday, which was sidelined due to safety concerns over choir singing.

Dance is also problematic because of the performers’ physical proximity to each other. Rochester Fringe will feature some dance, but a lot of the performances will have been pre-recorded, Fee said.

A healthy portion of Rochester Fringe’s past lineups have tackled historical and contemporary racial justice and social issues. The virtual festival is no different, and the collision of the Black Lives Matter movement, the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, and issues of equity laid bare by the pandemic has made for rich material.

Programs include film screenings, discussions, plays, dance, music, and spoken word productions that present on Black oppression, Black arts, the Rochester riots of ’64, The Children’s Crusade of 1963, the Freedom Riders, the Black Lives Matter uprisings of this summer, and transforming scars into solidarity and solutions.

Also new this year is a series of four conversations with artists called “Fringe Talk,” which will present different topics, ranging from the Black Lives Matter movement to the community impacts of COVID-19.

Three weeks out from the festival opening, Fee described Fringe staff as being simultaneously “pleased and overwhelmed.”

“It’s like, you’re just tearing your hair out, like, ‘Oh, my god, what are we doing?’” Fee said. “And then I really looked at this the other night, and I think that this is something we could be really proud of.”

EXHIBITS [ Opening ]

Dansville ArtWorks Gallery, 178 Main St.

ART TALK | ‘Virtual Tour with David Zyla: Who What Wear’

Geisel Gallery, 2nd Floor Rotunda, Legacy Tower, One Bausch & Lomb Place. . Working with Wax: Surfacing. Mondays-Fridays.

Encaustic paintings. thegeiselgallery.com.

International Art Acquisitions, 3300 Monroe Ave. . John Baughmans: Nomarch. Sep. 1-30.

264-1440.

During the statewide shutdown, the Memorial Art Gallery emphasized the virtual versions of its MAGsocial DeTOUR series, in which various individuals discuss works from the museum’s collection in fun contexts.

These themed tours will still be offered virtually into the fall, with a gradual addition of some tours held in person at the gallery.

Dansville. Colin Toomey: Believe in Boxes.

Wednesdays-Saturdays. Reception Sep 12, 3-6pm. 335-4746.

Rochester Contemporary Art Center, 137 East Ave. 461-2222. Trust, but verify. WednesdaysSundays. Sep 4, 6-9pm: Opening reception (RSVP only). Sep 5, 1pm: Artist talk. $2.; Andrew Zimbelman: The Subway Series.

Through Nov 14. $2.

The Village Gallery, 3119 Main St. Caledonia.

Paul Taylor: Watercolor & Oil Paintings. Sep. 4-27. Reception Sep 4, 5-8pm. 294-3009.

Tower Fine Arts Center, 180 Holley St.

Brockport. Monroe & Vicinity Biennial Exhibition: Western New York. Sep. 21-Oct. 25.

395-2805.

[ Continuing ]

Cobblestone Arts Center, 1622 NY 332. .

Painting With Fabric, Different Perspectives (Main Gallery). Jacob Brown (Staff & Student Gallery). Through Oct. 4. Sep 3, 5-7pm: Opening reception. Viewing by appointment.

398-0220.

George Eastman Museum, 900 East Ave. eastman.org. . Gathering Clouds: Photographs from the Nineteenth Century and Today (to Jan 3). James Welling: Choreograph (to Jan 3). History of Photography (to Jan 3).

Wednesdays-Sundays. $5-$15.

Image City Photography Gallery, 722 University Ave. . Carl Crumley: The TWA Flight Center, 58 Years Later. Tuesdays-Sundays.

Through Sep 6. 271-2540.

Main Street Arts, 20 W Main St. Clifton Springs. The Print Club of Rochester: 89th Annual Members Exhibition. Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays. Viewings by appointment.

Online interactive exhibit on website. (315) 462-0210.

Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University Ave.

276-8900. . The Path to Paradise: Judith Schaechter’s Stained-Glass Art (to 9/13).

1940/2020: In Celebration of the 80th Anniversary of the Gallery Council (to 10/11).

Wednesdays-Sundays. $6-$15; 1/2-price Thursdays after 5pm.

Next up is “Who What Wear,” a virtual tour with David Zyla, best-selling author and Emmy award-winning stylist to the stars, along with MAG curatorial assistant Lauren Tagliaferro and MAG engagement manager Jessica Gasbarre.

Together they’ll explore ladies’ fashion from antiquity through the present day, looking at garments and accessories from an art history standpoint, and how women’s roles in the fashion industry have evolved (influencers are not a new concept!).

“Virtual Tour with David Zyla: Who What Wear” takes place Tuesday, September 29, from 6 to 7 p.m. Free, registration is required. mag.rochester.edu/events/ detours.

— BY REBECCA RAFFERTY

Rochester Folk Art Guild, 1445 Upper Hill Rd. East Hill Gallery: Fine Handcrafts. Saturdays, Sundays. Through Oct 18. rfag.org.

Rochester Museum & Science Center, 657 East Ave. (rmsc.org). Take It Down!

Organizing Against Racism. Objectively Racist: How Objects & Images Perpetuate Racism -And What We Can Do To Change It.. Ongoing. $14-$16. rmsc.org.

Virtual Genesee Country Village & Museum, Online. Mumford. Explore the Collection.

Ongoing. gcv.org/explore/online-collection.

Virtual George Eastman Museum, eastman. org. Eastman Museum at Home. Ongoing.

Virtual Memorial Art Gallery, mag.rochester. edu. Explore the Collection. Ongoing.

HAVE AN UPCOMING EXHIBIT?

Submit events to calendar@rochester-citynews.com

Oxford Gallery, 267 Oxford St. Coming Home. Tuesdays-Sundays. Through Sep 12. oxfordgallery.com.

Pat Rini Rohrer Gallery, 71 S Main St.

Canandaigua. The Spirit of Plein Air. TuesdaysSundays. Through Sep 6. 394-0030. prrgallery.com.

roccitynews.org CITY 39

ARTS

FILM

Frances McDormand in “Nomadland.” PHOTO COURTESY OF TIFF

NORTHERN EXPOSURE The 45th Toronto International Film Festival adapts to uncertain times

BY ADAM LUBITOW

@ADAMLUBITOW

For area cinephiles, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is a major highlight of the year, allowing attendees access to preview upcoming films at a world-renowned event within driving distance of Rochester.

But the pandemic-induced landborder closures and mandatory two-week quarantines for travelers to Canada make attending the festival this month an impossibility for most of us.

And, because 2020 won’t allow anyone to have nice things anymore, even film buffs looking to access the festival’s virtual content are out of luck. TIFF organizers announced that general public digital screenings will be geo-blocked, restricting viewing to people in Canada.

You’re still likely to see titles screened at TIFF sooner rather than later, though. With so few new movies having made it into production due 40 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

to the pandemic, the ones making the festival rounds are sure to be snapped up by distributors on the hunt for fresh content.

So audiences can expect TIFF films to show up throughout the next several months at drive-ins, in whichever indoor theaters have been allowed to open, as virtual screenings on platforms hosted by unopened theaters, and on streaming services or VOD. Major studios are mostly sitting out the 2020 festival circuit, as many of their award-contenders could not meet festival deadlines. But that has cleared a path for smaller films without distribution to take center stage, giving a boost to independent features and docs that might otherwise have been overlooked in the festivals’ usual massive lineup.

The 45th edition of the TIFF, set to take place from September 10-19,

is a significantly scaled-back hybrid of the festival that mixes physical events, with physical-distancing guidelines in place, as well as the geo-restricted virtual screenings. It’s a model likely to be adopted, at least in part, by many festivals during the pandemic, including locally here in Rochester.

“The pandemic has hit TIFF hard,” Cameron Bailey, artistic director and co-head of TIFF, told Variety magazine.

“Our teams have had to rethink everything, and open our minds to new ideas. In countless video calls over the past three months we have rebuilt our festival for 2020, drawing on our five decades of commitment to strong curation, support for filmmakers, and engagement with audiences.”

The festival released a pareddown programming slate of just 50 new international features it will screen, down from the upwards of

300 films that TIFF premieres in an average year. Some noteworthy titles in the lineup include “Ammonite,” directed by Francis Lee (of the acclaimed gay romantic drama “God’s Own Country”); “Another Round,” from Danish auteur Thomas Vinterberg; Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland,” starring Oscar-winner Frances McDormand; as well as the directorial debuts of performers Regina King, Halle Berry, and Viggo Mortensen. There are also new docs from Frederick Wiseman, Werner Herzog, and Gianfranco Rosi.

During the first five days of the festival, the films will receive in-person screenings at selected theaters, drive-ins, and open-air cinemas. Alongside those physical events, digital screenings will take place over the entire 10 days of the festival through TIFF’s virtual platform, dubbed “Bell Digital Cinema.”

A still from Regina King’s upcoming film, “One Night in Miami.” PHOTO COURTESY OF TIFF

The pivoting situation TIFF finds itself in is not unique. Major film festivals all over the world have scrambled during the pandemic.

With experts still recommending that people avoid large indoor gatherings, some of the biggest festivals have had to completely retool their plans or face the prospect of canceling their events outright.

A number have chosen to go the virtual route, shifting their film presentations and events to become online-only affairs. It’s a relatively effective fix, moving what would have been available to in-person audiences into the digital realm. But it has created something of a crisis of identity for film events.

What is a film festival, when its audiences aren’t able to watch together? The shared communal viewing experience is at the heart of all moviegoing, but festivals especially. Apart from the movies themselves, the events, parties, filmmaker talkbacks — and at the larger ones, red carpet premieres — are all a critical part of a film festival’s atmosphere.

The question has led to some fear about the future of these events. And for the industry at large, eyes have been on the four big fall festivals: The New York Film Festival, the Telluride Film Festival, the Venice International Film Festival, and TIFF. Traditionally, these festivals signal the start of awards season, in which studios often debut their Oscar hopefuls and “serious” pictures before those films are rolled out in wider release to theaters across the country. In the

past, the autumn festivals have been competitive with one another about securing world premieres of award contenders and vying for the splashiest lineups.

Back in July, the big four festivals released a joint letter pledging solidarity with one another. While the letter didn’t go into specifics, it emphasized collaboration over competition and “sharing ideas and information.”

Meanwhile, many other festivals ultimately decided to cancel their 2020 events.

South by Southwest was the first major festival to shut down in March, just a week before it was set to open its doors. The Cannes Film Festival, arguably the most prestigious of them all, followed in May, although it released a list of titles that would have played.

Telluride followed suit, and issued a list of selected films.

Fantastic Fest, the largest genre film festival in the United States, annually held in late September in Austin, Texas, announced in early July that it would cancel. Looking ahead, the Sundance Film Festival has already hinted that its event in late January will look very different than in years past.

But in the age of COVID-19, existence alone is a victory for a large-scale event of any kind.

We’re still in the early days of this new normal, and only time will tell how audiences respond to the changes the festivals have been forced to make. Further innovation is inevitable, and we’ve only just begun to see what forms these events will take. roccitynews.org CITY 41

LIFE

42 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

PUBLIC LIVES

BY RENÉE HEININGER

@RENEE_HEININGER

RENEE@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

Ashley Gantt’s organizing principles As a student at East High School all those years ago, Ashley Gantt didn’t know there was a word for her penchant for sticking her neck out for classmates in trouble.

“When I was in high school or middle school, I always, was in other people’s business to the point where, like, if somebody else is getting into a fight, I’m taking up for that person,” Gantt says. “Now, I know the word is advocacy.”

Gantt, a 34-year-old organizer with the local chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union and self-proclaimed “big mouth,” grabbed headlines this summer when she declared of the chaos that ensued after the Black Lives Matter march on May 30: “I don’t care if the whole city burned down. We need justice, and that is the story that needs to be told.”

Two months later, from her apartment building overlooking the Liberty Pole, that all-American symbol of political protest, celebration, and patriotic pride, Gantt says she regrets her incendiary remarks, but not the sentiment behind them.

“As soon as I said it,” she says, “I was like, ‘This is what people are going to focus on, this is the only thing that people are going to hear.’”

Hear her, Rochester did.

She became a prominent public face of the local Black Lives Matter movement, a role she has embraced in the spirit of Black leaders before her whom she regards as her influences — Harriet Tubman and Malcolm X — and has expanded as a co-founder of Free the People ROC, a collective of activists at the forefront of the racial justice effort in town.

“Of course I don’t want folks to set the city on fire,” she says. “But I do want people to understand that when we talk about movement, and we talk about sustainable change, sometimes, we have to do whatever it takes to get it.”

Free the People Roc’s Stanley Martin, left, Ashley Gantt, center, and Iman Abid, right, called for the Rochester City Council to defund the Rochester Police Department during a news conference in June. PHOTO BY GINO FANELLI

Gantt has been advocating for change professionally for the better part of the 10 years, from rallying fast food workers to fight for a higher minimum wage and helping refugees navigate the court system to pushing for bail reform. That activism led her to the Genesee Valley Chapter of the NYCLU. “These days, you wouldn’t know that I have a day job because Free the People Roc takes up a lot of my time,” she says.

Her elevated public status often fuels speculation that Gantt is a relation of David Gantt, the late powerful and cantankerous state assemblyman whose decades of public service inspired a generation of Black activists and political operatives.

“No, I’m not,” Gantt says with a smile that suggests she is answering the question for the millionth time.

Gantt was born in Rochester and grew up in the foster care system before

being adopted by her parents when she was around the same age as her 10-yearold daughter, Katelynn Olivia.

Parenthood has a way of putting life into perspective for some people, and so it was for Gantt. She was the mother to a toddler in 2012 when news of the killing of Trayvon Martin made headlines. The thought of a child being gunned down struck a chord with Gantt who found a release in organizing community rallies. Her efforts were eventually noticed by advocacy groups like Refugees Helping Refugees and Metro Justice, where she later landed work.

“I didn’t know ‘organizers’ was like a thing, was like a profession,” she says.

Despite the hectic summer and a seemingly never-ending conveyor belt of causes to fight, Gantt makes time for motherhood. Lately, she has found herself turning down engagements in favor of family time,

specifically hiking. In the midst of the summer chaos, she and her daughter embarked on a mission to hike every state park.

On Sundays, Gantt grounds herself in her church. Though she’s left behind some of the more traditional rules of her religious upbringing — for instance, she wears lipstick and has pierced ears, and doesn’t exclusively wear skirts and dresses, like she did until she turned 20 — she holds fast to her Apostolic Pentecostal faith.

“You know, one of the most important things about me,” she says, “is like, of course I’m a mom, and of course justice work is, like, the heart of the work — my heart — but the most important thing about me is like I really love God, right?

“And I do this work not just because, you know, I’m passionate about it, but I feel called to it.”

Ashley Gantt, a co-leader of Free the People Roc, reflects on nearly ten years of organizing for social and racial justice.

PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

roccitynews.org CITY 43

LIFE

44 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

RANDOM ROCHESTER

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

@DAVID_ANDREATTA

DANDREATTA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

They call him the “Pigeon Man” of Rochester Midday approaches in downtown Rochester, and the pigeons are circling high above the intersection of Clinton Avenue and Division Street.

There are a just a few of them at first, then a dozen, then a dozen more. They keep coming from all over the city until a flock of maybe 100 has seemingly materialized out of thin air. Some of them strut defiantly along the sidewalk, but most alight on the window ledges and rooftops of the surrounding buildings, their cooing rising to a crescendo.

It is lunchtime and they know the “Pigeon Man” will be there soon with a bag of seed. That’s what the locals at the corner call Michael Picow, who’s been feeding the pigeons of Rochester almost daily for the better part of 35 years.

“They’re like family,” Picow, 76, says over a cacophony of flapping wings amid a tornado of pigeons as he shakes loose seed from a 20-pound bag. “They’re beauty-ful creatures.”

He speaks with an accent that, along with his sun-bleached New York Yankees cap, betray a youth spent on the Grand Concourse in The Bronx. If you closed your eyes and listened to Picow talk, you’d swear he was Alan Arkin.

Feeding the pigeons on Division Street was a daily routine for Picow for more than 25 years when he had a retail shop around the corner on Main Street. He scaled back his feedings to four days a week after he closed his business in 2014, driving downtown from his home in Greece just to spend a few minutes with the birds.

“I used to go seven days a week, but my wife said, ‘Nah, it’s too much,’” Picow says. “I pull up and they’re on top of my car waiting for

Michael Picow has been feeding the pigeons on Division Street for 35 years.

PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

their breakfast. They’re on my head, they’re on my shoulder, they’re on my bag, even.”

Most city dwellers regard pigeons in one of two ways: Feathered emissaries of nature that animate our concrete jungles or rats with wings. Rochester has no bylaw against feeding pigeons, but many cities do, and Picow says he occasionally catches grief for his pastime.

Pigeon droppings rapidly accumulate and carry disease, but their risk to human health is generally small, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which recommend wearing disposable gloves when cleaning them up.

The war of attrition between man and pigeon is relatively new, and parallels the rise of the modern pest control industry, explains Andrew D. Blechman, author of “Pigeons: The

Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird.”

“Pigeons got a really bad name after World War II, when food was abundant and being dropped on the ground,” Blechman says.

“But humans have loved them since time immemorial, ever since Noah released a dove to seek land.” (“Pigeon,” Blechman points out, is a French-derived name for “dove.”)

For centuries, a note tied to a pigeon’s ankle was the fastest means of communication across long distances. Pigeons are said to have delivered news of the winners of the first Olympics to Greek villages in 776 B.C. and Napolean’s defeat at Waterloo some 2,500 years later.

Racing pigeons is a popular sport worldwide and counts Queen Elizabeth II of England among its most famous practitioners. The monarch reportedly keeps a fleet of 200 champion racers in a luxury loft at her Sandringham estate.

The coops that Jamie Purpura provides for his birds at his home in

Perinton is decidedly more modest.

Purpura has been breeding and racing pigeons for 40 years, and sells them and the equipment to raise them to people all over the world.

He says most of his pigeons sell for between $5 and $20, but he recalls one bird with strong bloodlines fetching $500.

“Nothing turns me on more than getting someone started with pigeons,” says Purpura, 62, who is president of the Pigeon Fanciers Association of Rochester, a group of enthusiasts that counts about 20 members. “The trouble is, not enough people are interested.”

Pigeons are also known as “rock doves.” Their nature is to nestle on cliffs, like mountain goats of the skies, which is why they’re mostly found in cities on window ledges and rooftops. They don’t do trees.

Picow recalls childhood friends raising pigeons atop their apartment buildings in The Bronx and racing them around the boroughs of New York City. When he relocated to Rochester in his forties, he rediscovered his soft spot for the birds.

At the intersection of Clinton and Division, he curses motorists who take the corner too fast, sometimes clipping the pigeons as they pass.

Over the years, Picow figures, he’s nursed a dozen or so injured pigeons back to health in a cage he keeps in his living room in the home he shares with his wife and their grown daughter. If a pigeon dies, he says he buries it.

“Every time one of these guys drives like that and kills a pigeon,” Picow says, “a little piece of me dies inside.”

WANT TO SHARE AN IDEA FOR RANDOM ROCHESTER?

Make sure it’s weird and send it to dandreatta@rochester-citynews.org roccitynews.org CITY 45

FALL GUIDE

THEATER

Above and inset: Blackfriars Theatre has presented a variety of virtual productions during quarantine, from theater and comedy to couch concerts and a playreading “book club.”

PHOTO COURTESY BLACKFRIARS THEATRE

WHEN THE SHOW MUST GO ON(LINE) Theaters don’t have the green light to reopen, but there are signs of theatrical life — if you know where to look for them

BY LEAH STACY

@LEAHSTACY

September marks six months since the lights dimmed on Broadway and local performing arts companies closed their doors in response to the pandemic. Whatever happened to “The show must go on?”

That the upcoming performing arts season will be a shadow of its usual self is a given. But there are signs of theatrical life, if you know where to look for them.

Although the health crisis has shuttered Broadway at least through the end of the year, Rochester theater companies are finding ways to stage productions that meet their audiences where they are — which at this point is everywhere but the theater. Still, plans are afoot to stage some live performances in 2021.

Blackfriars Theatre had announced a robust 2020-21 season in March, four days before it was forced to close its doors.

Artistic Director Danny Hoskins says the theater is now looking to stage a run of six shows from January through July, among them three shows from its original slate of productions.

Those shows include: the hit coming-of-age soccer play, “The Wolves,” to be staged in March through a partnership with the 46 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

Nazareth College Department of Theatre and Dance, in which students will play all the parts; a new one-man show, “Every Brilliant Thing,” scheduled to run in June; and “Godspell,” to launch in July as part of the Blackfriars Theatre Summer Intensive Program (BTSI), a program for high school and early college students.

The other three shows that would round out the season have yet to be announced.

“We’ve been closed since March 13, so I’ve had a lot of time to think,

to observe, and to spend time with family, and maybe my outlook is colored by that, but my hope for the upcoming season is an optimistic one,” Hoskins says.

“I hope our stories and our relationships will be told with more inclusivity and with diverse partners, participants, and audiences.”

When the pandemic struck, Blackfriars adapted with an early strategy that’s still bearing fruit: Don’t stop producing content.

The team transitioned almost immediately to Zoom, producing “BT Couch Concerts,” a series of videos featuring past performers and alumni of BTSI. The videos were filmed by the performers at home, posted at a set time each week, and then saved on BT’s YouTube channel for viewers to watch at their leisure.

For patrons who want to get involved, the “BT Book Club,” which is still running, provides a weekly play reading assignment followed by a

Zoom meetup discussion.

Lastly, BT’s comedy-crew-inresidence, Unleashed, has been performing “Cabin Fever Improv” via Zoom every other Friday. All these online performances are free, but donations to the theater are strongly encouraged.

The closures have taken a financial toll on Rochester performing arts companies and venues. Though Blackfriars was able to get a federal loan to make up for some revenue losses, there has been little to no other help available for non-profits on a local or state level.

“I hope our city and state recognize how vital the arts are to our well-being and our humanity, and make a commitment to ensure our significance with financial and sustainable support,” Artistic Director Danny Hoskins says.

Blackfriars will take its Season Soirée — a big annual fundraiser — completely online in November, and is experimenting with a membership model rather than a subscription tied to assigned seating, in case live shows are not permitted for some or all of the upcoming season.

Geva Theatre Center announced staff layoffs in late July, an indication of its financial struggles.

But it’s getting ready to launch a reimagined season this fall, beginning with “Recognition Radio: An Audio Play Festival Celebrating Black Voices,” produced by local theater artist Esther Winter and featuring four plays performed as immersive sound experiences. Titles for the fall lineup will be announced in September, and tickets for individual shows or a package of all four will be available after that.

Geva’s annual holiday offering, “A Christmas Carol,” will not take place this December, but the theatre isn’t bah-humbugging the holiday season.

Geva has plans to stage five in-person productions — four plays and one musical — beginning in January. The theater will make on-demand video recordings available for those who still don’t feel comfortable attending live performances.

JCC Centerstage has many nontraditional spaces conducive to social distancing at its venue. At this point, however, Artistic Director Ralph Meranto isn’t optimistic about resuming in-person performances.

“We announced a season with the expectation that we could perform, and we’re lucky to have those spaces,” he says. “But what’s been more challenging has been to have the actors rehearse and perform with social-distancing because they can’t be masked and perform.”

JCC CenterStage recently cast “Gloria,” a play about the life of journalist and feminist Gloria Steinem, completely via video auditions and Zoom callbacks. The show is set to be performed in midOctober; and rehearsals are taking place over Zoom.

“It’s the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote, so it’s the perfect way to honor that, and important to perform this before the election,” Meranto says.

Fortunately, “Gloria” is a presentational piece in which most of the actors speak directly to the audience, so there’s still a possibility that a small audience could attend a live show.

“Either way, we’re doing theater in the fall, we’re moving forward,” Meranto says. “It’s just going to look a little different. Zoom does allow for great storytelling.”

Other companies have gotten creative, too.

Wallbyrd held a fantastically costumed, live-streamed reading of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” for several months. Grey Noise Theatre Co. performed an original work, “Sharks,” based on August Strindberg’s “Creditors,” and in mid-July hosted a virtual conference, “The Diversity Dialogues: BIPOC in ROC Theatre.” But both companies still need to drive income, so now they and other venues in town — The Avenue Blackbox Theatre and the Multi-use Community Cultural Center (MuCCC), to name a few — are on indefinite hiatus.

Rochester Broadway Theater League (RBTL), which hosts touring Broadway shows at the Auditorium Theatre, has yet to cancel “Cats” (set for December 15-20). Beyond that, its full, six-show season is planned to begin in January 2021 and stretch through October 2021.

As for local dance companies, most (including Garth Fagan, Rochester City Ballet, and Frazee Feet Dance) will continue to offer virtual-only classes or performances, and have indefinitely suspended any live shows due to rehearsal and physical-distancing limitations.

One exception is PUSH Physical Theatre, which held a fundraiser for its new piece, tentatively titled “The Trunk Show,” to be performed during this month’s KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival, an all-virtual affair, running (September 15 through 26).

While it feels like this fall will largely be a repeat of what’s taken place for the last five months — lots of digital content, plenty of pivoting — there’s a mounting need for local theater patrons to donate.

“There’s so much online content it’s hard to see the value in paying for it,” Meranto says. “But I’m hoping people will understand it’s part of supporting your local theater company, so when this is over we’ll still be here. This is going to be the death of some theater companies.

It’s going to mean the demise of some of the great art we have in this community.” roccitynews.org CITY 47

FALL GUIDE

MUSIC

Like our journalism? Get in our corner at roccitynews.org/rochester/citychampion/Page

As a result of the novel coronavirus, Society for Chamber Music in Rochester’s Juliana Athayde (left) and Erik Behr are planning two virtual concerts in the fall and hope to resume live performances in February. PROVIDED PHOTO

A CLASSICAL CONUNDRUM From virtual performances to reduced ensemble sizes, local classical music groups present revised 2020-21 seasons

BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

@DANIELJKUSHNER

The pandemic has effectively canceled conventional live concerts, and with it, entire concert programs for the 2020-21 season. Rochester’s classical music organizations have scrambled to find alternatives to their programming.

“We can put together all the plans that we want, and be prepared to pull the trigger on those plans, but we can’t actually execute on them unless venues are available, and guidelines on gathering size and events allow them to take place,” Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra President and CEO Curt Long says.

The conundrum is this: Delivering quality music to audiences while also 48 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

DKUSHNER@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

prioritizing their safety, and that of the musicians.

ROCHESTER PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA For the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra’s official 2020-21 concert season, previously planned concerts from September through November — from the Philharmonics, Pops, OrKIDStra, and Sunday Matinee series — have been canceled and will not be rescheduled. In their place will be a series of five streaming concerts. Philharmonics programs for September 24, October 22, and November 5 (including works

by Mozart, Beethoven, Fauré, and Copland) will be conducted by Music Director Ward Stare, and two Pops concerts on October 24 and November 7 will be led by Principal Pops Conductor Jeff Tyzik. The cost to attend these online performances is $10 per login/household.

The special presentation “‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ in Concert,” originally planned for September 18 and 19 at Kodak Hall, has been set for March 12 and 13, and “‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ in Concert” will now take place in the summer of 2021.

Other canceled “Specials” concerts for the spring and fall of 2020 are

set to be rescheduled as part of an extended 2021 RPO Outdoor Summer Season.

When it comes to what the RPO’s prospective live concerts would look like this season, there are some definitive answers. No performance will last more than 75 minutes, and in order to limit the opportunity for the virus to be easily transmitted, there will be no intermissions. Woodwind and brass players, for example, are more likely spread and contract the virus through both droplets and aerosolized particles. Because of this, medical professionals advising the orchestra are recommending 10 to 12 feet of physical distancing between these particular musicians and other players, Long says.

RPO subscribers for the 2020-21 season will be charged a prorated amount to their accounts, and will have multiple options for how to use that account balance, including donating to the RPO as an annual fund gift, putting the money toward the purchase of streaming performances, and the deferral of subscriptions or money on account until the 2021-22 season. Singleticket purchases for canceled 201920 concerts can also be credited to the account balance. Refunds are also available on request. rpo.org

EASTMAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC For the Eastman School and its dean, Jamal Rossi, as the new school year and its accompanying concerts begin, the responsibility of providing a safe environment is to the music students and University of Rochester’s academic community, first and foremost.

For this reason, Rossi says, Eastman’s concert programming will be significantly reduced this season.

Eastman Presents performances, including all concert series featuring guest artists, have been canceled.

Only school ensemble concerts (by the likes of Eastman Wind Ensemble, Philharmonia Orchestra, Eastman Jazz Ensemble and more), as well as student and faculty recitals (including performances by jazz trumpeter Clay Jenkins,

called “Our Voices: Immersive Composer Collaboration.” As the title implies, student singers will work with some of the top contemporary opera and vocal composers, including Missy Mazzoli and Ricky Ian Gordon. EOT will present the program “Postcard from Morocco” in February.

PEGASUS EARLY MUSIC

Pegasus Early Music’s Artistic Director Deborah Fox. PHOTO BY PATRICIA RUSSOTTI

pianists Marina Lomazov and Joseph Rackers, and brass player Mark Kellogg) are scheduled.

As for attending the concerts, only the university and music school’s students, faculty, and staff will be permitted to attend in person. Attendees will be required to complete a COVID-19 screening prior to arriving on campus. If someone has symptoms, contact tracing will be initiated and the individual will be advised to stay at home.

The public at large will be able to experience all concerts for free via livestream at esm.rochester.edu/live The Eastman School, like the RPO, is maintaining a distance of 10 to 12 feet between brass and woodwind players and other musicians. Among woodwind players, flutists will be required to maintain an even greater distance.

For singers, including Eastman Opera Theatre (EOT) students, guidelines are similarly specialized.

Vocalists will need to maintain a minimum of 12 by 12 feet of distance, Director of Concert Activities Michael Stefink says. Rossi points out that vocalists will wear masks while singing.

This fall, Eastman Opera Theatre will present a multimedia program, planned tentatively for November or early December,

Prior to the impending 2020-21 season, the local Baroque music organization known as Pegasus Early Music had already rescheduled its planned performance of the opera “L’Orfeo” by Claudio Monteverdi for August 19, 21, and 22 in 2021.

Pegasus and its founder and artistic director, the lutenist-theorbo player Deborah Fox, have since pivoted for its offerings this fall season as well.

A series of four prerecorded online events — all of which will be free — will run once a month from September through December.

Information about how to access these events can be found at pegasusearlymusic.org. Donations will be encouraged.

Two solo recitals will feature the performances of internationally renowned early music specialists based in Rochester. On September 25 and 27, premiere lutenist and Eastman professor Paul O’Dette will present “Dowland’s Grand Tour,” a program based on the life of John Dowland, featuring his music as well as that of his contemporaries throughout Europe.

Concert presentations on November 20 and 22 will showcase the playing of Baroque cellist Beiliang Zhu, who will perform a transcription of a Bach violin partita on the fivestring cello, in addition to other Baroque compositions.

This season, Pegasus Early Music will also present two non-concert events that take a deep dive into the world of early music composers and the works they created. On October 16 and 18, Baroque oboist and Eastman professor Geoffrey Burgess will talk about and read from his forthcoming early music novel, “Thorn of the Honey Locust,” about oboist and Bach collaborator

Pegasus Early Music’s revised 2020-21 season includes two solo recitals and two non-concert events PHOTO BY ANNA MAXERLL

Caspar Gleditsch and his son, who was a famous horticulturist. On December 11 and 13, Fox will present “At the Court of the Sun King,” a multimedia exploration of the trailblazing composer and harpsichordist Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre.

SOCIETY FOR CHAMBER MUSIC IN ROCHESTER The Society for Chamber Music in Rochester (SCMR), led by coArtistic Directors Juliana Athayde and Erik Behr, plans to resume its live concerts in February, with three performances (also available virtually) in next spring, pending the feasibility of doing so safely.

In the meantime, two virtual concerts are planned for this fall.

The hope is that these online offerings will allow SCMR to dig into the music in greater depth — interviews, analysis of musical scores, and other “behind-the-scenes details than they would typically do in a traditional concert, Behr says.

When the Society’s chamber music concerts do return, maskwearing and physical distancing will be part of the equation, Athayde says. Other considerations include

the possibility of shorter, 45-minute performances without intermissions, as well as cordoning off seating to enforce distancing.

Choosing the right performance venues is critical to this deliberate approach. Prior to the pandemic, SCMR had a partnership in place with Nazareth College to present concerts in the Glazer Music Performance Hall. That arrangement, as of publication, is stalled due to current state restrictions on performance venues, Behr and Athayde say.

Should these performances move forward, the 550-seat venue may be an ideal fit for COVID-era concerts.

“Before we were thinking, ‘Oh, it’s not intimate enough,’” Behr says.

“Now we’re thinking, ‘Great, it’s a big hall. Let’s go play there.’”

When SCMR does present its programs, this season’s concerts will include the spotlighting of local composers — as well as a more focused effort to present music by women and composers of color, including Mazzoli, Jessie Montgomery, Libby Larsen, George Walker, and William Grant Still. chambermusicrochester.org

roccitynews.org CITY 49

FALL GUIDE

OUTDOORS

Exercise physiologist and runner Katie Niebuhr gets some fresh air on the Zebulon Norton Trail in Honeoye Falls’ Harry Allen Park during the pandemic. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

BREATHE EASY Lots of fun is waiting outdoors amind the pandemic

BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

Maintaining a safe physical distance from one another is still a priority, but it doesn’t have to mean staying cooped up this autumn. Here are three outdoor activities that are perfect for getting fresh air and engaging with the world — even during a pandemic — with tips from locals in-the-know on how to make the most of the experience.

TRAIL RUNNING AND HIKING Early in the pandemic, Katie Niebuhr, a running enthusiast and exercise physiologist at UR 50 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

@DANIELJKUSHNER

DKUSHNER@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

Medicine Center for Employee Wellness, was apprehensive about jogging the trails at Mendon Ponds Park, a favorite spot.

“To want to hike and be out in nature, and not necessarily have to wear a face mask and do social distancing, I sought out those remote trails that wouldn’t be as populated,” Niebuhr says.

She opted for the Finger Lakes Trail south of Letchworth State Park, but also recommends the Crescent Trail, running through Perinton and Victor, as well as paths in Naples, Ithaca, and Livingston

County as other out-of-the-way options for trail running and hiking.

“I think being outside, any sort of outdoor activity, where there’s a large area of land, I think is ideal right now during this pandemic,” she says.

If you’re heading outside of Monroe County, the Department of Environmental Conservation is an excellent resource.

But there is plenty of bucolic running real estate closer to Rochester. The Monroe County Parks system has an abundance of trails, with trail maps for

20 different parks available at monroecounty.gov/parks-trailmaps.

The #TrailsRoc app, for both iOS and Android devices, is another valuable resource for local routes.

Niebuhr advises hitting the trails during off-hours to avoid higher foot traffic. Regardless of the location, having hand sanitizer and a face mask are essential, she says. If you’re going to a trailhead that requires a check-in, bring your own pen.

A neck gaiter — Niebuhr’s preferred piece of gear, even before COVID-19 — can be worn as a

first aid kit, compass, a whistle, and long pants for venturing through heavy brush.

Complicating the hunt sometimes are “muggles,” nongeocachers who inadvertently disturb or move a cache. But such adverse conditions can make locating the prize that much more rewarding.

“It’s satisfying,” Rhys says.

“When you find a cache, it’s very exciting. I don’t like giving up on any caches.”

Sometimes, the prize is a toy or trinket. You can take it or leave it, but the etiquette is to leave something behind for the next person to find. The Dawsons have found troll dolls, for example, and replaced them with Pokémon trading cards.

Also important is returning caches precisely where they were found and picking up after yourself.

Being a responsible geocacher means applying the acronym CITO — “Cache In Trash Out.”

FORAGING Geocacher Rhys Dawson with the cache outside of The Little Theatre in downtown Rochester.

PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

face covering, around the neck or ears during cold weather, or as a headband. When running on trails, shoes with more tread will help you keep steady on unstable terrain, and wool socks are a must.

“Wool is actually a temperature regulating material, so it keeps your feet nice and cool, and it also absorbs water,” Niebuhr says.

GEOCACHING Geocachers have been searching for treasures since 2000, but the pursuit is picking up in popularity as smartphones and social media have made the time-tested, community-driven scavenger hunt even easier to enjoy.

Caches of all sizes, from tiny film canisters to large containers, are listed on geocaching.com and its app, and are often hidden in offbeat

places — near urban landmarks, in parks, and trees. Following the GPS coordinates on the app, geocachers are notified when they’re within a 30-foot radius of their prize. While some caches are easy to spot, others require more nosing around. Once you track down the cache, you log that you’ve found it on the app (and on a paper log inside the cache), and move on to the next big find.

Evan Dawson, the host of the WXXI News radio program “Connections,” got his 8-year-old son Rhys the app for his birthday last year.

“It was instantly addicting,” says Dawson, who estimates they’ve found 60 different caches together.

Geocaching is a year-round pastime, though winter weather can make finding caches a challenge.

When geocaching in the woods, the Dawsons recommend bringing a

Petra Page-Mann had a love for forests and gardens from an early age. Her parents, she says, taught her a life-changing lesson: “Everything is delicious, that so many things are delicious, and there are things that I can do to make the world more delicious.”

As co-owner and farmer at Fruition Seeds in Naples, PageMann now shares her passion for plants, herbs, fruits, and vegetables through Fruition’s Flourish Garden Club, as well as online classes and her Instagram, @fruition_seeds.

So it’s unsurprising that she’s an avid proponent of foraging, also known as “wildcrafting.”

“One of the greatest gifts of foraging is reconnecting with the world around us, which we have been systematically, deliberately in our culture, uprooted from,” she says.

Page-Mann says that larger spaces with fewer people make for optimal foraging locations. In the Rochester area, she points to Highland Park and Mendon Ponds Park.

“Mendon Ponds is amazing

because it has so much diversity in its habitats - so you can find tons of mushrooms, you can find tons of berries, you can find tons of grains,” she says.

Outside of Greater Rochester, Page-Mann says watershed areas such as Canadice and Hemlock lakes, as well as the roughly 3,700 acres of land at Hi Tor near Naples, are prime foraging areas.

Wherever you decide to forage, it’s important to know what you’re harvesting and whether it’s responsible to do so in the first place. Leeks, for example, should never be harvested, Page-Mann says, since they grow so slowly that foraging for them could result in their elimination from the area.

“Yes, it’s a wonderful thing to do with other people, it’s a wonderful thing to do by yourself, too,” she says. “But the ironic piece is you’re not there by yourself, right? You’re there in a forest, part of a living, breathing, evolving ecosystem.”

There are plenty of plants and foods that are safe for foraging, however. If you’re a beginner, seek out species that are easy to find and identify, edible and without similarlooking types that are poisonous, and are not at risk of being overharvested.

Mushrooms that fit this bill include oyster, shaggy mane, and lion’s mane varieties. Page-Mann also encourages foragers to look for rose hips, for example, which are both highly edible and invasive.

Some wild plants, such as the sunflower species elecampane, can be wildcrafted and subsequently introduced into personal gardens.

Wild luffa also has domestic purposes. This highly practical plant yields a green fruit that, once ripe, will decompose into a fibrous skeleton. The remains can double as a sponge for washing your face or dishes.

“It’s a wonderful way to connect with yourself, connect with other people, connect with the world around us,” Page-Mann says.

roccitynews.org CITY 51

FALL GUIDE

GALLERIES & MUSEUMS

OPEN (ART)HOUSE A look at what will be presented this season by area galleries and museums, many of which are still in virtual limbo.

BY REBECCA RAFFERTY

@RSRAFFERTY

At the beginning of the shutdown, museums, galleries, and other arts organizations faced the challenge of inventing creative ways to engage audiences without being able to pull them into physicallypresented exhibitions.

Although New York gave the goahead for art galleries and museums to reopen in late June, there’s nothing normal about the upcoming arts season. Some institutions are presenting exhibitions and other events (while observing and enforcing recommended physical distancing and hygiene practices), but others haven’t solidified plans for reopening. And some have adopted a hybrid model of presenting shows by-appointment supplemented with virtual talks, screenings, and other events.

And the financial impact of the shutdown has been greatly felt by artists and institutions, renewing lamentations among them about the lack of a safety net for the arts.

In May, the Memorial Art Gallery announced an appeal to help assuage an anticipated $50,000 deficit.

Smaller venues have suffered also; some have gone entirely quiet since March, with no sign of offering programming again. The Baobab Cultural Center, which was perhaps the first local cultural casualty of COVID-19, closed its University Avenue venue at the end of July with no plans to reopen the space.

Additionally, The Out Alliance’s closure means that its resident Gallery Q is out of commission also.

The following is a look at how arts and cultural venues, large and small, have coped with the shutdown, and what exhibitions and programming they’ve been able to secure for the coming months. Scheduled shows and events are subject to change, so look for updates at venues’ websites and at roccitynews.org.

52 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

BECCA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

“Cumulus,” a 1918 gelatin silver print by an unidentified maker, is part of George Eastman Museum’s exhibition “Gathering Clouds: Photographs from the Nineteenth Century and Today.” PHOTO COURTESY OF THE GEORGE EASTMAN MUSEUM

THE MAJOR PLAYERS In response to the shutdown, the Memorial Art Gallery (500 University Avenue) held onto its main exhibition, “The Path to Paradise: Judith Schaechter’s Stained-Glass Art,” which opened in February and was scheduled to run through May. Now that the MAG has reopened, visitors can see the jewel-like show in-person through September 13.

In terms of upcoming exhibitions, the MAG’s major fall-into-winter show is a crowd-pleaser: “Andy Warhol Portfolios: A Life in Pop” (October 25 through March 28, 2021). It will feature a broad range of the artist’s screen-printed imagery of pop takes on celebrity and commercialism, created between 1964 and 1985. Also coming up in 2021 is “‘The 613’ — Archie Rand,” an exploration of the major mural project and book by the Brooklyn-based painter and muralist, which weaves together comic and pulp fiction imagery to interpret and illuminate each of the 613 Jewish commandments.

Despite reopening its doors (with a limited capacity) in late June, the

MAG announced this summer that its major autumn event, the Clothesline Festival, will be presented entirely online, spanning an entire week from September 12-18. There is no admission fee, though donations are encouraged and patrons can, as always, purchase the annual Clothesline Festival T-shirt, this year designed by local street-art darling Dellarious. 276-8900; mag.rochester.edu.

The George Eastman Museum (900 East Avenue) reopened to the public in late July, a bit later than other museums due to construction on its new Thomas Tischer Visitor Center. Eastman’s Dryden Theatre remains closed for the time being, but is presenting streaming films via its Virtual Dryden.

With diminished capacities in each gallery and other pandemic precautions in place, Eastman’s current roundup of exhibitions includes “Gathering Clouds: Photographs from the Nineteenth Century and Today” (Main Galleries, through January 3, 2021), dramatic and glorious imagery of clouds made by international, prominent photographers from the 1800s through today.

Also currently on view is “James

Welling: Choreograph” (Project Gallery, through January 2, 2021), Welling’s recent series of large inkjet prints layered with images of dance, architecture, and landscape that create a playful pushand-pull tension of color and spatial relationships. And through January 3, the History of Photography Gallery features photos and objects from the museum’s collections commemorating the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment and documents feminist and social justice movements since the suffrage era.

Coming up in 2021 is “Journey into the Unknown,” a major retrospective of the seven-decades of work by Rochesterbased photographer Carl Chiarenza (January 22-June 6), and “Stacey Steers: Night Reels (2020),” an exhibition of handcrafted paper collages used to create Steers’ surreal, early-film-star-populated animations (February 5-June 27). And rather than hosting gatherings, Eastman is presenting its artist and curator talks virtually for now. 271-3361; eastman.org.

Rochester Contemporary Art Center (137 East Avenue) was one of the institutions that voluntarily shut its doors early in the pandemic, although it has continued its programming and connected with audiences in a robust variety of ways. Putting its indoor exhibition schedule on pause, the venue moved a screen and speakers to its East Avenue-facing windows and presented media installations on specific days and times for passersby.

These included the pilot project “Roc City Speaks,” a series of street interviews with city residents about coping with the realities of racial injustice against Black people amid the COVID-19 pandemic, co-produced by Rashaad Parker, Darien Lamen, Rajesh Barnabas, Cocoa Rae David, Kylie Newcomer, and Juliana Muniz (on view through September 2).

“Roc City Speaks” will continue through the fall and winter with a new set of screenings of new interviews, with a goal to produce eight editions

A still from Bill Posters and Daniel Howe’s “Big Dada” installation, part of “Trust, but verify,” on view at Rochester Contemporary this fall. PROVIDED PHOTO

in total. The screenings will remain accessible from the sidewalks, essentially functioning as public art installations during their run. When each next edition is ready, the past chapter will go live online, and become part of a public library archive documenting this summer’s Black Lives Matter actions and other activities around justice.

RoCo also presented a successful all-virtual “6x6” in June and July, and continued its public arts engagement with “Underpin and Overcoat,” an installation of oversized pins with social messages (continuing through November 30) created and installed by Amelia Toelke and Andrea Miller, in collaboration with local artists.

Indoor exhibitions return to RoCo with “Trust, but verify” (September 4 through November 14), a group show originally slated for April but postponed due to the shutdown.

The exhibition consists of three monumental projects that address the ways our society is grappling with the concepts of truth and trust. The components are structured around the past (Octavio Abundez’s “A Fake History of Humanity”), the present (Eric Kunsman’s “Fake News”), and the future (Bill Posters and Daniel Howe’s glimpse into possible scenario where we are controlled and corrupted by ‘deep fake’ technology, artificial intelligence, and the currency of personal data). Considering the exhibition’s political themes, it’s even more timely to host the show now, as we approach the presidential election, says Rochester Contemporary Executive Director Bleu Cease.

RoCo will host an in-person opening for “Trust, but verify” on September 4, but is asking visitors to sign up for a viewing time online ahead of opening night. And the artists’ talks on September 5 will be presented over Zoom.

Taking place in tandem with “Trust,

but verify” is the reopening of RoCo’s smaller exhibition room, the LAB Space, which will host Andrew Zimbelman’s “The Subway Series.” RoCo also plans to host its 30th annual Members Exhibition (December 4 through January 10, 2021), which is a salon-style showcase and sale of artwork by the center’s members.

But watch for a shift to the virtual realm with the uncertainties of the pandemic and renewed restrictions that might emerge.

“It just seems like we’re going to get the rug pulled out from under us this winter,” Cease says.

RoCo still plans to issue an open call for artwork made in response to the pandemic and social justice issues of the past year, for a potential show in February and March. 461-2222; rochestercontemporary.org.

Following the shutdown and some impressive expansions at The Strong National Museum of Play (1 Manhattan Square), the museum reopened to the public in late June, dividing up its regular hours into reduced-capacity, timed-ticket sessions of three hours each. Families can enjoy the play and education areas in the museum’s permanent exhibits, including the carnival-themed, interactive “Pop-up Midway” and the mainstay miniature Wegmans store, or visit on special occasions for one of the museum’s temporary exhibitions. Additionally, kids can partake in story hours, crafts, and other programs held at specific times during their visit.

Through September 7, The Strong’s showcase “Celebrate the Finger Lakes” spotlights the region’s agricultural and cultural aspects, with a variety of activities, performances, and demos, including previous performers from the New York State Fair. Next up is “Big League Fun” (September 26 through January 21, 2021), a baseball-themed exploration of science and math concepts with hands-on activities for all ages.

Museum representatives have not yet released plans for a spring exhibit. 2632700; museumofplay.org.

The Rochester Museum & Science Center (657 East Avenue) has reopened, with precautionary measures in place, and is presenting a weekly schedule of events in addition to its permanent interactive exhibits.

RMSC is also gearing up to present its major fall exhibit, “The Changemakers:

Rochester Women Who Changed the World” (opening November 20), an artifact-rich, immersive experience that spotlights more than 100 historical and contemporary organizers and activists, inventors and entrepreneurs whose work has had lasting impacts locally and around the world. 271-4320; rmsc.org.

SMALLER VENUES Visual Studies Workshop’s (31 Prince Street) spring exhibition, Joshua Rashaad McFadden’s “Evidence,” was only open for a couple of weeks before the March shutdown, so VSW is offering byappointment viewings of the installation through November 21.

The 24 participants in VSW’s 2020 artist residency program have had to forgo the exhibition aspects of their residencies, instead working remotely on book projects, which will be printed and published in the future. The workshop plans to present a series of to-beannounced online readings and talks in association with those publications. 4428676; vsw.org.

In April, Main Street Arts (20 West Main Street, Clifton Springs) presented one of the region’s earliest and most impressive pivots to a virtual, interactive exhibition with Chad Grohman’s solo show, “Up to Now” and the “Field Trip Visions” group exhibition, which gave viewers the ability to “walk through” the gallery as well as zoom in on individual artworks and curatorial wall text.

After arts and cultural organizations got the reopening nod in late June, MSA added by-appointment opportunities to see its exhibitions, while hosting the openings exclusively online — a model it will continue into until further notice.

Its current exhibition, “The Print Club of Rochester: 89th Annual Members Exhibition,” featuring 21 printmakers working in a vast variety of techniques, remains on view through September 18.

After that, MSA has shows booked out in pairs through the early winter.

The next pair-up features a to-benamed showcase of artwork by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) artists located in upstate New York and “A Few Thoughts, 2020,” Pat Bacon’s solo, multimedia meditation on the events of the past year (September 26 through October 30). That’s followed by “The Cup, The Mug,” MSA’s annual juried exhibition of drinking vessels, and “Small Works 2020,” the annual

national juried exhibition of wee works (November 7 through December 4).

315-462-0210; mainstreetartscs.org.

The Seneca Art & Culture Center at Ganondagan (7000 Co Rd 41, Victor) will present a virtual version of its Juried Art Exhibit for Hodinohso:ni artists, opening November 6. More details will be shared soon at ganondagan.org.

Small but mighty spots, including The Rochester Public Market’s resident art venue, The Yards (facebook.com/ attheyards) and The UUU Art Collective (uuuartcollective.com), haven’t yet solidified plans for hosting exhibitions and events, but have alluded to forthcoming shows.

With institutions of higher learning in dubious reopening territory, there hasn’t been much news yet about exhibitions at college and university galleries like Mercer Gallery (Monroe Community College), University Gallery or Bevier Gallery (Rochester Institute of Technology), Hartnett Gallery (University of Rochester).

The only exception seems to be RIT’s off-site City Art Space (280 East Main Street), which through the summer has posted RIT students’ messages in support of equality, Black Lives Matter, inclusivity, and justice in its Sibley Building storefront windows, and will expand the project, “Visible Voices,” onto the gallery’s walls with more messages by students, faculty, staff, and alumni. The space was scheduled to reopen to the public on September 10 with reduced capacity and face mask requirements.

475-4977; cityartspace.rit.edu.

Not all arts programming is attached to a specific set of white walls. Going strong since the fall of 2017, Rachel DeGuzman’s powerful, nomadic art and discussion series, “At the Crossroads: Activating the Intersection of Art and Justice,” continues to spotlight important social and political issues through collaborative art performances and installations, as well as its communitybased Long Table Conversations. The next scheduled event in the At the Crossroads series is “The Audacity of Caucasity: A Virtual Long Table” on October 9, exploring how ideas of white supremacy have resulted in the humiliation, terror, assault, imprisonment, and death of Black people. More details to come at facebook.com/artandjusticeROC. roccitynews.org CITY 53

FALL GUIDE

SEASONAL BEERS

DRINK THIS NOW PSL from Fifth Frame Brewing Named in honor of the loving abbreviation for the yuppy classic Starbucks seasonal Pumpkin Spice Latte, Fifth Frame’s take is a delightfully absurd homage. Expect a backbone of roasted malts infused with cold brew coffee and a heavy hand of sweetness underneath a thick layer of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves. A regular since the brewery’s opening in 2017, PSL is an annual reminder that autumn has arrived.

Tsar Wars from Roc Brewing

Rochester Brewing Company’s upcoming Tsar Wars imperial stout is aging in A. Smith Bowman bourbon barrels. PHOTO BY GINO FANELLI

Autumn ales that hit the spot

BY GINO FANELLI

@GINOFANELLI

Ah, autumn, that splendid time of year in upstate New York when pastel oranges and rust become the backdrop for apple picking, pumpkin carving, and dancing to accordion music until schnitzel grease and festbier drip from your pores.

Then again, maybe that’s just me at Irondequoit Oktoberfest.

That festival is canceled, like everything else, but the unparalleled fall lineup of local beer remains in play, as pumpkins roll from the patch to the kettle, barrels are pried open, and Märzens and festbiers flow like, well, Märzens and festbiers.

There’s plenty to be excited about, especially now, as breweries return to a semblance of normalcy with their pandemic-inspired innovations in beer.

Swiftwater Brewing Company, meanwhile, has made lemonade out of lemons with its return to small-batch beers that push the boundaries of creativity and live up to the “small” in “small batch,” with each weighing in at about half a barrel.

Owner Andy Cook said the endeavor has kept the brewery 54 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020

GFANELLI@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

hopping, while allowing the brewers to experiment. “We have fun doing it,” Cook said. “We just always need to make the time to fit them into the schedule.”

Swiftwater has a wide roster of new beers for the fall season, perhaps the most exciting of which is an Eisbock that has been lagering for about two years.

Fifth Frame Brewing Company had a similar reawakening. Best known for its hazy IPAs, the brewery has broadened its offerings this season to include a farmhouse-style beer — currently conditioning in the brewery’s oak foudre — and an array of barrel-aged sours and stouts.

Its fruited sours Bounce House and Rural Minutes have been in constant rotation, too, with new variants ranging from Blueberry Tangerine to Dragonfruit Pineapple Blood Orange.

Fifth Frame owner Jonathan Mervine loves barrel beers, casting the act of blending the characteristics of a barrel with a beer as a fine art.

“You really have to condition yourself to figure out what flavors

are going to work together, and what choice of barrel to use,” Mervine said.

“Wood is good, and it fascinates me.”

While many breweries were busy pumping out new creations, Roc Brewing launched its long-awaited partnership with F.L.X. Wienery, transforming the once modest brewhouse to a sprawling breweryrestaurant-ice cream shop fusion.

Expect beer floats, outlandish hot dog concoctions, and innovative smallbatch brews.

Prior to the opening in August, the brewery had functionally gone on hiatus and restructured its business model. Now reopened, Roc is a destination for intrepid imbibers. If a beer milkshake sounds disgusting, let the chai stout mixed with an Oreo shake change your mind.

“I’m just looking forward to continuing to develop this experience here for people, to hopefully get us back to more normal,” owner Chris Spinelli said. “I’m looking forward to that day when we’re moving past COVID and into this new experience, and have that new normal.”

This year’s batch of Roc’s Russian Imperial Stout has been aging for most of the year in A. Smith Bowman bourbon barrels, and is itching to get popped. Expect heavy wood notes, whiskey, deep roasted malts, and a slight boozy warmth fit for cool fall evenings by the fire.

The Great Pumpkin from Rohrbach Brewing Company The wizardry that happens in Rohrbach’s Neoteric series of beers is something I no longer question.

Griddle Cakes, the brewery’s blueberry pancake-laced amber ale, has become an easy go-to for me, while the Pineapple Wheat wears the crown for Rochester’s true beer of the summer (sorry, Genny Kolsch).

This imperial pumpkin ale is a new release I’m particularly excited about. Based on previous experience with Rohrbach’s spiced beers, I’m expecting decadence, a liberal dash of the classic pumpkin spice culprits, with a strong malt backbone to remind you it’s still a beer.

Old-Fashioned Sour from K2 Brothers This cocktailesque concoction debuted in a can in 2018 and then disappeared. Aged first in a bourbon barrel, then a Fee Brothers bitters barrel, then a cherry cider barrel, this Berliner Weisse is a low-alcohol beer laced with the notes of an oldfashioned atop a bold, tart backdrop.

It was my favorite beer the brewery had produced, and I had worried that the intensity of the aging process would stifle its resurgence. At long last, it’s coming back.

EVENTS [ SUN., SEPTEMBER 13 ]

Brave Spaces: Rochester’s Summit to End Hate. 12-5 p.m. Livestream,

Online Jewish Federation of Rochester endhateroc.org/.

Hop Harvest Festival. Mon., Sep. 7, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Genesee Country Village & Museum, 1410 Flint Hill Rd Mumford $12-$18. gcv.org.

[ TUE., SEPTEMBER 22 ]

Adult Tour: Tracking a Tropical Cyclone.

3-4 p.m. Rochester Museum & Science Center, 657 East Ave. (rmsc.org) $20/$21.

[ WED., SEPTEMBER 23 ]

find it.

REACH OUT

@ROCCITYNEWS

@CITYNEWSPAPER

The Lost Family: How DNA Testing is Upending Who We Are. 6:30 p.m.

Livestream, Online Registration required calendar.libraryweb.org.

Rochester Cocktail Revival.

Sep. 8-13. Livestream, Online rochestercocktailrevival.com.

Rochester Recreation Festival. Sat., Sep.

12, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Spencerport Fireman’s Field, 81 S. Union St Spencerport rocrecfest.com.

[ FRI., SEPTEMBER 25 ]

Artist Talk: Kota Ezawa. 7 p.m. Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University Ave. 276-8900 $5.

[ SAT., SEPTEMBER 26 ]

[ THU., SEPTEMBER 3 ]

Outside Rose Hill: An Exploration of Landscape & Architecture. 11 a.m.-noon.

Rose Hill Mansion, 3373 NY 96A . Geneva Reservations are required $6-$10. (315) 789-3848.

Global Suffrage. 1 p.m. Livestream, Online Dr. Barbara LeSavoy, College at Brockport, through Central Library’s Dept of Local History & Genealogy. Registration required calendar.libraryweb.org.

[ TUE., SEPTEMBER 29 ] [ THU., SEPTEMBER 10 ]

DeTOUR: Medieval Mysteries & Mayhem.

6 p.m. Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University Ave. 276-8900 Anna Siebach-Larsen, Ph.D., explores the exhibit, The Path to Paradise $12.

Jean Iron: The Nature of Arctic Birds. 7 p.m. Livestream, Online rochesterbirding.com.

[ SAT., SEPTEMBER 12 ]

Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Racism within the Suffrage Movement. noon. Granger

Homestead, 295 North Main St. Laura Free, Hobart & William Smith Colleges farmingtonmeetinghouse.org.

Murder, Mystery, & Tragedy Tour. 8

p.m. Alling Coverlet Museum, 122 William St Palmyra Bring a flashlight $25. historicpalmyrany.com.

Native American Women in the Suffrage and Temperance Movements. 1 p.m.

Livestream, Online Thomas J. Lappas, Nazareth College, through Central Library’s Dept of Local History & Genealogy.

Registration required calendar.libraryweb.org.

[ THU., SEPTEMBER 17 ]

Your Body in Balance (Hormones & PlantBased Diet). 7 p.m. Livestream, Online

Neal Barnard, MD roclifemed.com.

[ SAT., SEPTEMBER 19 ]

Rochester’s Rich History: 200 Years of Asbury First United Methodist Church. 1-2:30 p.m. Livestream, Online Rev. Stephen Cady & Jim Farrington.

Registration required libraryweb.org.

DeTOUR with David Zyla: Who, What, Wear. 6 p.m. Virtual Memorial Art Gallery, mag.rochester.edu .

[ TUE., SEPTEMBER 1 ]

axomhome.com 661 south ave

WOC Art Monthly Book Circle. 6:30 p.m.

Livestream, Online NK Jemisin’s “The City We Became” Live on FB.

[ SAT., SEPTEMBER 12 ]

Dine & Rhyme: A Celebration of Lucille Clifton. 8-10 p.m. Livestream, Online BOA

Editions $20-$40. boaeditions.org.

Let’s Talk about “Caste: The Origin of our Discontent” by Isabel Wilkerson. 2 p.m.

Livestream, Online Presented by 21st Century Arts: Activating Art and Justice.

Live on FB.

[ WED., SEPTEMBER 23 ]

Brownbag Book Discussion. 12-1 p.m.

Livestream, Online Sally Rooney’s “Normal People” libraryweb.org.

KIDS EVENTS

Storytime Club: ABC Adventures. Strong National Museum of Play, 1 Manhattan Sq. (museumofplay.org) w/ museum admission: $16.

Watching Monarchs. Sat., Sep. 12, 1-3

p.m. Genesee County Park & Forest, 11095 Bethany Center Rd . East Bethany Registration required $5-$10. 344-1122.

HAVE AN UPCOMING EVENT? Submit events to calendar@rochester-citynews.com

Are you age 60 or older and feel lonely?

UR researchers need your help to promote healthy aging and social connections.

We HOPE you can join us! For more info, contact the HOPE Project at 585-273-1811 or HOPE@urmc.rochester.edu roccitynews.org CITY 55

56 CITY SEPTEMBER 2020