Lewiston Council on Arts announces 2007 season

Niagara Frontier Publications, May 10, 2007

Happy Angels, Sandmen, Dew Fairies and Gingerbread Children rejoiced as Hansel and Gretel outwit the evil Witch living in the gingerbread cottage at the Lewiston Council on the Arts first Opera Workshop for Children. Under the direction of Amy Teal, participants, sang, acted, danced, created costumes and performed in their own production of the classic operatic fairy tale by Engelbert Humperdink.

The Art Council’s schedule of events for 2007 has something for everyone. Art, music, history and ghosts are all included in this year’s lineup. It’s going to be a busy season.

Musical offerings

Are you free on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays in the summer? There are lots of free concerts in Lewiston to fill your schedule:

•The Arts Council has put Lewiston on the Blues map with “Blue Mondays”, an eight week concert series at the Hennepin Park Gazebo that features the very best of Western new York Blues.

•If jazz is your passion, check out Jazz Wednesdays, with some of the area’s most innovative musicians playing in styles from Traditional Jazz to Dixieland to Funk. The Lewiston Jazz Project features Ron Corsaro and the ever popular New Upstate Express.

So pack a picnic, bring a lawn chair and plan to spend Monday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings at the Village gazebo, on the corner of Fourth and Center streets.

•Also at the Gazebo, relive the ’60s and ’70s scene for the Summer of ’69: A Rock Reunion. The afternoon will be a “hot fun in the summertime” reunion concert by some of Lewiston’s original 1960s rock musicians, including the County Orphanage, the Invaders, Blue Sky Band and the Loved Ones. Emmy nominee and Grammy winner Gary Baker promises to make an appearance. People from all over the country come back to Lewiston for this special reunion.

Historical Happenings

•The Marble Orchard Ghost Walk tours are a great way to introduce visitors, schoolchildren and even longtime residents to Lewiston’s rich and exciting history. You’ll hear classic ghost stories, myths, tales of tragedy, crime and murder. Secret and sinister, most of these events happened a long time ago, yet ghosts still haunt Lewiston. And, back by popular demand, if you are looking for a ghost walk that’s more scholarly in nature, Mason Winfield’s Haunted History Ghost Walks combine good old-fashioned story telling with tales of the supernatural, led by the famous author himself, Mason Winfield.

Art with Local Impact

•The first to present Chainsaw Art in Niagara County, the Arts Council continues this tradition with demonstrations that amaze. A two-day residency not to be missed during the Olde Sanborn Days festivities will feature a world-class carver.

•As always, the highlight of summer is the 41st Lewiston Art Festival. More than 150 professional artists from all over the United States and Canada bring a diverse range of art and fine crafts together in one place. The Western New York High School Chalk Walk Competition provides all-day free entertainment, as the young students wield the chalk in artistic ways. Chainsaw carving demos are performance art with mass appeal.

Upcoming Projects

Also, there are two more projects you’ll be hearing more about soon.

•Lewiston is already “hooked” on fishing, and Soul Salmon is an exciting visual arts project that will combine art and the environment to create a large “scale” pair of salmon. Students at Lewiston-Porter High School will cover a giant fiberglass salmon form in both Canadian and American coins, a tribute to the local area’s binational identity, border location and community ties. You can help the students with the raw materials for this project by saving your coins and watching for donation buckets that will appear around town. The unveiling of the first of these two pieces will happen at the Lewiston Art Festival.

And here’s one for the history books: The Art Council is partnering with a number of community groups to launch CPR: Cemetery Project Restoration. This is a long-range project to restore and preserve the Village Cemetery. Final resting place to early residents of the region, it is the oldest graveyard in the county and home the Arts Council’s many Marble Orchard programs over the years.

There will be many opportunities to volunteer and help to make this a village destination that showcases its history.

For more information about any of these events or projects, call 754-0166 or visit www.artcouncil.org.