Media organization announces fall 2017 season
The Sanctuary for Independent Media has announced its fall 2017 season, featuring musical performances, speakers, films, workshops, gallery shows and more.
Located at 3361 Sixth Ave. in North Troy, The Sanctuary for Independent Media is a telecommunications production facility dedicated to community media arts. Located in an historic former church, the organization hosts screening, production and performance facilities, training in media production, and a meeting space for artists, activists and independent media makers of all kinds.
The season will kick off at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 21 with rising tenor saxophone star the Melissa Aldana and her quartet featuring Michael King on piano, Pablo Menares on bass and Tommy Crane on drums. The Chilean saxophonist is touring on her most recent release called “Back Home.”
The title, Aldana said, is about the first time she picked up the tenor and heard Sonny Rollins. In fact she wrote “Back Home” specifically for Rollins.“He was one of the first reasons I started playing trio, because the freedom that you have within the music, the interaction, the opportunity you have to express yourself and communicate with the other musicians,” she said in a news release.
As a child, Aldana studied with her renowned saxophonist father Marcos Aldana (son of saxophonist Enrique Aldana, whose Selmer Mark VI tenor Melissa performs with to this day). She began on alto but after hearing the landmark Sonny Rollins + 4 she switched to tenor and never looked back.
Tickets to Saturday’s allages Melissa Aldana performance at The Sanctuary for Independent Media are $20 per person.
Other highlights of the upcoming Sanctuary season include talks by journalists Chris Hedges and Azmat Kahn, a performance by singer-songwriter Nano Stern, screenings of documentaries with filmmakers Parvez Sharma, Jonathan Olshefski and Sabrina Schmidt Gordon, numerous workshops and two new gallery shows.
The first gallery opening will also take place on Saturday, beginning at 5 p.m. at the sanctuary. Artist Susan Anthony’s Troy Project features photographs juxtaposing old and new, decay and rebirth throughout the city. This project will be presented in the Underground Gallery, with “Echoes from Lock One” featured in the NATURE Lab Gallery.
Nano Stern, the voice of a newly politicized Chilean generation squarely in the nueva canción tradition, will perform with Patricio Rojas on bass and Cristian Carvacho on drums at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 29. Local heroes Taína Asili and Gaetano Vaccaro will open the show. Tickets are $15 per person.
At 7 p.m. on Nov. 10, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and New York Times Best Selling author Chris Hedges will speak on fascism in the
age of Trump. There will also be a 5 p.m. gourmet vegan fundraising dinner to benefit WOOC 105.3 FM.
Filmmaker and author Parvez Sharma will be in town for a screening of his film “A Sinner in Mecca” at 7 p.m on Nov. 18. Muslim and openly gay, Sharma travels to Mecca to reveal a neverbefore-seen side of Islam with this book and film.
An investigative reporter working to fuse righteous journalism and innovative storytelling, Azmat Khan’s groundbreaking work has taken her to conflict zones around the world. She will speak about those experiences during a talk at 7 p.m on Dec. 1 at the sanctuary.
Then at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 9 the sanctuary will present a screening of “Quest” with director Jonathan Olshefski and producer Sabrina Schmidt Gordon. Filmed with vérité intimacy for over a decade, this moving portrait of a family in North Philadelphia is set against the backdrop of a country now in turmoil.
The Sanctuary for Independent Media will close its fall 2017 season with a North Central Justice & Peace Holiday Celebration from 3 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 16. This seventh annual yearend event will include free food, music, arts activities, portraits by internationally recognized photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally, a tree lighting and more.
Admission to events is by donation, $10 suggested ($5 student/low income), unless noted.
Tickets and more information are available in advance at www.mediasanctuary.org.
The Sanctuary for Independent Media can also be contacted at (518) 272-2390 or by email at info@mediasanctuary.org.