The 7th Annual Caroga Lake Music Festival

2018 Season Highlights

Since 2012, Caroga Lake Music Festival has brought the charms of live classical, jazz and pop music to the southern Adirondacks. Now organized as the non-profit Caroga Arts Collective, the festival offers a rich and varied menu of live music, film screenings, and educational music and art gatherings at venues in Caroga Lake and beyond. Most festival events are offered for free, supported generously by area businesses, foundations and private individuals.

Events are held from June 7 to August 19; please check our events page for a full list.

The long-term goal of the Caroga Arts Collective is to offer year-round arts residencies and education to the Caroga Lake region. 

Highlights of our 2018 season include:

—Encore! Jazz Sessions with Kittel & Co. (mandolin, guitar and fiddle, July 27); The Matthew Whitaker Trio (jazz piano, August 3); the J-Music Pocket Band (jazz saxophone, August 10); The Glenn Zaleski Trio (jazz piano, August 17).

—Sherman’s Revival Series. Caroga Arts Collective is proud to promote the return of Sherman’s Amusement Park to its former glory as a lakeside summer destination for fun, frolic, and events. Join us at Sherman’s this summer for seven special events: Sawyer Fredericks (folk, June 8); Cara Samantha (pop, July 21); Musical Storytelling: A Kids Concert (July 28, noon); MARO (indie folk, July 28, evening);  Matthew Whitaker Trio (jazz piano, August 4); Rhythm Future Quartet (gypsy jazz, August 11); SAUNDERS FEST (bluegrass, Geoff Saunders & family, August 11).

—Artist in Residence Concerts: Musicians of the Caroga Lake Music Festival will be featured guests at venues in Gloversville, Peck’s Lake, Cooperstown (new in 2018) , Ghent, Woodstock, Albany, Johnstown, Cobleskill, Mayfield, Lake Luzerne, and Dorset (Vermont). Additional venues may be announced at later dates.

—Caroga Chapel Concerts. The original home of the Caroga Lake Music Festival, an intimate setting for mostly classical music performed by festival performers, weekly starting June 16.

–The Barge at Canada Lake Concerts. Classical, jazz and folk music performed on a floating barge at Canada Lake Store & Marine, with audience seating on shore. July 22 & August 5. Generously hosted by the Fielding family.

— Summer String Project Concerts. The Summer String Projects offer local music students from Schoharie, Fulton and Montgomery Counties the chance to experience, learn and share music with the Caroga Lake Music Festival artists for five days leading up to a finale side-by-side performance at the Arkell Museum in Canjoharie (August 8 for Schoharie County) and at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Cobleskill (August 9 for Fulton & Montgomery Counties).

Fulton and Montgomery Counties Summer String Project: Saratoga Arts made this program possible with an Arts Education Grant funded by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Schoharie County Summer String Project: This event is made possible in part with public funds from the Decentralization Program of the NYS Council on the Arts, administered in Schoharie County by the Greene County Council on the Arts through the Community Arts Grants program.

Caroga Lake Music Festival: Saratoga Arts made this program possible with a Community Arts Grant funded by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Sponsors:
Arkell Hall Foundation
Fenimore Asset Management & FAM Funds
The Faith Ann Takes Family Fund

Caroga Arts Collective’s corporate sponsorships offer tremendous visibility, promotion and exclusive opportunities to arrange for booths at events and hire CLMF Artists to perform at your venue of choice.  If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, please visit www.carogaarts.org/sponsor or contact Alix at development@carogaarts.org.

Caroga Arts Collective also offers advertisement opportunities in our Season Program Book, distributed at every CLMF concert. The Program Book provides a unique opportunity for businesses to advertise and supporters to share a personal message.  Please visit www.carogaarts.org/advertise or contact Hina at operations@carogaarts.org

History of the Caroga Lake Music Festival

Presented by Caroga Arts Collective, Caroga Lake Music Festival (CLMF) is a five-week summer music festival in the southern Adirondacks of New York State, started in 2012 by then 19-year-old cellist Kyle Barrett Price, who had summered since early childhood at his grandmother’s home on Caroga Lake. Now in its seventh season, CLMF brings accomplished musicians from all over the world to participate in week-long residencies in Caroga Lake. These artists include musicians from leading professional orchestras, chamber ensembles, and opera companies, as well as faculty artists from prestigious conservatories and universities among many others. CLMF is known for unique concerts that embrace many genres of music, from classical to pop and jazz, performed by both singers and instrumentalists in ensembles of varying size. CLMF has grown tremendously since its inception in 2012 from eight musicians in one week to over eighty-five musicians in five weeks in 2017 who perform at venues all over the southern Adirondacks.

In 2016, the festival was absorbed into the Caroga Arts Collective, which includes several additional components: Your Body Is Your Strad, which include the National Summer Cello Institute, formerly based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Feldenkrais for All Performers, an annual seminar on the Feldenkrais method of body awareness; MyHil Film Series, presenting films and film discussions with producers and actors; and the InterArts Symposium, a collaborative workshop showcasing interdisciplinary arts.

The long-term goal of the Caroga Arts Collective is to offer year-round arts residencies and education to the Caroga Lake region.

In the mid-1900s, the town of Caroga Lake was famed for a lakeside amusement park called Sherman’s, long shuttered, that was similar to legendary Coney Island, with a carousel, a merry-go-round and numerous entertainments. The creation of the music festival, strongly supported by prominent local businesses, has injected the local region with summer activities that have contributed a significant economic boost. In 2018, the former Sherman’s Amusement Park will host seven of the festival’s major concerts.