Join us on December 16 for Encore! Sessions, A Low-Key Christmas hosted by GRAMMY-Award Winning Bassist Geoff Saunders and friends. Nick Stoner Inn & 19th Hole, Caroga, NY.
Tickets for this special event will be $15 and can be reserved here.
Following the CDC and New York State guidelines, we will continue to monitor, adapt, and communicate the guidelines to ensure a positive experience for the audience and performers.
Celebrate the Holiday Season with the Caroga Lake Music Festival!
World-class musicians from the Caroga Lake Music Festival return to Caroga this December to celebrate the holiday season. Join us for this very special week of musical festivities featuring works by Tchaikovsky, Bach, Corelli, holiday singalong favorites, and more!
Jazz piano trio with New York City’s Glenn Zaleski, a semi-finalist in the 2011 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition and a finalist for the 2011 APA Cole Porter Fellowship in Jazz.
Glenn Zaleski, piano; Rick Rosato, bass; Daniel Dor, drums
“Glenn Zaleski has quickly become one of the most important pianists of his generation and it’s easy to see why.” – All About Jazz
“An excellent young pianist notable for both his harmonic insight and his rhythmic composure…” – The New York Times
Glenn Zaleski is one of the most in-demand pianists on the New York City jazz scene. Originally from Boylston, Massachusetts, Glenn has made a name for himself playing with the likes of Ravi Coltrane, Lage Lund, and Ari Hoenig. His most recent album, “Solo Vol. 1“, was released in early 2018 – his first solo piano album, as well as the first release from his own label Stark Terrace Music. In 2017 he released his second album for Sunnyside Records, “Fellowship“, prompting All About Jazz to note, “Glenn Zaleski has quickly become one of the most important pianists of his generation and it’s easy to see why.” His debut album, “My Ideal,” was released in March of 2015, also on Sunnyside, and received critical acclaim: Downbeat Magazine named it “sublime,” Jazz Times called it, “an engaging set by a talent worth watching,” and the New York Times named the record a “strong statement,” praising its “fluent but unhurried sense of phrase.”
Glenn has also released two popular albums with the collective Stranahan/Zaleski/Rosato: “Limitless” (Capri, 2013), and “Anticipation” (Capri, 2011), as well as a duo record with his brother, saxophonist Mark Zaleski. (“Duet Suite,” 2010)
Back by popular demand! J-Music Pocket Band is an innovative jazz ensemble performing arrangements of Japanese pop and video game music.
Patrick Bartley, Jr. is the founder of J-Music Pocket Band and a Grammy-nominated saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. Batley is a musician with experience in a wide range of situations, most notably for appearing on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and being featured in the Emmy-nominated HBO special Wynton Marsalis: A YoungArts Masterclass, which premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Although a South Florida native, Patrick spent the majority of his professional music career in NYC prior to graduating from the Manhattan School of Music. As an in-demand sideman, he has performed and recorded with musicians such as Louis Hayes, Jonathan Batiste, Mulgrew Miller, Jeff Coffin, and Wynton Marsalis, and has performed at world-renowned venues such as The STAPLES Center, Madison Square Garden, and the Black Sea Jazz Festival.
Born and raised in Hollywood, Florida, Patrick owes much of his success to his primary, secondary, and post-secondary education. While in middle school, under the tutelage of Melton Mustafa, Jr.—son of world-renowned trumpeter Melton Mustafa, Sr.—Patrick became the youngest musician to perform at the Jazz In The Gardens jazz festival in Miami Gardens, Florida, as well as the only musician to have performed on the stage twice. It was with Melton Mustafa, Jr. and Sr. that Patrick also got his first professional recording opportunity, this time at age 17. The recording session included Mulgrew Miller, Essiet Essiet, Ray Mantilla, Jason Jackson, and Victor Lewis. While attending high school, after making the Grammy High School Jazz Ensembles for two consecutive years, Patrick was given the opportunity to perform with the Dave Matthews Band live on the 52nd Annual GRAMMY Awards, and was also a YoungArts Gold Award recipient in Jazz.
Patrick’s interest in Japanese art, music, and culture started when he was six when he saw the massively popular and groundbreaking anime series Dragon Ball Z–which had syndication on Toonami at the time–and fell in love immediately. Before having any idea what anime was or that it was from Japan, Patrick continued to watch anime and play Japanese video games throughout middle school and high school, and played along to the soundtracks while simultaneously learning the saxophone.
Jeremy Kittel is an American fiddler, violinist, and composer. Fluent in multiple musical genres, his original music draws from traditional roots, jazz, Celtic, Classical, electronic, and more.
Previously of the Grammy-winning Turtle Island Quartet, Jeremy Kittel has been a composer-arranger-collaborator for such diverse artists as My Morning Jacket, Yo-Yo Ma & the Silk Road Ensemble, and Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn. He blazes through a Bach violin partita as easily as a Scottish reel, bringing the same intense focus and precision to both. For the last few years the Michigan native, now based in Brooklyn, has been diligently building his own repertoire of music for a wholly original new group.
Jeremy Kittel, violin Josh Pinkham, mandolin Quinn Bachand, guitar
CLMF’s Kittel and Co. show will feature mandolinist Josh Pinkham (named “the future of the mandolin” by Mandolin Magazine) and guitarist Quinn Bachand. Bachand has toured with fiddling icons Ashley MacIsaac and Natalie MacMaster.
An intimate jazz night with Matthew Whitaker on acoustic piano with his trio.
On Friday, August 3 and Saturday, August 4, New York City teen piano/Hammond organ powerhouse Matthew Whitaker will bring his unique gift to the stages of Nick Stoner Inn and Sherman’s Amusement Park.
“If you thought God was good to grant us one Stevie Wonder, what would you say to two? Hackensack’s Matthew Whitaker happens to be blind – that’s the least of the resemblance – but he’s also a 15-year-old piano powerhouse who has rocked Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center and festivals in France, Italy, Morocco and Japan.” – 17 People to Watch in 2017, North Jersey News, December 29, 2016.
Born prematurely at 23 weeks, Matthew survived and was given a small keyboard at age three. He taught himself to play piano, then the Hammond organ. Now 17, Matthew studies classical piano and drums at The Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School of the Lighthouse Guild in New York City. It is the only community music school for the blind and visually impaired in the US. He also attends the Manhattan School of Music’s Pre-college Jazz Program.
Matthew has received the “Outstanding Soloist Award” from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Charles Mingus High School Competition & Festival and the Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival. Read his full biography.
At Caroga Lake Music Festival, the Matthew Whitaker Trio will perform selections from his first album, “Outta the Box,” and other electrifying jazz charts, in addition to performing with the CLMF Orchestra.
Encore! Jazz Sessions: Friday, August 3 at 10pm at Nick Stoner Inn with the Matthew Whitaker Trio
Sherman’s Revival Series: Saturday, August 4 at 7pm with the Matthew Whitaker Trio and the CLMF Orchestra
Matthew Whitaker – piano/organ
Sipho Kunene – drums
Jake Leckie – acoustic bass
Matthew’s father, interviewed on the Today Show, had this to say about this son: ” Matthew just assumes that everyone he meets, they’re smiling at him. And that is the reason why he’s so full of love.”
