By Ken Valenti
Rivertowns’ residents have come to look forward to events in their communities that bring the arts to life. On the first Saturday in June, music fills the air from venues all over, both inside and outdoors. On a similar day in October, residents know that they’ll be able to wander the communities and visit dozens of visual artists, ready to discuss the work they’re displaying.
The annual events—the Music Tour and Studio Tour—are just two of the many events that RiverArts presents to enrich the communities of Hastings-on-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Ardsley, and Irvington and, more recently, Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow. Last June, as COVID-19 isolation began to ease, it was the Music Tour, returning after a year’s hiatus, that drew many people from their homes.
“People had been cooped up for almost a year and a half at that point,” said RiverArts Managing Director, Josh Suniewick. “It was a beautiful day, and people were out and about. It was probably the first social event many people had experienced since the pandemic [had begun].”
RiverArts promotes visual arts, live music, dance, and performances in a wide variety of events to a region with a rich artistic history. It also presents opportunities to speak with artists and take classes in music, storytelling, and more—with a strong scholarship program to help remove financial barriers for young aspiring artists whose families otherwise might not be able to participate.
The organization began in March 1963, when a group of mostly visual artists banded together as the Hastings Creative Arts Council. One of its first missions was to arrange for the donation of the sculpture, Between Heaven and Earth, by celebrated artist Jacques Lipchitz, a Rivertowns resident. The 11-foot-tall piece still stands outside the Hastings Public Library. “It was a collective of artists who got together to foster an appreciation of the arts and support community education for kids and adults,” Suniewick said. “That program grew over the past six decades to become this relatively established and revered arts not-for-profit in the Rivertowns.” In 1992, the name was changed to the Rivertowns Arts Council, and in 2002, it was rebranded as RiverArts. Now it thrives on the love of the arts in the region.
The Studio Arts Tours are similar to the Music Tours (and the longer-standing of the two), but for visual artists. Residents and visitors can peruse works of sculpture, painting, photography and more, while chatting with the artists about their work in their actual studio. It is a wonderful community event that locals enjoy and brings tourism and exposure to the Rivertowns.
Irvington resident Alison Bert, a multimedia journalist and photographer of cityscapes, dance, portraits, and more, had not considered displaying her images publicly until seven or eight years ago, when she joined a RiverArts Studio Tour, setting up a display in a fitness studio that was converted into a gallery space for the day. She has participated regularly ever since. “It made me realize there’s a whole other dimension to art,” Bert said. “You meet with people, and they can talk to you about what inspires them in art.” By meeting other artists, she learned new techniques, including how to print her photos on specialized, higher quality paper and with archival inks designed to resist fading and retain truer colors. “It’s a great organization to learn from other artists and get your art out to the world,” she said.
RiverArts’ Artists Conversations allow participants to speak with the creative professionals about their lives, artistic process, and more, building a stronger bond between artist and audience and deepening appreciation of the arts. “It is a chance to have a conversation about the things that fuel them or drive them in a way that is intimate and up close,” said Marie-Louise Miller, the organization’s artistic director and producer of the Artist Conversations. “It’s not something that is scripted. We really do talk about the things that are underneath the artmaking. It has a bit of a community conversation feel to it, which you don’t get to do if you’re at Carnegie Hall.”
Yolanda F. Johnson, a soprano, composer, and philanthropy expert who has performed internationally, was thrilled to connect with RiverArts to arrange an evening of discussion about spirituals and the secret messages that they contained for slaves and the Underground Railroad. “It’s always nice to be able to bring it back and to share it with people close to home and to make sure that it has a place there as well,” Johnson said.
Artist Jen Moore Smith and her son learned about more than the artistic process when they attended a conversation with fellow artist, Mansheng Wang of Dobbs Ferry, whose works have been displayed in Beijing, Brooklyn, Baltimore, and elsewhere. “Mansheng recounted his childhood in China during the Cultural Revolution and things that shaped his artistic path,” Smith said. “It was powerful!”
Drink-and-Draw evenings bring together artists and others to sketch or paint a human model, taking breaks for refreshment—wine, cheese, crackers, and cookies. Held monthly in the Hastings Public Library, “artists of all experience levels and backgrounds are welcome, especially those that have always wanted to try their hand,” the website states.
Educational programs nurture the next generations of musicians, artists, and others. A Mighty Musicians class welcomes students in kindergarten through second grade. The 12-week JazzEnsemble offers students ages 12 and up the opportunity to learn with New York City educators and musicians. Summer brings JazzCamp for young jazz musicians, StoryCamp for storytelling and SummerArts for visual arts, music, and movement/theater. The RiverArts website contains information on applying for scholarships to the programs.
Beyond promoting the arts, RiverArts commissions original works, offering Rivertowns residents and visitors opportunities to see a professional-level play or chamber piece not seen or heard anywhere else. Original works commissioned by RiverArts include a string quartet score by composer David MacDonald for a 2018 multi-art performance and two plays by Melanie Hoopes, an actress (“Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Twister) and a writer whose credits include the Netflix thriller Bloodline. One of the plays, Six Feet, was performed virtually during the pandemic. The second, Kindness Committee, was written for live performance.
The organization also commissioned a new arrangement of the famous work The Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss. RiverArts’ version was adapted for eight chamber musicians, rather than a full-sized orchestra. It was recently performed at St. Barnabas Church in Ardsley. Peter Seidenberg, artistic director of chamber music for RiverArts, and a cellist, said that the scaled-down work captures “all of the essence of the original piece, but also because it’s so small, it has a tremendous amount of intimacy, which gives it, in some ways, even more power.”
The energy and attention that the artists draw to the communities also are good for the local economies because, when art lovers or music fans come for a show or exhibition, they stop at the local shops for lunch or dinner or a slice of pizza. “It brings people into the village not just to enjoy whatever activity is being promoted but to come own and shop and dine at our restaurants,” said Hastings Mayor Nicola Armacost. “We think that makes a big, big difference in increasing the vitality of the downtown.”
And more is coming. Among the organization’s major efforts in the coming months will be planning for next year’s major milestone. “We will celebrate our 60th anniversary,” said Artistic Director Kate Ashby. “We have been presenting arts and connecting the community through the arts for nearly 60 years. That will be a big celebration.”
