Margaret Cho made her reputation with her mouth, which is as funny as it is foul.  The stand up comic, who appears Saturday night at The Egg in Albany, has developed a cult following through live performance, various television appearances and several concert films.  Through it all, she’s found humor in cringe inducing topics like exploring her bisexual side, the embarrassment of returning rented porn videos late, and...

ALBANY – Words and Music, a vocal quartet based in Washington D.C., takes its bipartite name seriously. For a Sunday afternoon recital in Albany, where many of the singers have roots, the group performed a single work of nearly two-hours in length. Ned Rorem’s “Evidence of Things Not Seen” is comprised of 36 distinct songs for solo and ensemble, and can be considered both a model of quality, succinct art song...

There’s more than just music in the Wainwright gene pool. Also, self-deprecating humor and the general ability to entertain. All this came through Saturday night at The Egg, in the concert by Rufus Wainwright with an opening performance by his half sister Lucy Wainwright Roche. (Their father is the folk singer Loudon Wainwright.) Lucy offered a handful of fine original folk ballads but she could consider working in stand...

At last month’s Champaign on the Park, the annual fundraiser for the Lark Street Business Improvement District, Michael Weidrich did something of a runway turn on the stage. First, he was presented with an award for his work as founder of First Fridays, the successful gallery night based primarily in the Center Square neighborhood.  Moments later he returned to the stage having just been re-introduced as the new executive...

Every month Harold Lohner flips through the new issue of Art Calendar, a magazine that provides copious listings of exhibitions and other opportunities for artists. He regularly finds calls for submissions to shows of female artists and occasionally of gay artists. “I’m gay and an artist, but I don’t want to be a practitioner of gay art. It’s like you don’t have to be very good,” says Lohner,...

With typical brevity and wit, Joseph Fennimore has already composed his own epitaph: “Often wrong. Never in doubt.” It speaks well to the contradictions and apparent folly of Fennimore’s livelihood. In a society where high art is little valued, he’s a driven and earnest composer who refers to his pieces as “ditties.” Also a virtuoso pianist who studied with the legendary teacher Rosina Lhevinne – as did...

“You’ve decided what you’re going to do, and it’s all you can think about. Everything else is a bother. Going to work is a bother. Going out to get something to eat is a bother.” Albany artist Kevin Bruce is describing his feelings when in the midst of creating. “You can spend a whole day painting and not eat and suddenly feel really faint and nauseous and dizzy and sick,” he says. “And you’ll...