2 pm Saturday, December 7, at The Hyde Collection
GLENS FALLS, New York—The editors of Look Magazine searched the nation and found no finer example of a post-war American community than Glens Falls. On Saturday, December 7, relive the nostalgia and magic of 1940s Glens Falls with a live holiday armed forces radio broadcast at The Hyde Collection.
The Museum joins forces with Glens Falls Symphony and Crandall Public Library’s Folklife Center to present a celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of Glens Falls being named Hometown USA as part of Glens Falls Collaborative’s Hometown Holidays celebration.
Gary Ferris will lead a reproduction of a 1944 Until It’s Over Over There, a live radio broadcast for soldiers and sailors stationed overseas. The cast and crew of the show will be in Glens Falls to celebrate its Hometown USA designation.
The special event features performances by Glens Falls Symphony Maestro Charles Peltz and principal keyboardist Melissa L. Ferrie-Healy; Ian and Megan Ferris of Lyric Theatre Company, a Burlington, Vermont-based community theater troup
e; Sing Sing Sing, the choir of Queensbury Senior Center; and letters written between deployed soldiers and their loved ones; historic photographs; and music and advertisements from the era.
“This radio show brings together many art forms: There’s visual art in the historical photos from Look Magazine, there’s theatrics, music, literature,” said Jenny Hutchinson, curator of Museum education and programming at The Hyde. “Most importantly, there’s Glens Falls history and a real sense of community, in which we’re all so deeply rooted.”
Gary Ferris has been performing one-man re-enactment radio broadcasts for about ten years, but this is his first time bringing other people on stage with him. “This is new and exciting, but that’s the way they really did it, of course,” Ferris said. “Artistically and historically, it’s going to be right in line. It’s going to have that real homey 1940s feel to it.”
Ferris, a singer, has always loved music from the ’40s. He performs a catalogue of more than 100 songs at nursing homes, veterans events, and celebrations.
He loves every performance, but the event scheduled at The Hyde Collection is made even more special by the fact it’s celebrating Glens Falls history. “It was a big deal. A lot of people have lost touch with what that is and what that means,” he said, referring to the Look Magazine honor bestowed upon the city.
The live holiday armed forces radio broadcast is part of Glens Falls Collaborative’s Hometown Holidays celebration, which begins Friday, December 6, and includes the annual tree lighting in City Park, a visit from Santa, carols by Glens Falls Community Theater, horse and wagon rides, carol singing at the First Presbyterian Church, and a window display competition among downtown businesses.
“We are so pleased to be a part of this third annual collaboration with The Hyde Collection for Hometown Holidays,” said Jennifer Brink, executive director of Glens Falls Symphony. “Music is such a big part of this time of year. We look forward to singing and listening together.”
The free event is followed by light refreshments. Historic Hyde House will be beautifully decorated for the season and the Museum will offer an expanded Holiday Gift Shop.
Admission is free. Please RSVP by contacting Sue at 518-792-1761, ext. 350, or [email protected]. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
What is Crandall Public Library?
Crandall Public Library is a member of the Southern Adirondack Library System (SALS). With a collection of more than 347,000 volumes of adult, nonfiction, fiction, juvenile collections, records, audio cassettes, CDs, DVDs, microform, electronic files, and paper documents, the Library serves Warren, Washington, Saratoga, and Hamilton counties. Other library materials include subscriptions to more than 350 magazines and newspapers. Crandall Public Library creates programs and services to educate, enrich, and encourage our thriving community.
What is The Hyde?
The Hyde Collection is one of the Northeast’s exceptional small art museums with distinguished collections of European, American, Modern, and Contemporary art. Its permanent collection of more than 5,000 works spans centuries and consists of paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, furniture, and decorative arts. The core collection, amassed by Museum founders Louis and Charlotte Hyde, includes works by such European masters as Sandro Botticelli, Domenikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco), Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Edgar Degas, Georges Seurat, Pablo Picasso, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Americans Thomas Eakins, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, and James McNeill Whistler. The Museum’s collection of Modern and Contemporary art features works by Josef Albers, Dorothy Dehner, Sam Gilliam, Adolph Gottlieb, Grace Hartigan, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt, George McNeil, Robert Motherwell, Ben Nicholson, Robert Rauschenberg, and Bridget Riley. The Hyde Collection presents changing exhibitions in its five galleries, as well as lectures, cultural events, family activities, and school programming in its modern museum complex and historic house at 161 Warren St., Glens Falls.
