The Roundtable

Maverick Concerts, founded in 1916, is the nation's oldest continuously running summer chamber music festival, welcoming generations of world-class artists to its iconic rustic concert hall. While chamber music remains at its heart, Maverick's adventurous programming also embraces jazz, folk, contemporary, and world music, making it one of the region's most distinctive cultural destinations.As another season unfolds, we're joined by Maverick's Music Director, Alexander Platt, to talk about this summer's performances and the enduring magic of making music in the Catskills.

The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond. Today's panelists are Professor of History and International Relations at Vassar College. He is a specialist on the history of US foreign policy Robert Brigham, Senior Fellow for Health Policy at The Empire Center for Public Policy Bill Hammond, the founder and director of the Volunteer Literacy Project. She is also a columnist for The Free Press and a Greene County resident Larissa Phillips, and an Associate Professor in the department of sociology at Vassar College. Her research is on health, wellness, and medical knowledge Catherine Tan.

Acclaimed pianist and NPR host Lara Downes, who has spent the past two years traveling the country for 'The Declaration Project,' a national initiative built around a deceptively simple question: What does it mean to be American today?This Saturday Lara will bring that work to MASS MoCA’s Hunter Center with 'Hold These Truths: Lara Downes and Friends,' a poignant and probing concert that marks America’s 250th anniversary by celebrating the power of music to express the core essence of our founding promise.

The creator of NBC's Smash and the author of more than 20 plays - including 'Seminar,' 'Bernhardt/Hamlet,' 'Dig and Seared' - Theresa Rebeck is also the longtime resident playwright at Vermont's Dorset Theatre Festival. This summer she's returning to direct her own acclaimed backstage comedy, 'The Understudy,' running through Sunday.Set in the rehearsal room of a Broadway production of a long-lost Kafka play, 'The Understudy' follows an overlooked actor, a Hollywood star, and a frazzled stage manager as old rivalries, bruised egos, and dreams of success collide. It's a funny, fast-paced look at ambition, jealousy, second chances, and the wonderfully chaotic world behind the curtain.

The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond. Today's panelists are public policy and communications expert - Theresa Bourgeois, Dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany Bob Griffin, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute Robert Pondiscio, and Diplomat in Residence at Bard College. She retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2025 after over 30 years in public service. Her last post was ambassador to the SE Asian country, Timor-Leste Donna Welton.

This week's Book Picks comes from Roxanna Pisiak from Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA and Drew Broussard Rough Draft Bar and Books in Kingston, NY for our selections this week.

'Mother. Daughter. Father. Son.' is a funny and deeply human new play about what happens when love, memory, faith, and responsibility collide. When an aging mother moves in with her fiercely independent daughter, long-buried tensions surface—alongside unexpected friendships next door that complicate everything.The production is up at the Adirondack Theatre Festival in Glens Falls, NY and runs through Sunday.

The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond. Today's panelists are Joseph Palamountain Jr. Chair in Government atSkidmore College Beau Breslin, an author, lawyer, consultant, public speaker, and entrepreneur. Her most recent book is: 'Race Rules: What Your Black Friend Won't Tell You' Fatimah Gilliam, The Empire Report’s JP Miller, and Former Mayor of the City of Albany Kathy Sheehan.

From the streets of Manhattan to the Hudson Valley and the Mohawk frontier, New York became the Revolution's central battleground—politically, militarily, and socially. In the new collection 'Fire and Freedom: The American Revolution in New York,' historian Thomas Wermuth and his fellow editors bring together leading scholars to tell a richer, more complicated story of the conflict and the people who lived through it.

Summer means music in Cooperstown, and one of the region's most anticipated traditions is ready to begin. The Cooperstown Summer Music Festival opens Wednesday evening with the acclaimed wind quintet WindSync performing at Fenimore Farm and Country Village.The festival continues through August 17 with a lineup of chamber music, jazz, and crossover performances at venues including Fenimore Farm and Christ Episcopal Church.