entertainment

The Elba Central School Drama Club is presenting performances of "The Sound of Music" this weekend. These photos are from yesterday's rehearsal.

Performances are at 7 p.m., Friday, and 2 & 7 p.m., Saturday in the ECS Auditorium. Tickets are $8 for adults and $6 for students and seniors. Tickets are available at the district office and at Roxy's Music Store.

Carmen Del Plato shared this with us, a song for Valentine's Day written by John Del Plato and performed by Anthony Del Plato.

About 20 young musicians joined the Genesee Symphony Orchestra today to sit next to the members of the orchestra playing the instrument of their choice during a rehearsal for tomorrow's concert at Genesee Community College.

Tomorrow's concert is called "Flutes and Flourishes" and will be conducted by Nicholas DelBello, one of the four finalists for a permanent appointment as conductor.

Guest artist is Christine Baily Davis on flute, with performances by the Buffalo Brass Choir and Miranda DelBello.

Concertgoers are invited to arrive at GCC's Stuart Steiner Theatre at 3 p.m. for Meet the Orchestra. The concert begins at 4 p.m.

The show includes pieces by Mozart, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Franz Doppler and Ottorino Resphighi.

Tickets are available at the door, or purchase online. Click here.

To purchase prints, click here.

The Genesee Chorale held a rehearsal Monday night in preparation for its show at 7 p.m., Dec. 4, at St. James Episcopal Church.

Directed by Ric Jones, the show is Christmas-themed and the performance is titled "Our Hope is a Child." Tickets are $8 presale and $10 at the door, and can be purchased online at geneseechorale.com.

The show will include what is billed as an "energetic" version of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!" with four-handed piano accompaniment, with Doug Hansen and guest pianist Henry Emmans. The Genesee Children's Chorus will also be featured on a number of pieces. Fran Thomas also performs a solo.

Cameron Bontrager performs "Sweet Child of Mine" during the 2015 Batavia HS talent show Tuesday night in the school's auditorium.

Tzyonah Scheffield-Reese performs "Photograph."

Madison Hoerbelt and Eryn Dunn perform "For Good."

Ross Chua and Chelsea Jensen perform "I'm Yours."

Hannah Bluhm performs "Dear Future Husband."

Batavia High School hosts its annual faculty and student talent show tonight in the auditorium starting at 7 o'clock.

Pictured during yesterday's rehearsal are Tzyonah Sheffield-Reese (top) and Kesa Janes.

The Genesee Valley Wind Ensemble kicks off its third season with a 4 p.m show Nov. 15 at Elba Central School with pieces by John Williams, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Mark Camphouse, among other composers.

Yvonne Freeman, a member of the ensemble and a board member sat down with Lucine Kauffman for her WBTA show called "Genesee Life" and discussed the ensemble and upcoming show.

Freeman said the program is intended to be challenging and provide a wide variety of classic and modern sounds for the whole family.

Chap's Elba Diner, normally closed on Sunday evenings, will open after the concert and provide discounted dinners to ticket holders.

There are two major differences between a wind ensemble and a typical orchestra, Freeman said. First, there are no strings, and second, there is typically one musician per part.

"Each person has to be really good at their part," Freeman said. "There's nobody else that is going to cover those measures that are tough."

To listen to the entire interview, visit the Genesee Life page on WBTA's Web site.

Classic rock fans might recognize the smiling guy with the gray hair. It's Peter Frampton. Next to him is somebody a few people in Genesee County will know, Ben Sheridan, a 2008 graduate of Byron-Bergen High School. 

Sheridan, who plays keyboards, is on tour with Frampton and when the band stopped in Albany last night, a group of family members and friends traveled there to see him play.

He hooked up with Frampton after meeting Peter's son, Julian, while working at a Starbucks in Los Angeles. Julian is the man with the acoustic guitar in the photo.

Info and photos submitted by Anne Sapienza.

Dean Rich, a resident of Pratt Road, started square dancing in Batavia 60 years ago. He's danced in California, Arizona and Florida and remembers the time he danced to a caller from Alaska.

"I enjoy it because you meet so many interesting people," Rich said.

As if to prove it, he told an engaging story about himself. Now age 88, he's retired from MY-T Acres farm where he spent most of his farming career, invested his money wisely and was able to quit 28 years ago.

"I was working for my uncle for $50 a week and Bob hired me for $55 a week," Rich said. "Plus, I didn't have to come in until seven and I got a pig. Bob's dad said, 'You're paying him too much,' because the guy I replaced was making only $35 a week."

Rich and his wife had been married four years when a neighbor invited them to their first square dance, and soon they were regulars and including square dancing in all their travels. They were together 64 years. Rich took some time off while she was ill, but after she passed, he couldn't stay away from square dancing. He just enjoys it too much.

"There are so many interesting people and you never meet anybody who's rowdy," Rich said. "You cannot drink and do this, when you really get to square dancing."

Rich is one of 24 members of the Silver Stars, who gather every Monday at the VA Center in Batavia.

It's one of at least 15 clubs in Western New York, said caller and Buffalo resident Bill Ryan, who started calling 52 years ago at age 14.

"It's just a whole lot of fun," he said.

It's also good exercise, Ryan said, and, he agreed, you meet some great people.

Jean McCoy (top photo) said she would go stir crazy if she had to stay home, so she square dances to keep herself active. 

"Truthfully, I like the outfits," she whispered when asked what she likes about square dancing, but then added, "I like the camaraderie. You have to be out and be around people when you live alone, otherwise you'll wind up in the psych ward."

The age range of the club runs the spectrum and the youngest dancer at Monday night's club gathering was 7-year-old Caylin Perry, of Batavia. Caylin was too shy to tell us why she likes square dancing. She just said she does. She looked like she was having fun.

Darryl Worley, a multi-hit country music artist who topped the charts in 2003 with a 9-11 song, "Have You Forgotten?", played Frostridge Saturday night and a few hundred hearty fans braved the rain and waved flags and cheered Worley's pro-USA, positive-living message.

The show closes out the 2015 season for The Ridge.

(Photos from last night's show.) Luke Bryan headlines a second, soldout show, at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center tonight.

Joey Belladonna, lead singer of the metal band Anthrax and native of Oswego, brought his cover band Chief Big Way to Center Street Smoke House on Friday night. The room was packed with fans as the trio, with Belladonna on drums, powered through big rock hit after hit. Tom Mazurkiewicz, who became friends with Belladonna after meeting him at Darien Lake, helped arrange the appearance.

Batavia Society of Artists and Batavia Players teamed up Tuesday night for a unique arts event in Jackson Square. The artists made art, the players were the models, in character for an upcoming performance of "Alice in Wonderland." Artists were encouraged to paint or draw in whatever medium they preferred. Some sketched, some used acrylics and others put chalk to cement. The players also rehearsed their parts for the show. There was also a wine tasting featuring Midgard Winery, of Corfu.

Comics have been a hobby, a career and now an ambition for Batavia resident Dan Hosek.

The Long Island native is a former Marvel Comics editor who came to Western New York when his wife started school at SUNY Brockport. He happened to work for a graphics company at the time that had an office in Buffalo. They settled in Batavia, and now Hosek is a free-lance graphic designer.

But he still has a passion for the comic book business, and love that goes back to his childhood and a passion that survived a rocky bankruptcy reorganization by Marvel in the 1990s.

Hosek shared some of his expertise in comic book creation, marketing and distribution with a room of like-minded people at the Richmond Memorial Library on Tuesday night.

His advice: If you want to get published, work at it. Be prepared for long hours and don't be afraid to self-publish -- that can be a road success.

It's certainly a road he and his partners Keith Koppenhoefer and Ryan Gutierrez hope helps propel their series, File 13, to a bigger audience.

The trio hatched the idea for the series a few years ago -- based primarily on a character developed by Hosek when he was 12 years old. A year ago, they raised enough money through a Kickstarter campaign to get the first edition printed.  

Without a distributor, however, it's been a lot of work getting the comic book onto store shelves, but they have been making headway and sales.

"The micro-distribution route, that can be a full-time job in itself," Hosek said. "Calling comic shops, visiting comic shops, sending e-mails, and the whole follow-up is a lot of work, but we're getting there. It's growing. We're hoping the numbers get high enough that we can go back to Diamond (the only comic book distributor in the nation) and say 'we've sold this many,' and hopefully they'll look at the numbers and look at what we're doing and decide to distribute it."

The story is about two twin brothers who inherited a company and they have opposing views on the value of science. One brother believes science should only be used for the greater good, while the other believes science should be used in the service of the bottom line of the company they own. One brother is fired from the company, and he steals battle armor developed by the company. This leads to a whole universe of super heros who return to Earth after not being around since the 1980s.

While being both one of the creators and part of the whole marketing and distribution effort is a lot of work, the reception File 13 has received has been worth it, Hosek said.

"When you hold that finished comic book in your hands or somebody tells you how much they enjoyed it, it's a reward, so part of the drive comes from that, hearing from other people that they liked it and that you're producing something other people enjoyed," Hosek said.

You can find out more about the comic book series at www.whatisfile13.com, like the series on Facebook, or purchase editions at Foxprowl Collectables on Ellicott Street, Batavia.

Slipknot headlined Darien Lake PAC Wednesday night. Lamb of God opened. Also performing were Bullet for my Vallentine and Motionless in White.

Pictured below photos of Lamb of God:

Pictured below photos of Bullet for my Vallentine:

Motionless in White:

Scott DiMartino played in local bands as a teenager. He had all the sound equipment needed for his big idea. In December, he approached his brother, Danny DiMartino, with the idea to set up a portable night club in Batavia. They bought a light setup and are now staging events at T.F. Brown’s and Billy Goats with their business, Esdee Entertainment.

“Batavia has a lot of culture for bars,” Scott said. “There is Center Street, Bourbon & Burger and other places. As far as dancing goes, there isn’t really much to offer. It’s the same bars, the same bands, the same nights.”

The brothers never thought that Batavia was big enough to support a nightclub for more than six months. Scott is hoping that monthly events will get people out and give them exposure to a different scene they may not have necessarily seen before.

“We want to bring something different to this town,” he said. “People in Batavia may not have seen real mixing on turntables and that’s what we want to bring.”

The idea came to Scott after his friend, Macy Paradise, came back from Colorado for a visit. He asked Scott to play a show with him at T.F. Brown’s. At the event, Paradise spun records and DiMartino played the drums. The response was overwhelming.

“Tons of people showed up,” DiMartino said. “We received so much support from the people of Batavia that night.”

DiMartino praises Paradise and his brother for their help with bringing his idea to life, but he really does it out of his love for music. He works 55-hour weeks at his full-time job. Yet, he somehow finds the time to plan events to share his passion with the rest of Batavia.

“We are just two brothers who love music and bought a bunch of stuff with a ton of support from the community,” he said.

The duo is hosting their next event on July 24 at Billy Goats. The $5 throwback dance party is for the 21-and-over crowd. Music will be exclusively from the '80s, '90s and early 2000s. The brothers hope to turn the occasion into a giant karaoke party.

“I want to see the looks on people’s faces when they say, ‘Oh my god, I forgot this song existed!’ ” DiMartino teased. “People are going to have a really good time. I couldn’t be more excited to share this with my hometown.” 

Check out their Facebook page for updates on their future events. 

Photos by Steve Ognibene

Paul Draper is used to being a musician for the Ramble, a musical event hosted in Batavia, but this year, he’s experiencing the event from another angle. Bill McDonald and the rest of the Ramble Posse have decided to pass the organizational and promotional torch on to Draper. He couldn’t be more excited.

“When Bill asked if I would like to be involved with the Batavia Ramble, my answer was, ‘yes. 100 percent,’ ” Draper said. “I’m the lucky one to take the hand-off.”

This year, Draper worked on filling the band rosters, organizing information and he even created a Facebook group.

“Batavia Ramble Facebook group is a local hub for all things Ramble,” he said. “In the group, you can find the band lineups, schedules for each stage as well as pictures from previous years.”

 Next year, he’s taking the lead on the event.

“This year was a lot of fun learning how everything runs and getting hands on,” he said. “I am also very much looking forward to next year where I'll be putting my PD3 twist on things and bringing the event to the next level.”

The first Ramble was held 10 years ago by the original Ramble Posse members Bill Pitcher, Mike Murray and McDonald. The Ramble aims to unite and reunite musicians and artists who have called Batavia and the surrounding areas home. The day is full of music, friendship and art.

This free event takes place Downtown on Sunday in Jackson Square and on Center Street. For the first time, three stages will be set up featuring musicians who live locally as well as those who are coming back to play the Ramble. Music starts at 11 a.m. and concludes around 9:30 p.m.

Paul Draper, Jim Starkweather, Bill Pitcher, Tom Trescott, Mike Murray, Wally Kowalik, Kevin Mayler and Bill McDonald.