Greetings, Friends and Neighbors of our factory, 

Waving to you from the landscape of the Hudson Valley this Holy Daze season. Wishing you and yours good health and happiness this coming year. Thank you for an amazing year. The new year promises to bring more music to our historic waterfront art factory——with exciting new partnerships to ring in the new year.

The winter arrived in real time, framing the river and mountains with dramatic cold winter light skies, sprinkled with comforting snow. The romance of our region never grows old; in fact, with time, the glow of the natural, majestic world’s permanence will only grow.  This landscape, Mother Earth herself, is an anchor of stability in this rapidly changing, splintered world we find ourselves sharing time and space in.

The history of our region offers inspiration: The Hudson River Painting School was founded 200 years ago by local hero Thomas Cole. The movement of artists captured the power of the natural world with their paintbrushes and giant tableaus. So powerful were these depictions of landscapes and skies that they eventually inspired the creation of the National Parks Department — it was the founders of the first art movement of America’s settlers, who continued the tradition of what the indigenous people long already knew, that the beauty and complexity of nature needs to be honored, preserved, and protected.

The Hudson Valley is the birthplace of America’s first art and environmental movements – further empowered by Pete Seeger, the Clearwater movement, and musicians / activists over the past 100 years.

Another golden ethos we embody plenty here is “Think Globally, Act Locally”. The saying originated with Scottish urban planner and social activist Patrick Geddes around 1915, appearing as an idea in his book Cities in Evolution, which advocated understanding broad global environmental contexts to make small, intentional changes locally for better community planning and sustainability. 

Those seeds planted over a 100 years ago grew into a slow but steady effort to raise awareness of the notion of bettering the place you live by  “buying local.” That notion birthed our initial alternative to “Black Friday”- Basilica Farm & Flea – over a decade ago. This past year, we presented three markets- Spring, Summer and Holiday – in partnership with LikeMindedObjects. In 2026, we will continue our commitment to this mission to celebrate local makers and a healthy local economy. 

Spring Market applications HERE As a transplant from Montreal, I have developed great pride in the history of this region. Here is where we have chosen to make our home, raise our daughter, build community, and commit to our love of independent, innovative, and creative voices as a stable solace in this eve-changing world. 

Here we are now. 2026. 

Weird Wide World …. The increasing life lived online only emboldens our commitment to Basilica being a real-life gathering place, keeping us tethered to each other. We must continue to ask ourselves: what can we be for our local and global communities, as individuals, and as a collective? 
 

“The building is the muse. The building does it for us. We don’t do anything but serve it. The building itself is as much of an artwork to be revered as the work being presented inside.” 

• Melissa Auf der Maur, Times Union, 2025
   

This year marks our 16th year of reclaiming and restoring this glorious 1880s factory — been an honor of a lifetime to serve such a location and host, give or take 200,000+ dynamic people in this sturdy structure. This year marks an exciting expansion of our commitment to music, with the launch of a partnership with like-minded concert promoters Bowery Presents, Higher Ground, and Sister Midnight. Together, we will present more shows year-round. Our focus will be on mid-week concerts, as a counterbalance to the weekend destination tourist town Hudson has become. We hope this partnership will be an invitation to people who live here to join us, while stimulating local businesses during the quieter days upstate.

Learn more about our new upcoming concert series HERE

I have personally built my whole life around live performances, starting back in Montreal at a public performing arts school, into my time in 1990s rock bands (read all about it in my upcoming memoir!), then upon retiring from the road to become a mother, and founding Basilica Hudson – aka “Temple of Sound”  with my partner Tony Stone. Gathering as fellow humans around expression, in my humble opinion, provides a strong foundation for bringing out our humanity. 

When in doubt, bring the music. Come together as fellow humans, through the music. 

Some initial shows have been announced, and more are to come.
Stay strange, but don’t be a stranger,

Melissa Auf der Maur and our Basilica Hudson Family 

Dear You, Friend, Neighbor & Fellow Human,

Spring on the Horizon, blossoming unknown continues. Winter hibernation is coming to an end. As the Hudson Valley steps into spring, we step into our next season at the Basilica. 

Founded in 2010, in celebration of our 15 years of programming, 2025 will highlight our longest running, tried and true program: Basilica Farm & Flea

This year, for the first time, we will present three markets: Spring Market, Summer Market, and Holiday Market

Launched in 2013, our inaugural Basilica Farm & Flea market was presented in partnership with beloved Bust Magazine. That’s where we began our dreams of a win-win for everyone marketplace that supports local, independent, organically grown, handmade and vintage, while bringing our community together en-mass. Happy, sustainable, economy if I’ve ever witnessed any.



Now in our 13th continuous year, (2020 prevailed virtually!), Elise McMahon, of LikeMindedObjects, has been our longest standing Basilica program collaborator. Together we have grown and stabilized a program that seems to bring more smiles and joy than any other event we present. 2025 redoubles our efforts to preserve and nurture this core local community program. 

We are forever grateful to all the farmers, makers and collectors that have participated over the last many years, and the new ones for joining in.
This is “Think Global, Act Local” in action.
This is what we need more of across the USA. 
Bringing our humanity, and consuming, down to earth, as a time to share with our neighbors, pass some time together, while supporting small local businesses.

With such big changes, challenges, locally and globally, we’ve been asking ourselves how to best uphold our mission to be a platform for independent and innovative arts and culture, while taking extra care in riding the unknown. Presenting this enduring program is a clear path forward.

SPRING MARKET INFO HERE 🙂

Stay tuned for additional season programs.

As a reminder, as noted in my end of the year letter from the director, we are saddened to not be presenting our most immersive and experimental program 24HR DRONE, this year. But for those most committed to this sonic gateway, tune into the International Drone Day community. If you’re missing the communal experience, we encourage you to keep the DRONE spirit alive with some DIY gathering, it can be big or small, all you need is literally anything that omits a sustained tone.

In DRONE we trust, may the portal open up to us all. Melissa Auf der Maur, Basilica Hudson Co-Founder

VENDOR APPLICATIONS FOR SUMMER & HOLIDAY

2025 Marks our first year of three seasonal markets! 

We are excited to support small business all year round 🙂  In the Hudson Valley we live by the seasons, our agricultural activities reflect this and so do our community gathering styles. In this spirit, each market will be unique to the season, hosting different types of regional vendors with their singular wares and cultural programming. For Spring Market think Mother’s Day, planting gardens, spring *green* cleaning products, home improvement & signing up for Hudson River Ferry rides! For Summer Market think popsicles , sunglasses , handmade summer dresses , farm veggie bounty and juicy cocktails. For Holiday Market, which is the cornerstone of our annual BFF marketplaces, think harvest, wool layers , warm drinks and anti big box Black Friday gift giving. 

Next Up: SPRING MARKET ! Mother’s Day Weekend , May 10th & 11th , 10am-5pm 🙂

Celebrate the coming of Spring and Mother’s Day Weekend with us and this curated group of 100+ regional businesses offering family friendly workshops , farm fresh and chef concocted hot foods (buckwheat crepes! pulled pork sandwiches!) , locally produced pantry items, vintage and handmade clothes, printed matter and artwork , home goods like wooden furniture and handblown glassware, even sunglasses made with primarily recycled plastics. Join us in supporting these incredible businesses! Some Highlights: Fantasy Fruit Farm will be making sweet & savory BuckWheat Crepes and bringing Fresh Cut Flowers, Quinnie’s will be making pulled pork sandwiches, ENOKI Catskill will be curating a marketplace , food pop-up and exhibition taking over the Back Gallery, Wally Farms will be hosting a Mushroom Log Inoculation Workshop & LikeMindedObjects will have a DIY Clothing Mending Table with stitch instructions and supplies. ALSO! We are very excited to offer the 3rd edition of our FREE Basilica Farm & Flea Fan Zine, sharing the WHO WHAT WHERE WHEN WHY about some of our incredible participants, farmers , organizers and makers. 

Consider becoming a vendor! Summer & Holiday Market applications are open, learn more at THIS LINK.