PREVIEW: Portraiture Label Revives Louw-Bogardus Ruins with a Night of Experimental Music
06/13 @ Louw-Bogardus Ruin at Frog Alley Park, Kingston, NY
Flyer by Zach Howenstein
On June 13, the Louw-Bogardus Ruins at Frog Alley Park in Kingston, NY will be transformed into a site for music and community. Organized by Zach Howenstein under his Kingston-based record label, Portraiture, the free event brings three experimental musicians to the Hudson Valley to perform at this unique site with an important history for Kingston.
Started in August 2025, Portraiture has grown into a label distributing both local and international artists curating events for experimental, genre-less artists, emerging artists, and artists who might have difficulty booking a venue in the Hudson Valley.
The Louw-Bogardus Ruins on Frog Alley are the remnants of a limestone house originally built around 1665 and preserved by Friends of Historic Kingston since 1975. These ruins are believed to be the oldest in existence of a building from the European-settlement era in present-day Kingston. The house burned in a fire in the 1960s, but the remains still reveal the city’s early settler history through its stone architecture and construction techniques.
Howenstein, who studied history and classics at the University of Vermont, connected with director of Friends of Historic Kingston, Dan Engle, to volunteer with the organization after graduating. After sharing more ideas about his music platform, Engle pitched Howenstein about hosting shows at the ruins.
“It’s such a unique space,” Howstein says. “It hasn’t really been utilized for anything, and [this event] felt like the perfect opportunity to bring something new into it.”
Seeking ways to combine his love of history, music, and building community, Howenstein explains that he decided to host music in this space to give it a new life. Live music in these ruins makes it more of an active space again, not just a historic ruin that some people may not see any contemporary value in.
Howenstein curated a lineup of three artists that he has connected with through his previous Portraiture events, mostly other free shows in his Kingston apartment.
Musician Sydney Spann, originally from Baltimore, Maryland and now based in New York, creates studio compositions and improvised live performances combining synthesis, electronics, amateur acoustic instrumentation and vocals. Lately their work sublimates the latent aggressions of feminized labor into anxious and beautiful music. Previous solo releases include full-length albums for Recital and Reading Group. They are one half of the duo Iris Our along with Kiera Mulhern.
Photo provided by Zach Howenstein
Next, Theodore Cale Schafer from Pinckney, Michigan and based in New York, works with melodic instrumentation composed on computers and other personal technologies. Previous releases include two full-length albums for Students of Decay and a third upcoming one. His track “mercury” was released on Portraiture’s first compilation album Mirror Mirror.
And lastly, Four Corner Star is a Cooperstown, New York-based artist who uses electronic and electroacoustic sounds to create densely textural, deconstructive compositions.
For Howenstein, the pairing of experimental music with an open-air ruin is an exciting combination even though the acoustics of the space remain unknown.
“I don’t know how it’ll sound acoustically,” he admits. “It’s completely open, but it’ll be really fun to do something at this historic site.”
The event is free and open to the public. Donations are suggested and all proceeds go to the artists. Listen to Portraiture’s releases on bandcamp at https://portraitureplatform.bandcamp.com/