For most of her career, Janis Ian has been the one fielding questions — about “Society’s Child,” about “At Seventeen,” about what it means to write a song that shifts the way a country hears itself. On Tuesday, August 25, she reverses the exchange. The afternoon session at Caffe Lena is called an A+Q: Ian brings the questions, and participants bring their answers, working through prompts she has designed to “unlock your artistic mind.”
About the Show
The A+Q runs 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and is one event in Ian’s month-long Artist-in-Residence at Caffe Lena — the first such program in the venue’s history. Across August 2026, she is leading four installments of “Janis Ian Explains The World,” a workshop series covering songwriting, storytelling, creativity, and the music business; a record club session built around Between the Lines; guitar tips-and-tricks classes; and an open mic she hosts herself. The A+Q on the 25th stands alone: a structured conversation where the multiple Grammy Award-winning songwriter becomes the interviewer and participants, working through her prompts, become the subjects of their own creative inquiry.
Ian, 75, has been working professionally in music since age 12. She achieved national prominence at 16 with “Society’s Child,” a song about an interracial teenage romance that radio programmers refused to air until Leonard Bernstein featured her on a television special; it rose to No. 14 on the pop singles chart. “At Seventeen,” from Between the Lines (1975), became her best-known song. She was the first musical guest on Saturday Night Live. A PBS American Masters documentary, “Janis Ian: Breaking Silence,” tells her story. Her final studio album, The Light at the End of the Line, appeared in 2022.
Ian has been direct about why a program like this matters: “There are plenty of residencies for classical musicians, and jazz musicians, but folk artists and singer-songwriters are still considered ‘Just for fun’ rather than serious craftspeople and artists. That needs to change.”
Venue & Logistics
Caffe Lena at 47 Phila Street in Saratoga Springs was founded in 1960 and is the longest continuously running folk music venue in America, celebrating its 66th anniversary in 2026. Ian’s connection to the room spans over two decades. With 110 seats in a folk club listening-room configuration in the capital region, it is the right kind of space for a conversation like this one.
Tickets
Admission is $35, general admission. Buy tickets