Mona Golub built one of Upstate New York’s signature free music institutions while running communications for one of its largest companies. As the longtime volunteer producing artistic director of the Music Haven Concert Series in Schenectady’s Central Park, she has spent more than three decades bringing the world to a public stage — booking artists from five continents to perform free for anyone who shows up.
Second Wind and the Birth of Music Haven
Golub founded Second Wind Productions in 1989 with a deliberately unfashionable mission: bring world-class concerts to Capital Region public parks, at no charge to the audience. The Music Haven Concert Series launched in Central Park the following year. Over time it grew from a modest summer series into a fully programmed season featuring ten Sunday-evening international touring acts, the annual Blues BBQ, WEXT’s Local 518 Fest, and a three-part film series. The 2025 season marked the program’s 35th anniversary.
Building the Stage
By the late 1990s, Music Haven had outgrown its temporary footprint. Golub chaired the 1998–99 task force that built a permanent dedicated stage — the structure now known as the Music Haven Stage — in Central Park. She has continued to lead capital improvement campaigns for the venue, including the recent “House and Hill” initiative supporting renovations to the surrounding amphitheater area. The stage has hosted artists including Red Baraat, Solas, The SteelDrivers, Bamba Wassoulou Groove, and dozens of regional performers across folk, jazz, world, and Americana.
A Dual Mission
Alongside her decades of arts producing, Golub serves as Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs at the Golub Corporation, the parent company of Price Chopper Supermarkets — her family’s grocery business. She oversees the Golub Foundation and has been called “the driving force behind many of the nationally recognized community partnerships Price Chopper has forged.” She has served on the boards of Proctors Theater, the Schenectady JCC, and the Capital Region Chamber of Commerce. In 2015 the Women’s Fund of the Capital Region named her one of its “Trailblazing Women,” recognizing the rare combination of corporate leadership and arts-producing impact she represents.
Schenectady’s Central Park summer schedule is now unimaginable without Music Haven, and Music Haven is unimaginable without Mona Golub. Few figures in Upstate New York’s music ecosystem have given more — quietly, for longer, and to so many — than she has.