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June 2019
“Grit” a film by Cynthia Wade with Q&A
Shot over the course of six years and co-directed by Academy Award-winning director Cynthia Wade and award-winning director Sasha Friedlander, Grit has been met with critical acclaim at international film festivals. This cinematic documentary captures a hardly known yet massive environmental disaster: an unstoppable mudflow in Indonesia believed to be caused by natural gas drilling. The story follows Dian, an Indonesian girl in East Java, as she grows up in the shadow of gigantic mud explosions, yearning for her childhood…
Find out more »Blackstone Valley String Quartet
The Blackstone Valley String Quartet gets its name from the quaint small-town area of Central Massachusetts where owner and founder Sylvia DiCrescentis has lived and worked for most of her life. For fifteen years, the members of the BVQ have played together in various orchestras and small groups honing their skills and developing a unique bond as professional performing musicians. Today’s performance will feature “Dvorak’s American String Quartet.” This event is made possible with the generous support of Steve and Lynn Rubenstein.
Find out more »July 2019
Words Matter – Fun with Crossword Puzzles for All Ages with Michelle Arnot
Michelle is the author of Crossword Puzzles for Dummies and Four Letter Words: Secrets of a Crossword Insider. She is also an official at the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, CT, and a resident of Sandisfield. Michelle's crossword workshop last season drew a packed (and passionate) house, so reserve early!
Find out more »Frederick Moyer Piano Recital
We are thrilled to bring back Frederick Moyer after his wonderful recital (and the debut of our Stainway) last year. Moyer is equally at home with Bach, Rachmaninoff, and Schoenberg as well as Ellington and Peterson. His recitals are engaging and generally include time-honored favorites. His MoyerCam is a projection system that allows the audience to see his hands as he plays. Audience members at his 2018 Arts Center recital raved about how much this brought them into the music…
Find out more »Berkshire Opera Festival
Have you ever wondered how a fully-staged opera is brought to life? Have you wondered if opera was something you'd enjoy? Berkshire Opera Festival co-founders Brian Garman and Jonathon Loy will answer all your questions through an interactive presentation on their summer 2019 production of the comic opera Don Pasquale, which will be performed at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center. Brian and Jonathon will introduce Donizetti's Don Pasquale, a riotous comic opera sung in Italian with projected English translation, to…
Find out more »August 2019
Bill Cohn on “Combating the Enemy Within”
Early in the Depression, on February 2, 1931, Silas H. Strawn, Chairman of the United States Chamber of Commerce, warned, “in a condition of this kind, the thing to be feared most is fear itself.” In March 1933 President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt echoed this same sentiment in his inaugural address when he told the American people “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Even before America’s entry into World War II and then during the war,…
Find out more »September 2019
Fascism and Racial Laws in Mussolini’s Italy
In his talk and slide presentation, historian and part-time Sandisfield resident Dr. Robert A. Maryks will tell a story of the impact of the racial laws on the Jews (and those who were considered Jews) under the Mussolini regime. This story is based on 139 letters that were exchanged between the victims of those laws (and their relatives and friends) and the Jesuit priest Pietro Tacchi Venturi (1861–1956) who interceded within the Fascist government in order to circumvent or alleviate…
Find out more »Wanda Houston Band: ’40’s, ’50’s, & ’60’s R&B and Jazz
The Wanda Houston Band features the incomparable vocalist Wanda Houston accompanied by three virtuoso and diverse musicians specializing in unique interpretations of American Music. The band’s repertoire includes selections from the great American Songbook, Jazz, Motown, R&B, and Pop from the early 20th century to modern. It’s all crystallized through a unique instrumental and vocal combination of experienced musicians. Wanda Houston has traveled the world using her vocal gifts in an amazing variety of settings and styles. Rob Kelly is…
Find out more »Today’s Poets in Conversation with the Masters
"A large number of the poems I most admire and which seem to be most original are talking back to other poets of other ages," said Richard Wilbur. Join us for this unique poetry program with poems of masters such as Frost, Wilbur, Plath, Owen, Kumin, and Yeats performed by Ben Luxon and other Sandisfield Players, in dialog with poems they have inspired by award-winning poets Hilde Weisert, Rebecca Hart Olander, and others.
Find out more »October 2019
Ed Arron and Jeewon Park, cello and piano
The 2018-19 season marks Mr. Arron’s tenth anniversary season as the artistic director and host of the acclaimed Musical Masterworks concert series in Old Lyme, Connecticut. He is also the artistic director of the Festival Series in Beaufort, South Carolina, and is the co-artistic director with his wife, pianist Jeewon Park, of the Performing Artists in Residence series at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Praised for her “deeply reflective playing” (Indianapolis Star) and “infectious exuberance” (New York Times), Korean-born pianist Jeewon Park has garnered…
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