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
Patricia Hogan — Opening Reception. Show runs through August 1
Free opening reception Saturday, July 6th 2:00 - 4:00 PM. After the opening reception, the show will run until August 1st, and can be seen before performances or by appointment. Call 413-258-4100. Artist's Statement: Pat Hogan specializes in paintings inspired by nature. Recent works reflect her respect and love for our beautiful Berkshires, the mountains and sea coast of Maine, and the vanishing islands of the Chesapeake Bay. She is passionate about watercolor and the illusions created through the transparency…
Find out more »FREE Family Movie Night
It’s Friday night at the movies at the Arts Center. This month’s selection for the whole family will be posted here when the date is closer, and in the Sandisfield Times.
Find out more »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
Marguerite “Marge” Bride — Opening Reception. Show runs through September 5
Free opening reception Saturday, August 3rd, 2:00 - 4:00 PM. After the opening reception, the show will run until September 5, and can be seen before performances or by appointment. Call 413-258-4100. Artist's Statement: “Wherever I go I cannot help but see the colors and scenes around me as a painting. Watercolor always provides a fun surprise … no matter how I may initially visualize the finished painting; the medium always tells me who is really the boss here. Often…
Find out more »FREE Family Movie Night
It’s Friday night at the movies at the Arts Center. This month’s selection for the whole family will be posted here when the date is closer, and in the Sandisfield Times.
Find out more »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 »Children’s Book Author Jana Laiz Reads from Recent Books and Talks about Being “A Writer with a Purpose”
Jana Laiz, writer in residence at Herman Melville's Arrowhead, will read from and talk about recent books such as Blanket of Stars and A Free Woman on God's Earth: The True Story of Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman, The Slave Who Won Her Freedom (to be a feature film with Octavia Spencer as executive producer). A writer with a purpose, Laiz's goal is to "change the world one book at a time." A great event for the whole family!
Find out more »September 2019
Claudia D’Alessandro “The Nature of Things” — Opening Reception. Show runs through October 3
Free opening reception Saturday, September 7th 2:00-4:00 PM. After the opening reception, the show will run until October 3rd, and can be seen before performances or by appointment. Call 413-258-4100. Artist’s Statement: All around us, the natural world offers a distant mirror of our experiences: in the sky and water and on the earth. Great drama, intricate patterns, faces, shapes, and colors are all around, and sometimes, the most beautiful of these lasts only an instant. The light, patterns, colors…
Find out more »Film: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
Join us for this Academy Award - winning classic (Best Foreign Language Film, 1971), setting the context for historian Robert Maryks’ talk the next day, which will include correspondence from the Finzi-Continis. Amid the ravages of WWII, the Finzi-Continis, a cultured Jewish family, live in aristocratic splendor on their Eden-like estate in Ferrara, Italy. As the political atmosphere becomes increasingly hostile to its Jewish citizens, the handsome and carefree Finzi-Contini children, Micol (Dominique Sanda) and Alberto (Helmut Berger), turn their…
Find out more »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
Mark Farnum and Alan Papscun — Opening Reception. Show runs through October 31
Free opening reception Saturday, October 5th, 2:00 – 4:00 PM. After the opening reception, the show will run until October 31, and can be seen before performances or by appointment. Call 413-258-4100. Mark Farnum Artist’s Statement: Mark started painting when he retired from the Army in his early sixties. He works with acrylic paints, and his subjects are landscapes, seascapes, barns, people, things — whatever inspires him on any given day. He lives in Tyringham. …
Find out more »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…
Find out more »Val Coleman on “The Constitution Alive”
Val Coleman will argue that the American constitution is alive and well, despite the assaults on its tenets throughout the history of this country. Val Coleman, known as the poet laureate of Sandisfield, is also a citizen-scholar. His previous presentations on the history of poetry, the rise and persistence of fascism in the 20th century, and Abraham Lincoln provided a long view on these subjects, and encouraged a vigorous discussion with members of the audience. This subject is sure to…
Find out more »Suzanne O’Connell presents A Report from Antarctica
This lecture will focus on the results of O'Connell's research conducted in Antarctica on the continuing effects of climate change on the seventh continent. Suzanne O'Connell is a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Wesleyan University and researches paleoclimate. She is the recipient of the Association for Women Geoscientists Outstanding Educator Award, and author/co-author of over 100 refereed science publications, primarily focused on paleoclimate research and gender equality.
Find out more »Hard Cider Tasting conducted by Tom Christopher with music by the Easy Ridin’ Papas
Join us for an introduction to the flavors and history of New England’s traditional beverage: hard cider. Long-time cider maker and enthusiast Tom Christopher will speak about the history of cider making in our region, and then invite the audience to taste a flight of ciders from a variety of makers, both amateur and professional. We’ll explore a range of flavors and styles of cider, from traditional New England farmhouse ciders made locally to European inspired ciders from some of…
Find out more »November 2019
Andy Holtzman — Opening Reception. Show runs through November 28
Free opening reception Saturday, November 2nd 2:00-4:00 PM. After the opening reception, the show will run until November 28th, and can be seen before performances or by appointment. Call 413-258-4100. Artist’s Statement: If I have a definable photographic style, it’s dedicated to capturing the diverse ways which natural light and saturated color play on any of my subjects. My eye is not particular to any specific subject matter. Anything and everything that’s in the way of my lens is fair…
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