’The Last Waltz’
GREAT BARRINGTON -- Music in Common and the Rev Tor Band announce a special live performance of The Band’s classic 1978 concert film, "The Last Waltz," on Sunday, Nov. 11 at 7:30 p.m., at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. The concert features renditions of all the hits by The Band featured in the film, such as "The Weight", "Up On Cripple Creek", and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" as well as songs by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Eric Clapton and many more. Musicians from the local music scene including Meg Hutchinson, David Grover, Wanda Houston, Rob Sanzone, Steve & Carol Ide, and many others perform the songs of the film’s original special guests.
Immediately preceding the concert there will be a pre-show party from 5 to 7 p.m., at Castle Street Café, 10 Castle St., right next to the Mahaiwe. Tickets are $40 and include a cocktail dinner, beer, wine, hot cider and dessert. Profits from the pre-show party and concert benefit Music in Common.
Tickets are on sale now at the Mahaiwe box office, 14 Castle St. and: mahaiwe.com/tickets.html.
Popular music in the 50s
LENOX -- The Lenox Library’s Distinguished Lecture Series continues Nov. 11 at 4 p.m., with Albin Zak, Professor of Music at SUNY/Albany, speaking on, "I Don’t Sound Like Nobody: Remaking
Albin Zak is professor of music at SUNY Albany. He holds degrees in composition and performance from the New England Conservatory and a PhD in musicology from the City University of New York. His research specialties are postwar popular music and the history of sound recording. He is the author of books on rock music, the history of recording, and editor of "The Velvet Underground Companion: Four Decades of Commentary." He is also an active composer, songwriter, and record producer. For more info: 413-637-2630.
Poetry reading
LENOX -- The Bookstore in Lenox will host a poetry reading Saturday, Nov. 10 with former Amy Clampitt Poetry Fellow James Arthur and Berkshire poet Cynthia Gardner, beginning at 5 p.m.
Arthur’s first book, "Charms Against Lightning" has just been published this month by Copper Canyon Press. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Poetry, Ploughshares, and The American Poetry Review. He has received the Amy Lowell Travelling Poetry Scholarship, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry, a residency at the Amy Clampitt House, and a Discovery/The Nation Prize.
He is currently a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University.
Cynthia Gardner’s work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Southern Poetry Review, The Bridge, Berkshire Review, Potlatcxh, and three Mad River Press anthologies: Crossing Paths (2002), Holding True (1999), and Under One Roof (1992). She holds degrees from Simon’s Rock, Simmons College, and Smith College School for Social Work and works as a clinical social worker in private practice and in juvenile and adult courts as a forensic mental health clinician. Her latest work "How Will They Find Me" has recently been published by Finishing LIne Press.
Both "Charms Against Lightning" and "How Will They Find Me" are already available and may be pre-ordered before the reading, which is free and open to the public. For more info: 413-637-3390, bookmatt@bcn.net, www.bookstoreinlenox.com.
Food donations for fines
PITTSFIELD -- The Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield’s public library, will offer a modified fines amnesty through Friday, Nov. 30. During this period the library will accept non-perishable food items in lieu of paying fines for overdue books.
Food will be collected in boxes located at the Adult Circulation Desk and at the Children’s Service Desk. When "paying" off a fine with a donated food item, a staff librarian should be alerted prior to depositing the item into the collection boxes. Food will be accepted not only for payment of overdue fines for items currently in circulation, but also may be applied to outstanding overdue fines from other transactions.
In the Athenaeum’s previous food-for-fines programs, the library only accepted food for books and other borrowed items that were currently checked out but overdue. As before, however, the replacement costs of lost or damaged materials may not be resolved by donated food.
During the amnesty period, in addition to food brought in lieu of fines, the Athenaeum will encourage general donations of food not associated with overdue library books. All donated food will be turned over to the Rotary Club of Pittsfield as part of their annual food collection drive that distributes non-perishable food to area food banks providing services to area needy.
The art work of Jessica Park
LEE -- Dr. Tony Genarelly, PhD., Editor/Project Director of "Exploring Nirvana: The Art of Jessica Park" will present a discussion of the artist’s work and life at The Good Purpose Gallery on Thursday, Nov. 15, from 6 to 8 p.m.
As an autistic artist, Park’s "extraordinary and largely mysterious world ... still glows in her beautifully arresting pictures with all their odd distortions, unusual color combinations,unnatural lighting effects, astronomical phenomena and seemingly quixotic details," according to Dr. Genarelly.
Park is a nationally known autistic artist from Williamstown who mixes line, form and shape with vivid color to create impactful images. Her work is not to be missed.
Fifty percent of the proceeds from any sales go to supporting student artists with learning differences.
New take on old classic
NEW LEBANON, N.Y. - Follow the Yellow Brick Road to Darrow School on Friday, Nov. 9, at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, Nov. 10, at 3:30 p.m., as the Darrow Theater Workshop presents its fall musical, "There’s No Place Like Home," an original production based on L. Frank Baum’s famous work, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." Both performances are free and open to the public.
"This is a modernized version of the classic story," Darrow’s Director of Performing Arts Will McGreal said, "featuring improvised performances by the cast that were refined by a select group of students." In the Darrow Theater Workshop’s interpretation, McGreal said, Dorothy lives on a corporate farm in Kansas, where her Aunt Em is a successful CEO. Following a tornado that sweeps Dorothy and her dog Toto into another world, she meets a know-it-all scarecrow, a hyper-sensitive tin man, and a lion with an identity crisis. In this strange new world, the Munchkins communicate only by smartphone texts and the witch is a land-loving prophet of global warming.
"It’s a humorous take on the original," McGreal said, "that also addresses modern-day issues that could not have been imagined when Baum first published the story in 1900."
Student-designed-and-created sets, costumes, lighting, and sound reflect the modern interpretation. The production will be accompanied by Theodicy Jazz Collective, founded and directed by Darrow Music Program Director Andrew Barnett. For more info: darrowschool.org.
Stories of immigration
PITTSFIELD -- The Berkshire Immigrant Center is seeking immigrant women who would like to share their stories as part of the Berkshire Festival of Woman Writers. BIC will sponsor a series of writing workshops in January at Williams College with the final dates to be determined by the availability of the participants. The stories will be compiled into a booklet to be distributed and read at a public forum in March. Greta Phinney, who has successfully conducted writing workshops both in Pittsfield and abroad with English as a second language adults, will lead the workshop and prepare readers to write and share their stories. Interested women should contact the Berkshire Immigrant Center at (413) 445-4881 or secretary@berkshireic.com.
Music of Ireland
NEW LEBANON, N.Y. -- Irish music trio Dublin Porter will perform at the New Lebanon Library Friday, Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. The repertoire of this Berkshire band focuses on the dance music and airs of Ireland.
All are welcome and the event is free. The library is located at 550 State Route 20, a quarter mile north of the yellow blinking light at the intersection of Routes 20/22. For more info: 518-794-8844.
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