Shire City Sessions features Whiskey Treaty Roadshow
Pittsfield — CompuWorks Shire City Sessions wraps up its inaugural season at the Shire City Sanctuary on Monday, September 14 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. with the music of the Whiskey Treaty Roadshow and the Novel Ideas, food trucks, craft beer, and good company. Admission is free.
The Whiskey Treaty Roadshow brings together five Massachusetts singer-songwriters sharing the stage and performing each other’s songs together, combining traditional folk and blues with contemporary folk-rock. Whiskey Treaty Roadshow is Greg Smith, Tory Hanna, Billy Keane, Chris Merenda, and David Tanklefsky.
This special event will be recorded for inclusion in the newest Whiskey Treaty Roadshow film. With a crew of four on location, anyone who attends the show stands a good chance of getting caught on camera for a cameo in the final movie cut. The official trailer for the film and more information about the project can be found online.
The Novel Ideas are a country folk quintet of friends from eastern Massachusetts. Featuring the voices of three different songwriters, the Novel Ideas create a blend of pastoral, harmony-driven, and plaintive Americana.
In addition to music, the sessions include a variety of food trucks and beer and wine from local and craft breweries. In the event of rain or other foul weather, the sessions will move indoors at the adjacent Shire City Sanctuary.
–E.E.
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Emory professor to speak at Williams College
Williamstown — Emory University professor Ken Ono will speak at Williams College on Monday, September 14, at 1 p.m. in the Bronfman Science Center auditorium on Srinivasa Ramanujan, one of the most enigmatic figures in the history of mathematics. The event is free and open to the public.
Ono will present a lecture titled “The Legend and Legacy of Ramanujan.” Ramanujan’s work played a central role in the development of many of the deepest subjects of arithmetic geometry and number theory. He was a self-trained amateur mathematician who developed his own research techniques. When word spread to western Europe about his skill, he entered a partnership with British mathematician G.H. Hardy, who became his mentor.
A film set to be released this year called The Man Who Knew Infinity stars Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) as Ramanujan and Jeremy Irons as Hardy. Ono, an associate professor of math at Emory, was a math consultant on the film. He spent much of 2014 on the film in various stages of pre-production and on-location filming. As part of his talk at Williams, Ono will tell stories of making the film.
For building locations on the Williams campus, consult the online map.
–E.E.
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Chesterwood launches Daniel Chester French lecture series
New York, N.Y. — Chesterwood, in collaboration with the National Arts Club Roundtable, will inaugurate the Daniel Chester French Lecture Series at the National Arts Club on Tuesday, September 15 at 6 p.m. The first lecture in the series, “One of the Greatest Interests of His Life: Daniel Chester French and the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” will feature guest speaker Dr. Thayer Tolles, the Marica F. Vilcek Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Daniel Chester French arrived in New York City for artistic training in 1870, the same year that the Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded. Over the coming decades, the sculptor and the museum established themselves as leaders in the production and collection of art respectively. Dr. Thayer Tolles is the Marica F. Vilcek Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. A sculpture specialist, she served as editor and co-author of a two-volume catalogue of the Metropolitan’s historic American sculpture collection (1999, 2001). Among her exhibitions are Augustus Saint-Gaudens in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2009) and The American West in Bronze, 1850-1925 (2013-15), both accompanied by publications. She participated in extensive ongoing renovations to the Metropolitan’s American Wing between 2001 and 2012 reinstalling the sculpture in the Charles Engelhard Court and the second-floor galleries.
Admission to the lecture is free of charge. A reception with cash bar will be held from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Pre-register by contacting Lisa Reynolds at lreynolds@savingplaces.org or (413) 298-3579, x2034.
–E.E.
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Spencertown Academy Arts Center announces teens’ short story contest winners
Spencertown, N.Y. — Spencertown Academy Arts Center is pleased to announce the winners of its first-ever Teens’ Short Story Contest, selected by judge and New York Times-bestselling young adult novelist Lauren Oliver. The contest was open to Berkshire and Columbia County teenaged writers in grades 9 through 12. The top three winners received cash prizes and were invited to read their stories at the Festival of Books over Labor Day weekend.
Berkshire School senior Carrie Babigian of Sheffield won first place for “Day One.” Berkshire Waldorf School sophomore Ruby Lamond of Philmont, N.Y., won second place for “Solitude and Solace.” Berkshire School senior Samantha Reagan of Medway, Mass., won third place for “Peter Pans Are Rare.” Honorable mentions went to Pearl Elsbach of Sheffield for “Short Story;” Lauren Stone of East Nassau, N.Y., for “And She Was Loved;” and Rebecca van der Meulen of New Lebanon, N.Y., for “Unknown Care.” All of the winning stories are posted in full on the Academy’s website.
–E.E.
