Wildlife tracker Sue Morse to speak on ‘Animals of the North
Pittsfield — The Berkshire Environmental Action Team, the Trustees of Reservations, Berkshire Natural Resources Council, Mass Audubon’s Berkshire wildlife sanctuaries, Tamarack Hollow Nature and Cultural Center, the Nature Conservancy, Greenagers and Berkshire Community College will present internationally renowned wildlife tracker and photographer Sue Morse for the presentation “Animals of the North: What Will Climate Change Mean for Them?” Saturday, Feb. 23, at 7 p.m. at BCC’s Robert Boland Theatre.
The program will educate the audience about ways in which northern wildlife species are already being affected by climate change, with more serious challenges ahead. The program will devote equal time to sharing images and stories about plants and animals in their northern habitats.
Morse, the founder of Keeping Track, is an expert in natural history and one of the top wildlife trackers in North America. Since 1977, she has been monitoring wildlife with an emphasis on documenting the presence and habitat requirements of bobcat, black bear, Canada lynx, and cougar.
The talk is free and open to the public. For more information on the talk as well as accompanying tracking workshops with Morse, see the Berkshire Edge calendar or contact Berkshire Environmental Action Team at (413) 230-7321 or team@thebeatnews.org.
–E.E.
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‘Haydn Seek’ to highlight humor in music
Great Barrington — Close Encounters With Music will present “Haydn Seek: Humor in the Works of Papa Haydn” Saturday, Feb. 23, at 6 p.m. at Saint James Place.
Humor explodes expectations and takes listeners by surprise. Three Haydn string quartets, including his “Joke” quartet, will provide an evening of ambiguous beginnings and fake-out endings, mismatched dialogues between instruments, misunderstandings, musical pratfalls, pretend memory lapses, and digressions. From the composer of the Surprise Symphony who wrote a cat’s meow into another comes a slightly tipsy “high” as well as “low” program of subversive humor. The audiences of Haydn’s day loved the kinds of things he put into his music, as do present-day listeners. The featured performers in the program will be Hagai Shaham and Xiao-Dong Wang on violin, Dov Scheindlin on viola, and CEWM artistic director Yehuda Hanani on cello.
Tickets are $38 for the general public and $15 for students. The performance will be followed by a reception with hors d’oeuvres and wine provided by local restaurants. For tickets and more information, see the Berkshire Edge calendaror contact Close Encounters With Music at (800) 843-0778 or cewmusic@aol.com.
–E.E.
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Neuroscience lecture to explore consciousness, possible Alzheimer’s treatments
Great Barrington — Bard College at Simon’s Rock will present the talk “Resonance and Oscillations: A Neurophysics Perspective on Consciousness” by Ray Kasevich Thursday, Feb. 21, from 7:15 to 9 p.m. in the college’s Fisher Science Center.
The brain has neurons, and those neurons have dendrites, and certain dendrites hold an electrical charge. That held charge, according to Kasevich, is foundational to consciousness and could hold the key to understanding and treating psychiatric and neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Kasevich has authored 50 peer-reviewed papers and holds 48 U.S. and foreign patents. His research on electromagnetic science and engineering led to discoveries of how the brain works, including wide-ranging medical research and philosophical understanding of consciousness such as transcendent notions of art and beauty. Kasevich has taught at Simon’s Rock, most recently a course on neurophysics. He has collaborated with neuropsychologist David LaBerge, who taught psychology and biology at Simon’s Rock from 1997 to 2007, on the theory of electric resonance in apical dendrites and the neural correlates of consciousness. He received his Master of Science from Yale University and studied in doctoral programs at the University of Michigan and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the CEO and co-founder of JR Technologies LLC.
The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Bard College at Simon’s Rock at (413) 644-4400 or info@simons-rock.edu.
–E.E.
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‘ESCAPE’ art exhibit to host talk with Michael Glier
Great Barrington — Davis Gregory Art will present artist and Williams College art professor Michael Glier in a talk about his “Forests of Antarctica” series of prints Friday, Feb. 22, at 3 p.m. at the Geoffrey Young Gallery, 40 Railroad St. Glier’s work is on view in the gallery’s current exhibition, “ESCAPE.”
First inspired by the climate of New Zealand’s mountains, Glier has ventured from the Berkshire forests to the central mountains of New Mexico, the coast of Maine, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Seeking to create art that evokes sound, smell and touch rather than what is actually seen, the title “Forests of Antarctica” refers to humanity’s uncertain future—it is the artist’s hope that this body of work will raise awareness to create change for a sustainable environment.
A Guggenheim fellow and recent recipient of a residency with Hauser & Wirth in Somerset, England, Glier has seen his work exhibited extensively in major museums and galleries nationwide including the Cambridge Arts Council Gallery 344, Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago, San Jose Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Due to limited seating, advance reservations will be given priority. For reservations and more information, contact Davis Gregory Art at (413) 528-4493.
–E.E.
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‘Agriculture as the Heart of Environmentalism’ to focus on the future of food, community
Ghent, N.Y. — The Hawthorne Valley Association’s Institute for Mindful Agriculture will present the winter workshop “Agriculture as the Heart of Environmentalism: Belonging to the Earth, the Soil, Each Other” Thursday, Feb. 21, through Saturday, Feb. 23, at Hawthorne Valley Farm. The workshop will explore agriculture as a restorative practice for tending an inner sense of belonging and creating spaces for letting that connection live in community. There will be time for presentations, in-depth discussion and reflection.
On Thursday, Feb. 21, at 7 p.m., Dan McKanan, Emerson Unitarian Universalist Senior Lecturer at Harvard Divinity School and author of “Eco-Alchemy: Anthroposophy and the History and Future of Environmentalism,” will give a public talk open to both workshop and nonworkshop participants on how the history of environmentalism, biodynamic agriculture and the Camphill movement are closely intertwined.
Workshop guest speakers will include McKanan; Lorrie Clevenger, farmer with Rise & Root Farm and co-founder of Black Urban Growers; Karen Washington, farmer, activist and co-founder of Black Urban Growers, who was named one of 100 most influential African-Americans in the country by EBONY magazine; Hawthorne Valley’s Farmscape Ecology Program team including Conrad Vispo, Claudia Knab-Vispo and Anna Duhon; and the Institute for Mindful Agriculture team of Steffen Schneider, Rachel Schneider and Jill Jakimetz.
There is a suggested contribution of $10 for nonworkshop participants who wish to attend the talk. There is a sliding scale fee for the workshop of $100–$150, which includes dinner on Friday. Participants are responsible for their own lodging, though there is some floor space with sleeping bag options available at two locations. For more information, contact Rachel Schneider at rachel@hawthornevalleyfarm.org.
–E.E.
