Berkshires’ Academy for Advanced Musical Studies, Inc. has announced a monthly residency at Studio 9 at the Porches’ Inn in North Adams
North Adams— Beginning on Saturday, January 20th from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., the Berkshires’ Academy for Advanced Musical Studies, Inc. (BAAMS) has announced a monthly residency at Studio 9 at the Porches’ Inn in North Adams.
Led by BAAMS’ Founder and Executive Director Richard Boulger, the monthly concerts will feature faculty, students, and special guests performing original jazz, funk, world music, and feature multiple Grammy-award winning and world-class musical artists. The first concert on January 20th will feature Richard Boulger, trumpet flugelhorn; Dario Boente, piano and keyboards; Tony Lewis, drums; and Alex Blake, bass.
Richard Boulger was a longtime private student and protégé of Trumpet legends Freddie Hubbard and Donald Byrd, and has recorded with such luminaries as The Allman Brothers Band, Randy Brecker, John Hicks, Trombonist Steve Davis, R&B legend “Joe,” and has produced three highly-acclaimed recording projects as a leader.
Grammy and Latin-Grammy winner Argentinian born pianist and composer Dario Boente, is equally at home performing romantic Argentine and jazz compositions on a grand piano, as he is programming world-beat electronica. He has released ten albums and compilations as a leader, featuring well-known Jazz musicians such as five-time Grammy Award winner Antonio Sanchez on drums, guitarist Ronny Jordan, Latin Grammy winner composer and pianist Fernando Otero, harmonica player Gregoire Maret, flutist Jorge Pardo, and saxophonist Miguel Zenon, among others.
Tony Lewis has toured, performed, and recorded with such music luminaries as Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Sting, Little Richard, Sam & Dave, Cindy Lauper, The Temptations, Craig Harris, and many more.
Alex Blake’s revolutionary playing style and technique combines his unique, innovative strumming, rapid, lyrical notations and percussive slaps on his bass to create a unique and compelling sound. Some have called Blake “an entire rhythm section”. His work with Sun Ra Arkestra, Randy Weston, Freddie Hubbard, Celia Cruz, McCoy Tyner, Billy Cobham, and hundreds more, is the stuff of legend.
The first concert in the monthly series is on Saturday, January 20th from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Studio9 at Porches on Veazie Street in North Adams. Tickets are $30. All proceeds will help support music education at BAAMS. More information can be found online.
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The Roeliff Jansen Community Library presents ‘Involuntary Innovators: A Musical Book Talk by Howard Richard Lieberman’
Copake— On Saturday, January 13th at 4 p.m., The Roeliff Jansen Community Library presents “Involuntary Innovators: A Musical Book Talk by Howard Richard Lieberman.”
Have you created art or music, invented anything, started a company or a department, and felt the desire to evolve from a creative outlier to an innovator? Do you want to turn your vision into value, your insight into income, and commercialize your concepts?
Lieberman will guide a music-assisted conversation about innovation relationships and discuss his new book, “Involuntary Innovators,” a handbook about how creative individuals can shrink the gap between their work and their stakeholders, giving guidance on how to turn your vision into value and your insight into income. Lieberman will also give a musical performance both on the piano and the guitar.
Howard Richard Lieberman is a local musician, writer, and lapsed tech guy who moved full-time to the Berkshires ten years ago. An entrepreneur, teacher, speaker, and involuntary innovator for fifty years in industry, government, and academia, he has had the good fortune to work in and around world-class innovation cultures, including Apple, Bose, DARPA, MIT, Juilliard, and the National Science Foundation. Lieberman founded SVII, the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute, in 2005 to help creative outliers become sustainable innovators. He developed the first electroacoustical pianos, the first integrated computer sound systems, and the first speech recognition microphones. Mr. Lieberman has physics and electrical engineering degrees, has studied composition and orchestration at the Juilliard School, and continues to compose and perform as well as speak globally about innovation.
The talk is on Saturday, January 13th at 4 p.m. at the Roeliff Jansen Community Library on Route 22 (approximately one mile south of the traffic light at the intersection of Routes 22 and 23 in Copake. More information can be found online.
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Jewish Federation of the Berkshires presents ‘Most Fortunate Unfortunates: The Jewish Orphans’ Home of New Orleans,’ a virtual program
Pittsfield— On Thursday, January 11th from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires presents “Most Fortunate Unfortunates: The Jewish Orphans’ Home of New Orleans,” a virtual program, as part of their Jewish Literary Voices Series in collaboration with Jewish Book Council.
Marlene Trestman’s “Most Fortunate Unfortunates” is the first comprehensive history of the Jewish Orphans’ Home of New Orleans. Founded in 1855 in the aftermath of a yellow fever epidemic, it was the first purpose-built Jewish orphanage in the nation. By the time it closed in 1946, it had sheltered more than sixteen hundred parentless children and two dozen widows from New Orleans and other areas of Louisiana and the mid-South.
Based on deep archival research and numerous interviews of alumni and their descendants, “Most Fortunate Unfortunates” provides a view of life of children and women who lived there. The study also traces the forces that impelled the Home’s founders and leaders—both the heralded men and otherwise overlooked women—to create and maintain the institution that Jews considered the “pride of every Southern Israelite.” While Trestman celebrates the Home’s many triumphs, she also delves deeply into its failures.
The free virtual program is on Thursday, January 11th from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Zoom. Purchase the book at this link to support a local independent bookstore. Registration and more information can be found online.
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The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Berkshire Community College presents Vanderbilt Professor Jefferson Cowie to talk about his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, ‘Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power’
Pittsfield— On Thursday, January 11th at 7 p.m., The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Berkshire Community College presents Vanderbilt Professor Jefferson Cowie to talk about his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, ‘Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power’.
In his new book, Vanderbilt historian Professor Jefferson Cowie tells the dramatic tale of generations of local fights against the federal government to prop up a particular version of American freedom: the freedom to oppress others.
Professor Jefferson Cowie holds the James G. Stahlman Chair in American History at Vanderbilt University. His work in social and political history focuses on how class, inequality and labor shape American politics and culture. In 2023, he won the Pulitzer Prize for History.
His book, “Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class” received a number of “best book” awards, including the 2011 Francis Parkman Prize for the Best Book in American History and the Merle Curti Award for the Best Book in Social and Intellectual History. His essays and opinion pieces have also appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, TIME magazine, NPR Music, Chronicle of Higher Ed, American Prospect, Politico, Democracy, The New Republic, Inside Higher Ed, Dissent, and other popular outlets. The recipient of several fellowships, including most recently the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, he has also appeared in a variety of media outlets including CNN’s The Seventies, C‐Span’s Booknotes, NPR’s Weekend Edition, and, released just last week, the PBS documentary “The War on Disco.”
Professor Cowie will be interviewed by Doug Mishkin, a frequent OLLI speaker and interviewer.
The free virtual talk is on Thursday, January 11th at 7 p.m. on Zoom. Pre-registration is required. Registration and more information can be found online.
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The Berkshire Art Association ‘10×10 Real Art Party’ call for art
Pittsfield— The Berkshire Art Association is kicking off their annual “10×10 Real Art Party” shenanigans with an ask of all art aficionados to start thinking, making, or sending in your 10×10 masterpieces.
Submissions are now being accepted now through February 5th. Art can be delivered to Clock Tower Business Center February 3rd and 4th from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m and on February 5th from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. The art party will be held on Thursday, February 22nd. More information can be found online.
