Close Encounters With Music to present ‘Love Triangles’ with Ariel String Quartet
Great Barrington — Close Encounters With Music will present the Ariel String Quartet performing “Love Triangles”–works by Schumann, Brahms and Janáček–Saturday, March 17, at 6 p.m. at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center.
The first three years of Schumann’s marriage to his beloved Clara Wieck were an exceedingly productive period for the young composer, and the time when he focused on the genre of the string quartet, producing the String Quartet No. 2 in F Major. Brahms, Clara’s platonic and cherished confidante and friend, reportedly destroyed some 20 string quartets before allowing the two Op. 51 quartets to be published, the A minor No. 2 being one of them. And from the heart of central Europe in the first quarter of the 20th century came the Quartet No. 1 by opera composer Leoš Janáček, which was intended to protest the tyranny of men over women.
The Ariel String Quartet was formed 16 years ago in Israel when its members were students. Recently awarded the Cleveland Quartet Award, the Ariel String Quartet serves as the faculty quartet-in-residence at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, where its members direct the chamber music program and perform their own annual series of concerts. The quartet recently made its debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City; presented music by three generations of Israeli composers at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; and toured South America. The quartet appears widely in Israel, Europe and North America, toured with cellist Alisa Weilerstein during the 2013-14 season; and performs regularly with pianist Menahem Pressler. Formerly the resident ensemble in the New England Conservatory’s Professional String Quartet Training Program, the quartet has won a number of international prizes.
Tickets are $15–$50. For tickets and more information, see the Berkshire Edge calendar or contact the Mahaiwe box office at (413) 528-0100.
–E.E.
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Jacob’s Pillow announces inaugural fellowship recipient
Becket — Jacob’s Pillow has announced that Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie, artistic director of Ephrat Asherie Dance, has been awarded the inaugural Jacob’s Pillow Fellowship at Tilles Center for the Performing Arts at LIU Post in Brookville, New York. The fellowship includes a $15,000 grant, a one-week residency at Jacob’s Pillow’s Pillow Lab and a residency at LIU’s Tilles Center.
Asherie, a New York Dance and Performance Award winner and the Boston Globe’s “bona fide b-girl,” will use the fellowship to support the development of her newest work, “Odeon,” which layers breaking, hip-hop, house and vogue with the Afro-Brazilian rhythms of 20th-century composer Ernesto Nazareth, played live by pianist and the choreographer’s brother Ehud Asherie. “Odeon” will make its world premiere at the 2018 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival from Wednesday, June 27, through Sunday, July 1.
Asherie utilized her Pillow Lab residency in September 2017 and will begin her residency at LIU Tuesday, May 15.
–E.E.
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Berkshire Grown to hold Spring Supper
Lenox — Berkshire Grown will present its Spring Supper Monday, March 19, at 6 p.m. at Cranwell Spa & Golf Resort. Coordinated by chef Peter Platt of the Old Inn on the Green and hosted by chef Gustavo Perez of the Southfield Store, the celebration is curated by Chef Gustavo Perez of the Southfield Store and features the talents of chefs from around the world who have made their homes in the Berkshire region, including Richard Bourdon of Berkshire Mountain Bakery, Marianna Morrison, Serge Radikians of Serevan, James Rankin of Cranwell and Fadia Rostom of the Pita Bite.
The event will begin in the music room at 6 p.m. with hors d’oeuvres provided by Rankin with beverage tastings from Barrington Brewery, Berkshire Mountain Distillers and Big Elm Brewing. At 7 p.m., dinner will be served in the ballroom with wine donated by M.S. Walker Wines and coffee from No. Six Depot. Guests will have the opportunity to bid on dinner for eight at the Old Inn on the Green and to sponsor shares in Share the Bounty during a live auction hosted by bestselling author, award-winning audiobook narrator and comedienne Alison Larkin. Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli. D-Lenox, is the honorary chair of the event committee.
Tickets are by reservation only and are $100 for Berkshire Grown members and $125 for non-members. Proceeds will benefit Berkshire Grown and its Share the Bounty program, which purchases CSA farm shares for local food pantries. For tickets and more information, see the Berkshire Edge calendar or contact Berkshire Grown at (413) 528-0041.
–E.E.
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Bennington College to present author Morgan Jerkins
Bennington, Vt. — Bennington College will present author Morgan Jerkins as part of its Literature Evening series Wednesday, March 14, at 7 p.m. in Franklin house.
Jerkins graduated from Princeton University in New Jersey with a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature, specializing in 19th-century Russian literature and postwar modern Japanese literature. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her work has appeared in publications including the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Atlantic, Elle, Lenny Letter, Rolling Stone, the New Republic and BuzzFeed. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling book “This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America.” Her next two projects, “Why We Get Out” and “Caul Baby,” are forthcoming from Harper Books.
The reading is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Bennington College at (802) 442-5401.
–E.E.
