Films of 1973 celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Manton Center
Williamstown— The Clark Art Institute hosts a screening of the 1973 film “Day For Night” on Thursday, March 16 at 6 p.m. This film series is presented in celebration of the 1973 opening year of the Manton Research Center building.
This affectionate farce from François Truffaut about the joys and strife of moviemaking is one of his most beloved films. Truffaut himself appears as the harried director of a frivolous melodrama, the shooting of which is plagued by the whims of a neurotic actor (Jean-Pierre Léaud), an aging but still forceful Italian diva (Valentina Cortese), and a British ingenue haunted by personal scandal (Jacqueline Bisset). An irreverent paean to the prosaic craft of cinema as well as a delightful human comedy about the pitfalls of sex and romance, “Day for Night” (1973; 1 hour, 56 minutes) is anchored by robust performances and a sparkling score by the legendary Georges Delerue.
This series will be presented for free.
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Linda May Han Oh performs with her quartet at Williams College
Williamstown— The Williams College Department of Music presents Linda May Han Oh Quartet as part of its Visiting Artist Series on Thursday, March 16 at 7:30 p.m. in the Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall.
Bassist and bandleader Linda May Han Oh is joined by Troy Roberts, tenor sax; Matthew Stevens, guitar, and Eric Doob, drumset.
Based in New York City, Linda May Han Oh is a bassist/composer who has performed and recorded with artists such as Pat Metheny, Kenny Barron, Joe Lovano, Dave Douglas, Terri Lyne Carrington, Steve Wilson, Geri Allen and Vijay Iyer. She is currently Associate Professor at the Berklee College of Music and is also part of the Institute for Jazz and Gender Justice. As an active educator she has also created a series of lessons for the BassGuru app for iPad and iPhone. She has had five releases as a leader which have received critical acclaim. Her most recent release “Aventurine” is a double quartet album, featuring string quartet and vocal group Invenio, winning the Best New Jazz Work for the Australian APRA Art Awards.
This event is free and open to the public.
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Nora Krug discusses her new exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum
Stockbridge— The Norman Rockwell Museum hosts Nora Krug in conversation on Saturday, March 18 at 4:30 p.m. History is personal in this conversation with award-winning artist Nora Krug. From unique, wide-ranging sources of inspiration and in-depth research, Krug’s provocative visual storytelling invites us to understand and reconcile the past in service of a brighter future.
Nora Krug is a German American author and illustrator whose drawings and visual narratives have appeared in “The New York Times,” “Los Angeles Times,” “The Guardian,” “Le Monde Diplomatique,” and A Public Space, and in anthologies published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Simon and Schuster, and Chronicle Books, among others.
Born in 1977 in Karslruhe, Germany, Krug attended a specialized middle and high school for classical music but chose to pursue a career in art, studying at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, Berlin University of the Arts, and School of Visual Arts, where she received a Master of Fine Arts degree. While studying in New York, Krug said she felt discomfort when discussing her home country because “as soon as you answer someone who asks you where you are from, the association with the Nazi period is there. You are constantly being confronted with it.” While encountering negative stereotypes about German cultural identity she simultaneously delved deeply into her family history, of which she had little knowledge. She felt a growing urge to engage with her country’s past in a new way. “I realized that to overcome the collective, abstract shame I had grown into as a German two generations after the war, I needed to go back and ask questions about my family, my hometown,” an exploration that became the impetus for her award-winning visual memoir, “Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home.”
Tickets are $25, available here.
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As spring blooms learn to identify trees by bark and bud
Sheffield— The Berkshire Botanical Garden will host a Bark and Bud Tree ID class on Saturday, March 18 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Discover the many plants that lend bark, buds, fruit and structural interest to the garden in fall and winter. Under the expert guidance of Tom Ingersol, students will develop the ability to identify winter trees by twig and bud anatomy, bark features and plant architecture, while practicing their skills with winter tree dichotomous keys. This program will be held primarily indoors, and students will work with collected specimens. Bring a lunch and dress for occasional outdoor fieldwork.
Tom Ingersoll is a Massachusetts Certified Arborist and also certified by the International Society of Arboriculture. He owns and operates Ingersoll Land Care in Sheffield, Mass., and has worked in the landscape industry for the past 28 years. His passion is tree care and he serves both public and private clients in the tri-state region. Additionally, he serves on the boards of the Berkshire Botanical Garden and The Sheffield Tree Project.
Tuition for members are $25 and nonmembers are $30.
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Scottish band Cantrip comes to The Foundry
Great Barrington— On Saturday, March 18 at 7:30 p.m. The Foundry will present a concert by Cantrip. Cantrip features a trio with border pipes, fiddle, guitar and three rich voices. Echoes can be heard of trad music from the 1960s and 70s, but the years have slowly infested their music with the sounds of funk, metal, bluegrass, swing, and even klezmer.
Originally formed as a quartet, Cantrip sprung from a local session in Edinburgh nearly twenty years ago. Their driving music immediately caught the attention of the masses, and they were quickly signed to the Foot Stompin’ label. With their first album “Silver” (2001) in hand, Cantrip made its way across the water to the United States, where they were received with roars and shouts (of enjoyment). New inspirations began creeping into the sound, complementing the traditional foundation of the band. This more mature sound debuted on their release “The Crossing” (2016), to high acclaim. In late 2019, they spent a week in their original home of Edinburgh creating and recording new music. All of the tracks on this album were captured live in one take by engineer and longtime friend of the band Reuben Taylor. This seminal album, released in Fall 2020, showed a new and darker side of the group while preserving the elements that audiences have come to know and love. After 20 years of touring, Cantrip has found a character like no other. Dan Houghton, Jon Bews and Eric McDonald stir the elements in a witches’ cauldron, slowly coalescing into chaotic order.
Tickets are $25, available here.
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“5G: Hazards and Myths”
Sheffield— On Thursday, March 16 at 6:30 an educational seminar will be held for voters in Sheffield and Great Barrington who have warrants on 5G restrictions on their annual town meeting vote.
The warrant will be discussed with information on what 5G is and what implications it has for the environment, pollinators, birds and humans. A short video by Frank Clegg, former head of Microsoft Canada, will be shown with his take on 5G. If you are a voter, come and get educated about this important subject to be voted on at the May 1 town meetings.
