Aston Magna to present all-Bach season finale
Great Barrington — Aston Magna Music Festival will present its season finale concert on Saturday, July 9, at 8 p.m. at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center. The concert, “J.S. Bach: Sacred and Secular,” will feature vocal and instrumental music as well as soloists Dominique Labelle (soprano); Deborah Rentz-Moore (alto); William Hite and Frank Kelley (tenors), Ulysses Thomas and Jesse Blumberg (baritones); and the full Aston Magna baroque ensemble. The program will include Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3, BWV 1068; Cantata No 12: Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen; and Cantata No. 201: The Contest of Phoebus and Pan. A pre-concert talk will take place at 7 p.m. and a reception onstage with the artists will conclude the event.
Tickets are $25, $40, and $50. For tickets and more information, see the Berkshire Edge calendar or call the Mahaiwe box office at (413) 528-0100.
–E.E.
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Call for community response to violence
Great Barrington – In response to the recent racially charged violence in Baton Rouge, La., and Minnesota, Multicultural BRIDGE and several local clergy members are calling allies together to offer support to South County’s African-American population. The group will meet on Wednesday, July 13, at 7 p.m. at the Grace Church office, 67 State Rd. The meeting will not be a typical BRIDGE space of education, but one in which to take action and be accountable and engaged. For more information or to RSVP to the meeting, contact Multicultural BRIDGE at (413) 394-4029 or gwendolyn@multiculturalbridge.org.
–E.E.
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Roselle Chartock to speak about Windsor Mountain School
Pittsfield – On Wednesday, July 13, at 3 p.m., the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Berkshire Community College’s (BCC) Distinguished Speaker Series will present Roselle Chartock who will speak about her book “Windsor Mountain School: A Beloved Berkshire Institution (The History Press 2014).” The talk will take place in Room G-10 of BCC’s Susan B. Anthony Student Center.
Windsor Mountain School was a private progressive boarding school that operated in Lenox from 1944 to 1975 at 45 West St., now the site of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Roselle Kline Chartock is professor emerita of education at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams. While teaching history at Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington, she helped to create the first high school curriculum on the subject of the Nazi Holocaust, which led to her first book, “Can It Happen Again: Chronicles of the Holocaust.” She is also the author of two education texts and several articles. After 45 years of teaching on all levels, Chartock is now a full-time artist and author who resides with her family in Great Barrington.
Admission is $10 for OLLI members and $15 for non-members, and free to BCC staff and students and youth 17 and under. For more information or to reserve tickets, contact OLLI at (413) 236-2190 or olli@berkshirecc.edu.
–E.E.
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‘See and Be Seen: Saratoga in the Victorian Era’
Lenox — Author, educator, raconteur, and eighth-generation Saratogian Hollis Palmer will discuss the rich lifestyle from 1856 to 1906 of his home town in a talk entitled “See and Be Seen: Saratoga in the Victorian Era” on Tuesday, July 12, at 4 p.m. at Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum. The talk will be followed by a question-and-answer session and a Victorian tea.
Based on his book of the same title, Palmer’s talk will cover life during “the season,” when the rich and famous gathered at the mecca of Saratoga, N.Y., with its fabulous hotels, horse races, and balls. The book was the winner of the Ruth Emery Award for the best regional history from the Victorian Society in America. Palmer’s other books include “Saratoga’s Great Ladies” and “The Batcheller” Mansion. He has also written several books on true Victorian crimes, including “To Spend Eternity Alone,” “Maggie’s Revenge,” “Curse of the Veiled Murderess,” and “Leave It to the Ladies.”
Tickets for the talk are $24 in advance and $29 on the day of the event. Reservations are recommended as seating is limited. For more information or to make reservations, contact Ventfort Hall at (413) 637-3206 or info@gildedage.org.
–E.E.
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Movement program to be offered at Camphill Ghent
Chatham, N.Y. — Dances For A Variable Population (DVP) will kick off a weeklong dance workshop Monday, July 11, through Friday, July 15, from 10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. each day in the Culture Hall at Camphill Ghent. In partnership with PS21’s Movement Speaks® workshop led by Naomi Goldberg Haas, DVP will celebrate its fifth summer at Camphill Ghent fostering strong and creative movement among seniors of all abilities. There is a $5 suggested donation for each class and the event is open to the community. For more information or to make reservations for the class, call Camphill Ghent at (518) 392-2760.
–E.E.
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Andrea Harrington to begin ‘Four County House Party Tour’
Great Barrington — Andrea Harrington – a Democrat running for the Berkshire, Hampshire, Franklin, and Hampden District State Senate seat soon to be vacated by State Senator Ben Downing – has announced that her campaign will begin a “Four County House Party Tour” on Tuesday, July 12. The “Four County House Party Tour” will consist of 30 individual campaign house parties and meet-and-greets across Berkshire, Hampshire, Franklin, and Hampden counties.
Harrington, an attorney who owns a small business in West Stockbridge, grew up in Richmond where she currently lives with her husband and their two sons. She has served as a member her local affordable housing committee and school council, as well as an advisory board member of the regional nonprofit BerkShares, Inc. Harrington is a graduate of Taconic High School in Pittsfield, the University of Washington, and the American University Washington College of Law.
For more information, contact casey@andreaforsenate.com.
–E.E.
