Latest News
All are welcome at The Mahaiwe
Paquito D’Rivera performs at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington on April 5.
Natalia Bernal is the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center’s education and community engagement manager and is, in her own words, “the one who makes sure that Mahaiwe events are accessible to all.”
The Mahaiwe’s community engagement program is rooted in the belief that the performing arts should be for everyone. “We are committed to establishing and growing partnerships with neighboring community and arts organizations to develop pathways for overcoming social and practical barriers,” Bernal explained. “Immigrants, people of color, communities with low income, those who have traditionally been underserved in the performing arts, should feel welcomed at the Mahaiwe.”
Partnerships with organizations like Volunteers in Medicine Berkshires (VIM), the W.E.B. Du Bois Legacy Committee, and Community Access to the Arts (CATA) have helped bridge that gap. But for the Latinx community, there’s an even more targeted effort: the Spanish-language Community Advisory Network (SCAN).
“Six years ago, we started an advisory group of Spanish speakers in the community,” Bernal said. “They tell us what the community wants to see, how they’d like their culture represented. Today, SCAN has 12 members. We meet four times a year and are in constant communication. It’s because of them that we’ve hosted free Spanish-language film screenings and live performances.”
For Bernal, this work is personal. “When I first moved to the U.S. in 2003, it was because I got a Latin American scholarship to study at Berklee College of Music. That first year, I went home to Uruguay for Christmas and saw Paquito D’Rivera perform at a jazz festival. I was determined to meet him, and I did. Later that year, Paquito came to Berklee and invited me on stage.”
Now, two decades and 16 Grammys later, Paquito D’Rivera is coming to the Mahaiwe on April 5, and there’s a chance history might repeat itself. “He saw a post we made about his concert and commented, ‘Ay, chica, que maravilla, are you gonna sing a song with us?’ I almost died,” Bernal laughed. “I don’t know if it will happen, but it would be a dream.”
About the possibility of a guest appearance by Bernal, D’Rivera said, “Natalia is a very dear, valuable colleague, and jazz is about improvisation, so the surprise factor is always part of the fun here.”
D’Rivera’s concert is just one example of how the Mahaiwe is making world-class performances accessible. “My whole day has been about offering ‘pay what you can’ tickets for this show,” Bernal says. “We also issued a 50% discount to our partners. We work with ESL teachers, public libraries, literacy agencies, anyone who can help us get the word out.”
That kind of grassroots effort has been transformative. “Last year, we screened ‘Florencia en el Amazonas,’ the first opera written in Spanish ever performed at the Met,” Bernal said. “I sat in the Mahaiwe in tears. As someone who loves opera, it was the first time I heard one written in my own language. It was so powerful.”
Natalia Bernal, Mahaiwe’s education and community engagement managerPhoto by Martin Cohen
For Bernal, it all comes back to representation, on stage and in the audience. “My son is eight. I bring him to everything I can. Spanish shouldn’t just be something that happens at the dinner table. It should be in the world, in all these shapes and forms.”
And that’s what SCAN is helping build: a future where Latinx voices aren’t just included, they are central. “Our SCAN advisors are volunteers, cultural ambassadors,” Bernal said. “They help us distribute surveys, talk to the audience, and strengthen the community. Nobody should feel alone. Everybody should feel like they belong here.”
Education and outreach are central to D’Rivera’s work as well. He said, “It is an important part of our mission to plant and nurture the seed of quality music in our communities.” He continued to say, “Using our visibility and influence in favor of justice is always a very effective vehicle in denouncing violations of human rights around the world.”
This shared mission of education and social justice extends beyond the Mahaiwe. “We are one of the few arts organizations in a monthly meeting with BASIC (Berkshire Alliance for Immigrant Services). We have direct ties to the Berkshire Immigrant Center, VIM, and others so that we are well-informed and ready to serve,” said Bernal.
That commitment to community, culture, and access is why Bernal’s dream panel—Women in the Music Business—would feature Paquito’s wife and longtime manager, Brenda Feliciano. “She’s a tower of power. She’s been managing his career for at least 45 years. If I could organize an event one day, she would be the cherry on the cake.”
Until then, Bernal will keep doing what she does best: making sure the Mahaiwe is a place where everyone, regardless of language, income, or background, feels at home. And maybe, just maybe, she’ll find herself back on stage with Paquito D’Rivera, just like that first time, all those years ago.
For more info and tickets to Paquito D’Rivera, visit mahaiwe.org
There is magic in a home filled with the things we love, and Mary Randolph Carter, affectionately known as “Carter,” has spent a lifetime embracing that magic. Her latest book, “Live with the Things You Love … and You’ll Live Happily Ever After,” is about storytelling, joy, and honoring life’s poetry through the objects we keep.
“This is my tenth book,” Carter said. “At the root of each is my love of collecting, the thrill of the hunt, and living surrounded by things that conjure up family, friends, and memories.”
The creative director at Ralph Lauren for almost four decades, Carter began writing this book during the pandemic, a time of rediscovering comfort. “I found more time to appreciate those special things that give our homes warmth and connection.” Working with Ralph Lauren, she learned that the best spaces tell a personal story. “His desk was filled with toy cars, miniature shoes, superheroes, English dandies, cowboys on horseback. The walls? A gallery of his children’s paintings, iconic photos of Frank Sinatra and Gary Cooper. Everything told a story.”
Carter acknowledges how homes can become overwhelmed with stuff but sees a difference between clutter and collection. “To live happily, create environments that inspire and comfort rather than encumber you! Look around and ask, ‘What is truly meaningful? What makes you smile? What recalls the people and places you cherish?’” Then, she added, “weed out the rest with discipline and courage!”
Provided
Each home in Carter’s book reflects its inhabitant’s spirit. “The first time I walked into Bethann Hardison’s apartment, I knew right away how authentic it was to who she is.” Hardison’s walls are lined with artwork from friends Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Haitian paintings, testaments to a life well lived. “Though her mantra is, ‘the lighter the load, the freer the journey,’ she also admits some things ‘delight your environment’ and can’t be parted with. Amen to that!”
Having survived two childhood fires, Carter deeply understands what truly matters. “It’s not the things, but the people and memories they evoke.” She loves her collections, but they don’t possess her. “They make me happy, but they do not define me.”
She delights in how people showcase treasures. Paula Grief, for instance, lives in a ten-foot-wide house and had to part with many books. “She tucks the ones she can’t live without through the rungs of her staircase. I love that ingenuity!”
When asked about her most cherished possession, Carter tells a story of loss and serendipity. A childhood portrait of her in a blue velvet dress was lost in a fire. “Years later, the artist’s daughter found another version. Now, it hangs in our apartment, surrounded by flea market art and one of my favorite saints, Our Lady of Guadalupe.”
Adding to the cozy feeling of this book, Carter’s son, Carter Berg, took the photographs, and her sister, Cary, contributed the illustrations. “Cary once stayed in our apartment and painted a dozen objects from our cluttered kitchen. I hung them immediately. When I started this book, I knew she had to capture my favorite objects.”
Four of the featured homes are local to the Northwest Corner, including Carter’s in Millerton, Joan Osofsky’s in Lakeville, Robin Bell’s in Salisbury, and Paula Grief’s in Hudson. They all gathered at the White Hart/Oblong Speaker Series on March 27.
After perusing the richly colored pages of this book, you may feel tempted to shop. “You don’t need money to create a meaningful home,” Carter insisted. “Some of my favorite paintings cost no more than $10 or $25. Value is personal. It’s not about provenance but the story an object tells you or the one you make up.”
Carter’s advice? “Fall in love with the wackiest thing. Surround yourself with what matters, and you’ll live happily ever after.”
A botanical spring puzzle
Honeybees have developed interdependencies with early spring flowers.
Why are there no native super early flowering plants in our area?By “super early” I mean flowering some five weeks before forsythia. All the ones I know are alien.Most are “bulbiferous” and go dormant in summer. Snowdrops, Galanthus nivalis, and Snowbells, Leucojum vernum, are both in the amaryllis family; crocus species, in the iris family; and scilla, in the asparagus family belong to this category. Others, like cyclamen coum, primrose family; winter-aconite, eranthis hyemalis; and adonis amurensis, buttercup family; grow from tubers, thickened roots.None of them is a native plant. Although all mentioned families exist in the New World as well, none have produced super early flowering species similar to what exists in Eurasia, nor have other plant families.
We wait for our beautiful native spring wildflowers — Virginia bluebells, Dutchman’s breeches, Trilliums, Trout lily, etc.In our garden, the earliest native will be Bloodroot, by mid-April. By then, a large cohort of alien plants are already in full flower for several weeks, in some cases for over a month.
Why is this roughly four to five week temporal niche in the annual cycle unoccupied? It’s a niche of very low productivity for sure, but nature, famously, abhors any vacuum. Could it be that the physical habitat niche is too small here? What I found, doing some research, suggests it is possible — larger areas are correlated with more speciation according to p. 1149 in Science from March 15, 2025. Eurasia, broadly oriented from west to east, has a very long, uninterrupted temperate and mountainous zone, stretching from Spain to western China. With its many grassland habitats, it provides a huge playing field for evolution. America, by comparison, geographically laid out north to south, contains much less continuous temperate environments suited for crocus.
Until now. Our small, short-cropped lawn at winter’s end mimics aspects of Eurasian alpine meadows. There, before any green grass is visible, crocuses break through the edges of the melting snow cover on the late winter lawn. Species crocuses have conquered that new habitat, first in European gardens, and now here too. Before the grass grows too tall, they benefit from abundant sunshine to nourish their bulbs for next year. That’s another reason to delay mowing as long as possible. A lawn may not be a natural habitat, but if free of herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers, it is after all just another meadow.
Perhaps another reason for missing March flowers is a lack of early pollinators.On one of these rare sunny, warm days in early March, I wrote in my diary: “03/09/23 - many honeybees on winter aconite, also a fly …”and some honeybees on crocus as well. Like winter-aconite and crocus, honeybees are not native in America and I have never seen them again that early, ever since a nearby beekeeper gave up.Looking at the amounts of pollen in these crocus flowers, they must be an abundant food source for all kinds of bees and bumblebees. However, only honeybees — whose colonies survive the winter in hives — can quickly deploy a large number of pollen collectors. Flowers and insects co-evolved a myriad of interdependencies, so super early flowering plants, cold adapted, depend on enough pollinating insects to make flowering through the snow worthwhile. On high alpine meadows there may be other early up-and-about insect species, but here it is honeybees which profit most.
Snowdrops, snowbells, crocuses — they don’t compete with any natives, but fill a manmade, unoccupied niche.The very earliest to flower through the snow, adonis amurensis and cyclamen coum, grow in light shade and slowly form stay-in-place clumps. Unless in a controllable setting, I would stay away from squill — Scilla siberica — which is a very aggressive naturalizer and easily escapes.
As we wait for our many native beautiful spring flowers, how nice to have these aliens, such benign aliens for a change, to cheer up a March-brown lawn.
Fritz Mueller lives in Sharon.