Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.
concerts

Helen Sung mesmerizes at Music Mountain’s rescheduled winter concert

Helen Sung mesmerizes at Music Mountain’s rescheduled winter concert

Helen Sung’s lyrical and virtuosic playing filled The Tall Barn at Troutbeck in Amenia.

Natalia Zukerman

Renowned pianist and composer Helen Sung took the stage for a rescheduled performance of Music Mountain’s Winter Concert Series at Troutbeck in Amenia on Sunday, March 30. Sung led the audience through a thrilling solo program that traced her journey from classical to jazz. Performing works by Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Chick Corea, and one of her own original compositions, Sung’s artistry and distinctive touch captivated listeners. She brought her dynamic interpretations and deep musical storytelling to each piece, seamlessly blending technical mastery with emotional depth. From the rich harmonies of Ellington to the angular brilliance of Monk, Sung’s performance showcased both reverence for jazz tradition and her own inventive spirit. The intimate setting of Troutbeck’s Tall Barn provided the perfect backdrop for an afternoon of inspired musicianship, leaving the audience mesmerized and eager for more.

Music Mountain’s 96th season opens on June 1 with a benefit concert and reception of Benjamin Hochman & Friends from the Met Opera playing Beethoven and Brahms.

More info at musicmountain.org

Natalia Zukerman
Arts, Lifestyle and Enagement Editor
Natalia Zukerman is arts, lifestyle and engagement editor for The Lakeville Journal and The Millerton News. She writes about the region's vibrant cultural life, produces the weekly What To Do newsletter and contributes a weekly cartoon to the newspapers. Beyond journalism, Natalia is an accomplished musician, painter, educator and cultural diplomat. Her boundless passion for the arts enriches communities worldwide. She lives in Millerton with her dog, Georgie.
concerts

Latest News

Cornwall Historical Society celebrates Connecticut’s Black patriots

Cornwall Historical Society celebrates Connecticut’s Black patriots

On Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Cornwall Historical Society, author and genealogist John Mills will breathe new life into the stories of some of Connecticut’s more underappreciated patriots. The reason these heroes were forgotten? They were Black.

At a time when white colonists were fighting for their own liberty and political independence, many Black men who fought alongside them remained enslaved. Some risked their lives only to return to bondage. Though enslaved people were promised freedom from both sides of the Revolutionary War in exchange for their service, Great Britain, too, was still deeply dependent on slavery. For Black people in America, the war presented both extraordinary risks and uncertain paths to the freedom that white colonists were demanding for themselves.

Keep ReadingShow less
education

A sanctuary for second chances

A sanctuary for second chances

Stephanie Saetta runs Charlie Chicken Bones, a sanctuary in Salisbury.

Madi Long
You only get one or two of these soul connection dogs, so I do this in his honor.
— Stephanie Saetta

Stephanie Saetta has spent much of her life caring for others. A physician at White Plains Hospital, she has another calling at home in Salisbury — one that has four legs and a wagging tail. She runs Charlie Chicken Bone Sanctuary, a nonprofit dog rescue that brings dogs from overcrowded pounds and the streets of Texas to foster homes in northwestern Connecticut, where they can begin again.

The sanctuary is named for Charlie, the dog who taught her how special a bond between a person and rescue animal can be.

Keep ReadingShow less
our community

Big ideas come to Lenox for inaugural field festival

Big ideas come to Lenox for inaugural field festival

Hunter Runnette, founder and board chair of field, has spent years fostering arts and cultural programming in the Berkshires.

Provided

What do joy, gardening, artificial intelligence, the American experiment and the creative process have in common? Quite a lot, as it turns out, at least when some of the world’s most compelling thinkers get together to talk about them.

From Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 25, Lenox, Massachusetts, will host the inaugural field festival, a three-day gathering of writers, artists, scholars and cultural figures at Shakespeare & Company. Billed as a festival of ideas, entertainment, learning and discovery, field brings together an impressive roster of voices to explore everything from the deeply personal to the profoundly political.

Keep ReadingShow less
community
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

The Pink House AM is serving up community

The Pink House AM is serving up community

Mare Rubin and Maggie Levine of the Pink House AM.

Madi Long

It all started with a yoga class. Mare Rubin was working on her second act after leaving the Upper West Side, where she’d raised a family and worked in corporate marketing. Newly empty nesters, she and her husband decided to move to the wilds of northwestern Connecticut, where they had spent 15 years as weekenders, to see what life in the woods had in store for them.

Rubin started teaching yoga classes at the Union in West Cornwall, a space designated by the town of Cornwall as a community hub with couches, Wi-Fi, occasional events and a growing yoga class schedule. She was adjusting well but missed one important thing about city life: a casual coffee shop.

Keep ReadingShow less
business

One more weekend to get inside the art at ArtEast

One more weekend to get inside the art at ArtEast

The participating artists in this year’s ArtEast open studios.

Provided

ArtEast’s annual October Open Studio Tour is already underway, but there’s still one more weekend to step inside the creative worlds of artists working throughout eastern Dutchess County. On Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 24 and 25, artists will once again open their studio doors, inviting visitors to see where the work happens, meet the people who make it and perhaps discover something worth taking home.

Now in its 21st year, the ArtEast October Open Studio Tour offers a self-guided journey with participating studios in Holmes, LaGrangeville, Hopewell Junction, Pawling, Patterson, Poughquag and Wingdale. Visitors can explore painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media and other artistic practices, and get some leaf-peeping in at the same time.

Keep ReadingShow less
open-studio

An appetite for life: Tarajia Morrell’s “Desire Feeds the Feast”

An appetite for life: Tarajia Morrell’s “Desire Feeds the Feast”
Author Tarajia Morrell in her kitchen.
Jessica Antola

In her new memoir, “Desire Feeds the Feast,” writer Tarajia Morrell traces a life shaped by an appetite for beauty, pleasure and belonging. On Saturday, Oct. 24, Morrell will discuss the book with fellow author Dani Shapiro, whose works include the memoir “Inheritance” and the novel “Signal Fires,” at a prerelease event at Troutbeck in Amenia. Published by Zibby Books, a women-led startup, “Desire Feeds the Feast” will be released Nov. 3.

Described by author Chris Pavone as “a deeply gratifying emotional feast of a memoir: poetic, dramatic, romantic, atmospheric, sensual, evocative, poignant, heartbreaking, heartwarming,” this tale brings readers on a restless journey. Morrell writes of the “electric excess” of the New York City club scene in the late 1990s and the Hollywood tables where she waited on celebrities while pursuing her acting career. Her wanderlust took her to the beaches in Uruguay, where she discovered the “brine and brightness” of ceviche, the splendor of Barcelona’s food markets and, back home, the simple pleasure of a ripe plum eaten by her “graceful mother.”

Keep ReadingShow less
book talk
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.