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

Norfolk concert honors Charles Ives

NORFOLK — To celebrate the 150th anniversary of Connecticut composer Charles Ives’ birth, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival presented a concert inspired by the late musician’s work on July 5.

Ives, a native of Danbury, led a life of incredible success as he began his musical career at the age of 13. He attended Yale University and pioneered the use of polytonality, polyrhythm and tone clusters. He died in 1954 and won a Grammy Award posthumously in 1965 for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.

The show’s title, “Charles Ives ‘likes and dislikes,’” referred to the style preferences of Ives as a musical creator. The setlist demonstrated his passionate admiration of Beethoven and Franck, and his disagreement with Varèse’s composition.

The concert, put on in collaboration with Yale Summer Music School and performed by a collection of professional musicians, evoked a sense of nostalgia for Ives’ 1890’s American traditional music.

Opening the show was a rendition of “Hallowe’en” by Ives played in the style of piano quintet.

Beethoven’s “Duo No. 1 in C Major” and “Sonata in D Major” were followed by a rendition of Edgard Varèse’s “Octandre.”

Last but in no way least, Cèsar Franck’s “Piano Quintet in F Minor” closed the show.

The numerous artists played to receptive crowds in Norfolk’s Music Shed. The chamber festival will continue with shows through Aug. 17. For full schedule and tickets visit music.yale.edu/concerts-events-norfolk

Kayla Jacquier
concerts

Latest News

Doug Tallamy’s work in progress: saving the planet one backyard at a time

Doug Tallamy’s work in progress: saving the planet one backyard at a time

Windacre, a 25-acre property in Millerton will be the site of “Work in Progress,” an afternoon with acclaimed entomologist, New York Times bestselling author and Homegrown National Park co-founder Doug Tallamy.

Provided

For nearly three decades, Doug Tallamy, a professor at the University of Delaware and co-founder of Homegrown National Park, has studied the intricate relationships between native plants, insects, birds and the ecosystems that sustain them. His books, including “Bringing Nature Home” and “Nature’s Best Hope,” have helped shift the conversation about conservation from something that happens primarily in parks and preserves to something ordinary people can practice on the land around them.

On Sunday, Oct. 4, Tallamy will bring that conversation to Windacre in Millerton for “Work in Progress: Toward Native Fields,” an outdoor gathering exploring both the possibilities and the complications of restoring private land for biodiversity.

Keep ReadingShow less
community

Celebrating Dick Hermans’ life built around community

Celebrating Dick Hermans’ life built around community

Dick Hermans in the Oblong Bookstore on Millerton\u2019s Main Street in 1985.

Provided
No matter what I’ve done, I’m trying to be useful to the communities I’m associated with.
— Dick Hermans

When Dick Hermans receives the Estabrook Community Leadership Award on Oct. 11, he will accept it for a lifetime of work that has taken many forms: bookseller, radio host, school board member, advocate for the Harlem Valley Rail Trail, business owner, volunteer and, perhaps most importantly, a person who has consistently looked for ways to be useful to the communities around him.

The Lakeville Journal and The Millerton News will present Hermans with the 2026 award at the annual Jubilee celebration at the Sharon Playhouse. The award honors outstanding leadership in community service and was inspired by Mary Lou and Robert Estabrook, former owners of the newspapers who believed that strengthening a community extended well beyond the work of publishing a newspaper.

Keep ReadingShow less
our community

Tending the Fire: Homelands PowWow brings Mohican culture home to the Berkshires

Tending the Fire: Homelands PowWow brings Mohican culture home to the Berkshires

Members of the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe at Homelands PowWow in 2025.

Joeseph Plante New Media Storytellers
Our goal is to continue building an annual gathering that honors the history, culture and traditions of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans in their original Homelands.


For the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican people, the Berkshires are not simply a place to visit. They are ancestral homelands.

Keep ReadingShow less
community
google preferred source

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

Ancram Center’s “A Number” doubles questions of identity

Ancram Center’s “A Number” doubles questions of identity
Ledbetter (left) and Wojda (right) on the set of “A Number” at Ancram Center for the Arts.
Jeff Mousseau

How would you feel if you found out you weren’t the only you — if there was an exact replica of you? What if you found out that you’d been cloned? Would you believe that you’re the real you? Would you suspect you might be a copy of the original? How could you be sure anything about your life was real? These are some of the questions posed in Caryl Churchill’s play “A Number,” opening at the Ancram Center for the Artson Oct. 1.

Churchill was born in London in 1938 and has been hailed by the theaterl world as one of the strongest voices of her time to take on sexual politics and feminist themes. Her works garner pointedly considered analysis from the highest levels of theatrical intellectualism. Basically, it’s about as far from “The Lion King” as you can get. While she’s experimented with dance theater in the past, “A Number” is much more stripped down, highlighting Churchill’s chosen themes and the skills of both actors on stage.

Keep ReadingShow less
performances

Dispatches from the Farm

Dispatches from the Farm

Adamah Farm crew members planning out the day’s tasks on a late September day.

Janna Siller

“Dispatches from the farm” is a new, periodic column offering a firsthand look at the rhythms, challenges and rewards of farming through the eyes of a local farmer.

The thing about plants is that they can’t get up and move. When a storm like last weekend’s nor’easter threatens to roll through, you can’t just round everybody up and settle them safely on the sofa for movie night.

Keep ReadingShow less
dispatches from the farm

Found Footage Festival brings laughs to The Triplex

Found Footage Festival brings laughs to The Triplex

Pickett and Prueher on stage.

Provided by Found Footage Festival

On Sunday, Oct. 4, the Found Footage Festival makes its way to the Triplex Theatre in Great Barrington with a treasure trove of lost and forgotten VHS tapes scraped from the piles of distant memories and discarded physical media.

The Found Footage Festival is a “celebration of the videos that time forgot” hosted by two Brooklyn-based comedy writers and childhood friends, Joe Pickett of The Onion and Nick Prueher of The Late Show.

Keep ReadingShow less
film festival
google preferred source

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