From Mozart to Modern

WHAT: A History of Chamber Music is a live performance and all-ages educational program which will explore chamber music from the Renaissance through Classical, Romantic and 20th Century periods.

WHEN: Friday, August 23, 2019 from 4:00-6:00pm

PRICE: Free

Join us at the Northampton Center for the Arts from 4:00-6:00pm on Friday, August 23, 2019, for “From Mozart to Modern,” a History of Chamber Music in the form of a live performance and all-ages educational program which will explore chamber music from Renaissance through Classical, Romantic and 20th Century periods. We will learn about favorite composers including Mozart, Bartok, and the Beatles while also discovering new and exciting works. This program is free and open to the public, and will be held at the Northampton Center for the Arts, 33 Hawley St. Northampton, MA, 01060.

Concetta Abbate is a NYC based violinist and composer. She released her first solo album entitled Falling in Time in February 2015 on Waterbug Records. In 2019 she was a composer in residence at the artist Robert Rauschenberg’s home. As a performer she regularly plays violin and sings with a variety of ensembles in the New York area. She holds a Masters Degree in Music and Education from Columbia University.

Benjamin Engel is a percussionist and mandolin player from North Carolina. Coming out of a folk music tradition he has expanded his interest into the world of electronic music, free improvisation and world music. He most recently visited Dublin to work with composer Cal Folger Day on a historical Operetta. He has performed in long standing Brooklyn Based bands like Free Advice, Eamon Fogerty band and the Wyndham Baird band.

Founded in 1986, the Northampton Community Music Center is a not-for-profit arts organization whose mission is to foster the love and pursuit of music within our community through quality education, performances, and activities that are accessible to all. NCMC’s programming is made possible, in part, by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency (www.massculturalcouncil.org). For more information about NCMC, visit: www.ncmc.net

https://www.facebook.com/events/450489939068850/

Comedy Comedy Comedy Show with Jess Miller and Friends

This is an end of summer comedy show, headlined by Jess Miller who ran OMG comedy at the Hu Ki Lau for years and is a fierce comic with tenure and class! Before her are some of best local and out of town acts with a high level of diversity, including Ryan Arnold, Monk Danger, Ang Buxton, Jimmy Blair, and Ezra Prior. It's Arts Night Out and Comedy is an Art! So come on out and kick the blues with some professional comedy to end your night!

August 9th at 8 PM.

Tickets can be purchased on eventbrite at tinyurl.com/wmcgcomedy for $20. Portions of the proceeds go to fighting addiction.

Hustle & Flow: Day Party!

August 10, 2019 12 pm - 5 pm 

$15 general admission ticket / $25 general admission + food ticket 

Tickets can be purchased via Eventbrite using this link:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hustle-flow-day-party-tickets-64170299092?aff=ebdshpsearchautocomplete  or through Brenton Jenkins / Kristina Adamyan visionevents.contact@gmail.com

 Join us for some great food, music, and signature drinks while supporting your local Western, MA small businesses, artists, creatives and vendors. We're putting a spotlight on the many different businesses throughout the 413 all while enjoying a fun summer day party! These vendors will include: clothing, jewelry, desserts, eyelashes, skin care products, cosmetics, food, and much much more!  

Flamboyan

August 9, 7-10pm

Performance art from 8-9pm

Sliding scale $10-$25 tickets for performance art piece

Tickets can be purchased at the door or online: flamboyanathawley.brownpapertickets.com

Join us for a cultural event celebrating latinx community, artistry, and entrepreneurship. In Eli's Room, there will be a performance art piece- FLAMBOYAN- exploring Puerto Rican femininity, ancestry, and pain through the lens of a bruja. In the lobby, there will be several vendors and artists from within the latinx community showcasing or selling their work. Featured vendors and artists: Naranjeando, Leslie Saree, WoodChop Chains, BFF Gemz Fashions, and Sweetcakes by Aries Dluve.

The Key Dance Summer Intensive

August 5-8, 2019 5:30pm-8pm

Pre-registration is required

Visit: www.shakiathekey.com to register!

The Poetry Ritual: A Reading

Arts Trust Capital Campaign Kickoff Party!

Gasping Whiteness

Saturday, June 8th at 2pm

Tickets, sliding scale: https://gaspingwhitenessnoho.brownpapertickets.com/

A play and community workshop exploring white supremacy’s impact on parenting in progressive, middle class communities. All proceeds to benefit Western Mass Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ)’s reparations campaign.

Hallelujah! Poetry Book Launch and Party

Friday, June 7, 2019

7:00-10:30pm

Hallelujah! Come celebrate life with us! 

Meet with author Sabrina Suarez as she celebrates the launch of her poetry book, Hallelujah, which sheds light on the thoughts and experiences of those who are often forgotten in the struggle with mental illness — the supporters. This is more than your average launch party. This is a celebration a life, love, and happiness that can be found after mental illness! 

Food and refreshments will be available at the event along with live music by DJ Anomaly!

Admission is free with the purchase of a book. 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hallelujah-noho-launch-party-tickets-59164016165

POWER STRUGGLE Film Screening

Thursday & Friday, June 6 and 7

7pm to 9:30pm

Tickets: $12 advance online / $15 at the door / No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

More Info & Purchase Tickets: www.powerstrugglemovie.com/northampton-ma-screening

Invite friends: www.facebook.com/events/735944480133418/

A feature-length documentary chronicling a successful grassroots citizens’ effort to shut down the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor in Vermont, directed by long-time Pioneer Valley filmmaker Robbie Leppzer. A timely, inspiring story of democracy in action; about whether citizens’ voices will be heard against big moneyed interests, and what people are doing locally right now to make a difference for a sustainable energy future. Featuring Frances Crowe and other local activists from western Massachusetts and Vermont. Original Music by John Sheldon.

Also featuring the premiere of a short film, FRANCES TURNS 100, chronicling Frances’ 100th birthday protest march through the streets of Northampton. Frances will also be a featured speaker. This is a benefit fundraiser to launch our national grassroots film campaign. For more information and to watch a film trailer, visit: www.PowerStruggleMovie.com.

Filmmaker Robbie Leppzer will speak and moderate post-screening discussion panels with film participants. Thursday, June 6 Post-Screening Panel: Features local activists talking about the current status and future of the Vermont Yankee decommissioning process, as well as the long-term public health hazards from high-level radioactive waste that will be stored indefinitely on the banks of the Connecticut River at the Vermont Yankee site. Panelists include: Deb Katz and Harvey Schaktman of the Citizen’s Awareness Network, and Clay Turnbull of the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution.

Friday, June 7 Post-Screening Panel: Features Frances Crowe and members of her Shut It Down Affinity Group (all women over 70), who will talk about their participation in the movement to shut down Vermont Yankee and reflect on their affinity group experiences for lessons learned that could apply to other grassroots political struggles.

“A genuine David vs. Goliath battle. A rich story of whether grassroots democracy, in the form of citizens and local government, can triumph over entrenched, powerful interests like the nuclear energy industry. Through a story with many twists and turns, Leppzer keeps the film’s focus on the individuals caught up in the drama.”

— Steve Pfarrer, DAILY HAMPSHIRE GAZETTE

“POWER STRUGGLE is the remarkable story about how people power overcame corporate power and government cover-ups to finally shut down an aging and dangerous nuclear plant. We see how small town citizens were transformed into tenacious environmental activists who triumphed against the odds. POWER STRUGGLE is a hopeful story that reminds us that citizen activism is not just possible, it is essential to saving our endangered planet.”

— David Goodman, best-selling author, journalist and radio host, THE VERMONT CONVERSATION

Happy Valley Guitar Orchestra Concert

The Happy Valley Guitar Orchestra performs their annual

Spring Concerts

presented by the Northampton Center for the Arts
Friday May 31st and Saturday June 1st at 8 pm

The Happy Valley Guitar Orchestra puts on their signature event of the season; two concerts over two nights at Northampton’s premiere venue for the arts, the newly opened 33 Hawley St. Presented by the Northampton Center for the Arts, the Valley’s finest avant-garde community music ensemble will perform music by James Brown, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Bela Bartok, Felix Mendelssohn, Heitor Villa-Lobos and surf guitar classics such as “Pipeline.” 

HVGO is an ensemble of 15 all-amplified electric, acoustic, classical and bass guitars (plus drums) made up of all locally based players from a wide variety of stylistic backgrounds, creating a unique sound that can only come from such an unusual combination.

HVGO’s program is centered around the music of James Brown and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Using as the starting point his own meticulous transcriptions of classic recordings from the 1960’s and 70’s (James Brown’s “Cold Sweat”, “Funky Drummer”, and “Ain’t it Funky Now” and four cuts from Antonio Carlos Jobim’s LP masterpiece Stone Flower), Artistic Director Joseph Ricker has created arrangements for the HVGO which highlight the work of Brown and Jobim as composers, a less well acknowledged aspect of the legacy of these music icons. The orchestra will also perform Ricker’s arrangements of selections from Gyermekeknek by Bela Bartok, Songs without Words Felix Mendelssohn, Suite Populaire Brasilienne by Heitor Villa Lobos as well as surf guitar classics such as “Pipeline.”

“The Spring Concerts are where we really get to strut our stuff,” says Ricker .“We’re  excited to present this fun, fascinating and beautiful repertoire and show off all the hard work we’ve been up to this season. Don’t miss it!”

Tickets: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4221116 $18 (adv.) $20 (door, cash or check only), $10 (under 18 and students with valid i.d) 

Performances: May 31st 2019 and June 1st 2019 at 8:00 PM, 33 Hawley St. Northampton, MA

More info: hvgo.org

Moving into Place

Moving Into Place 

May 24th, 7pm, 2019

Suggested $3 donation at the door

Leila Kaplan, Tess O'Day, Madeline Clyne, Sophie Abraham

Join us for the culmination of our embodied research investigation we have been working on for the last several months! As a group we have held space for one another to explore our relationship to the Connecticut River Valley through movement exploration and collaborative choreography. Our hope was to gain a more dynamic understanding of this area by moving through our own and others feelings and relationships to it. Come see what we've learned!

The event will be comprised of a short movement piece we created and an interactive activity that will explore how our bodies can be tools in understanding and relating to the place of the Connecticut River Valley and the people we inhabit it with.

GLOW :: Ecstatic Dance Northampton :: "Explore" w/DJ Ra So

May 19th, 7-9:30pm

Online & At the Door (sliding scale): $15-25
Low Income w/ EBT Card: $10
Students w/ valid ID: $10
Kids 3-12: $5

More financial information, including scholarships, available at event link on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/369177123695019/ or online at www.ecstaticnnortheast.com

“Explore your inner creative genius through the medium you love and enjoy the journey!” ~ Ken Poirot

Dance is love, community, nourishment, inspiration, connection, bliss...

Let's dance together and start the week off in movement and magic. GLOW invites an early evening gathering of community to co-create a journey together... with a mix of local and worldwide teachers, DJs, artists, and musicians to weave a rich experience with a worldwide community and our local family.

..come together and glow with us!


PROGRAM
6:45pm Doors open, Welcome
7:00 Opening Circle & Warmup w/Sarah Monette
8:15 - Second Dance Wave w/DJ Ra So
9:15 Live Musician Soundscape & Closing

❖ In honoring the dance and integrating the experience, we will conclude with humming of gratitude and silent departure ❖

Event Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/369177123695019/

Jazz Shares: Michael Formanek Quartet

Saturday, May 18, 7:30pm

Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares presents Michael Formanek Quartet, featuring Michael Formanek, bass, compositions, Tony Malaby, tenor and soprano saxophone, Kris Davis, piano and Ches Smith, drums. The Center for the Arts at 33 Hawley St., Northampton, MA. Tickets: $15

http://jazzshares.org/

We're all Bettys

Friday, May 17 at 8:00 pm
Saturday, May 18 at 2:00 pm
Tickets, general sliding scale $10-$20, SBS community $5 https://wereallbettys.brownpapertickets.com/

The Center for the Arts presents "We're All Bettys," a dance concert piece by Cat Wagner in collaboration with Kelly Silliman and advanced dance students from Stoneleigh-Burnham School.

"Bitchin' Betty" is a slang term used by pilots and aircrew to reference the (often female) voices used in aircraft warning systems. Inspired by this term and an episode of the Unladylike podcast, "We're All Bettys" explores the relationships between gender and artificial intelligence. Following similar creative processes, choreographer Cat Wagner has created two entirely different pieces : one for her advanced dance students at Stoneleigh-Burnham, an independent girls' school in Greenfield, MA, and one with her longtime collaborative partner, Kelly Silliman. The pieces combine the quotidian with the idiosyncratic and exhibit repetition and counterpoint with an obsessive, cerebral formalism.

Photography by Matthew Cavanaugh

Stories of Bicycle History and Activism

May 11, 2019

6:00-8:00pm

Tickets: $8 for FNTG and Historic Northampton members, $12 general admission, cash at door

Lorenz Finison, social psychologist, public health practitioner, historian, and cyclist, will present: ”Stories of Bicycling History and Activism.” Larry is a founding member of Cycling Through History, a nonprofit organization that links cyclists with maps and information about African-American heritage and history in Massachusetts, and the author of two books, Boston’s Cycle Craze, 1880-1900: A Story of Race, Class, and Society (2014) and Boston’s Twentieth-Century Bicycling Renaissance: Cultural Change on Two Wheels (2019). Autographed copies will be available for cash purchase at the talk.

Lisa Leizman Dance Company presents Sweetness

May 10, 2019, 7:30pm

Tickets: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4208522

The Center for the Arts presents the Lisa Leizman Dance Company in concert on Friday, May 10 in the magnificent new Flex theater space of the Northampton Community Arts Trust Building, 33 Hawley Street, Northampton. The 7:30 pm performance is followed by a festive dinner reception prepared by members of the Lisa Leizman Dance Company.  Tickets are $17 for adults (in advance)/$20 (at the door) and $10 for children under 10 (in advance)/$12 (at the door), available at  https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4208522. Advance tickets are strongly recommended.

Warmer days, sap flowing, soft growing light. Time for some sweetness! How about spending a lovely spring evening with the Center’s long-time resident dance company? Find sweetness in the old—repertory pieces “Evening Song” with music by Philip Glass in an extraordinary arrangement by Peter Blanchette and “Sonata for Alto Horn and Piano” set to music by Paul Hindemith. And look for sweetness in brand new work set to music by company composer-in-residence Andrea Kwapien (“Imbolc”) and in an aria from Cantata 51 by J.S. Bach. Underfoot, a beautiful new hardwood floor perfect for dance. Not to mention plentiful free parking and a delicious reception following the performance—now that’s sweet!

GLOW :: Ecstatic Dance Northampton :: "Swirl" w/Deep Seize

May 5, 7-9:30pm

Online & At the Door (sliding scale): $15-25
Low Income w/ EBT Card: $10
Students w/ valid ID: $10
Kids 3-12: $5

More financial information, including scholarships, available at event link on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/408706863010420/ or online at www.ecstaticnnortheast.com

"Dance, and your veils which hide the light, Shall swirl in a heap at your feet." - Rumi

Dance is love, community, nourishment, inspiration, connection, bliss...

Let's dance together and start the week off in movement and magic. GLOW invites an early evening gathering of community to co-create a journey together... with a mix of local and worldwide teachers, DJs, artists, and musicians to weave a rich experience with a worldwide community and our local family.

..come together and glow with us!

PROGRAM
6:45pm Doors open, Welcome
7:00 Opening Circle & First Dance Wave w/Deep Seize
8:15 - Second Dance Wave w/DJ Journey Weaver
9:15 Live Musician Soundscape & Closing

❖ In honoring the dance and integrating the experience, we will conclude with humming of gratitude and silent departure ❖

Event Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/408706863010420/

Loving Women Cabaret

Loving Women Cabaret

May 4, 7:30pm

Join six singers for a musical celebration of women loving women highlighting the passions and struggles of the gay and women's liberation movements of the 1970's.

Tickets are $15 in advance through Brown Paper Tickets, and available at door for $20 cash or check.

Stories of Our LGBTQ Ancestors: Dr. Amber Starbuck and Mabel Stevens

A group shot kept by Dr. Starbuck in a personal photo album shows gay and lesbian couples holding hands outside the Big House, Middlefield, MA, circa 1930. Photo Credit: Sexual Minorities Archives.

Friday, May 3, 2019 at 7 PM

Tickets available at the door are $10 general, $5 for students and elders. 

As part of its continuing original research series on pre-Stonewall era LGBTQ individuals who lived in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, the Sexual Minorities Archives (SMA) of Holyoke will present a new history talk about Dr. Amber Starbuck and Mabel Stevens of Middlefield. The two women were an out lesbian couple who ran a wellness resort called the Big House in Middlefield from the 1920s to 1960s. The history talk, Stories of Our LGBTQ Ancestors: Dr. Amber Starbuck and Mabel Stevens, will be shown to the public for the first time twice in Northampton in the coming weeks. This event at the Center for the Arts is a collaboration between the Sexual Minorities Archives and Historic Northampton. Tickets available at the door are $10 general, $5 for students and elders. 

The story of Starbuck and Stevens is a compelling narrative of pre-Stonewall queer lives and queer community, of lesbians openly living in rural Massachusetts, and working women who were trailblazers as prominent community leaders in Springfield as well as Middlefield, MA. This talk is especially for those interested in LGBTQI+ history, women's and feminist history, early lesbian history in the Pioneer Valley, history of women's participation in community organizations (both women were involved in the Springfield YWCA), women's labor history in western Massachusetts, rural physicians and healthcare, gender non-conformity, and more. 

The talk draws on a range of primary sources discovered and organized by the SMA -- including local news clippings, print ads and posters, Big House artifacts, Census and Ancestry.com records, and, most notably, photographs from a personal album compiled by Starbuck and Stevens, and images from the Big House photographed recently by the SMA. These sources provide the visuals for the talk.

Stories of Our LGBTQ Ancestors: Dr. Amber Starbuck and Mabel Stevens teaches the community about local movers and shakers who were instrumental in forming businesses and organizations well before the start of the modern LGBTQ Movement but whose histories have been hidden – until now. 

The history talk is a 90-minute PowerPoint presentation full of found images and historical facts about the two women, their work and love relationship, followed by a Question and Answer session. 

For those who want to learn more about Starbuck and Stevens, the SMA will offer at the talk a PDF of an accompanying 80-page, annotated SMA original research paper that includes photos not shown in the presentation, for an additional donation of $10.

The SMA’s team of researchers, led by Curator of the SMA, Ben Power, who is the Executive Director of the Sexual Minorities Educational Foundation, spent five years conducting in-depth research and compiled it into this new history talk.  Everyone is welcome to attend. Both events are wheelchair-accessible.