Published in Berkshires Week on July 16, 2014
Original article: http://www.benningtonbanner.com/youthsports/ci_26158572/young-pianists-converge-bennington

BENNINGTON — With accommodations for 42 campers and a staggering total of 30 pianos placed strategically in bedrooms, hallways, closets and even the laundry room, Polly van der Linde’s home on Catamount Lane invites the students of her Summer Sonatina piano camp to completely immerse themselves in music for up to five weeks at a time.

Now celebrating their 45th summer, the van der Linde family started Summer Sonatina in 1969 at their home in North Bennington when they couldn’t find a piano camp elsewhere for their own children. In 1978 the family relocated the camp (and their home) to Old Bennington, taking over a 42-room former convent and packing it with as many pianos and bunk beds as it can fit, along with a professional kitchen to feed all the hungry pianists …

Published in Berkshires Week on July 9, 2014
Original article: http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_26116742/amy-herzogs-4000-miles-at-benningtons-oldcastle-theatre

BENNINGTON — “The best American plays are about families,” says Eric Peterson, producing artistic director at Bennington’s Oldcastle Theatre and director of Oldcastle’s new play “4000 Miles,” which opens July 11 and will run through July 27.

“‘Death of a Salesman,’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’ Eugene O’Neill’s great plays about the American Family, Sam Shepard’s best plays — each playwright has their version of family,” he said. “And we all come from families, so we can all identify with family things.”

Written by young playwright Amy Herzog and first staged Off-Broadway in 2011, “4000 Miles” tells the story of 21-year-old Leo Joseph-Connell, played by Andrew Krug, and 91-year-old grandmother Vera, played by Janis Young. After tragedy interrupts his cross-country bicycle trip, the show begins with Leo arriving unannounced at Vera’s Manhattan apartment in the …

Published in Berkshires Week on July 9, 2014
Original article: http://www.benningtonbanner.com/berkshiresweek/ci_26116729/music-from-salem-honoring-french-horn-cambridge-ny

CAMBRIDGE, N.Y. — Cue the fanfares.

This Sunday, July 13, at 2 p.m. Music from Salem will present their second concert of the summer at Hubbard Hall — “Dynamic and Noble,” a program highlighting the French Horn. John Craig Hubbard will playing the concert’s instrument and include famous pieces of chamber music with deep historical and musical ties to the horn.

“There isn’t a lot of chamber music with horn, piano and strings, but what there is is wonderful,” said Lila Brown, the director of Music from Salem, who will also perform in this concert on Viola. The concert will center on Mozart’s 1782 Horn Quintet and Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro for horn and piano, composed in 1849. The group will also perform works by 20th-century Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas and a piece by …

Published in the Bennington Banner on July 2, 2014
Original article: http://www.benningtonbanner.com/ci_26071889/frendly-gathering-3-parts-happy-1-part-rowdy

WINDHAM — “There ain’t no ‘I’ in Frends” sang Twiddle’s Mihali Savoulidis from his wooden platform in the Frendly Gathering’s DJ nest, about 15 feet from the forest floor. It was well after 4 a.m. on Sunday morning, and Twiddle had just come back for an encore at the end of their festival-closing set. In a moment of smiling convergence, Savoulidis and his band started their encore with “Frends Theme,” a song that the band wrote specifically for the group of snowboarding best fr(i)ends that initially conceived and now personally organize the festival every summer, using their creatively spelled motto as the song’s central lyric.

Clinging to the last few songs of the 2014 Gathering, the crowd responded like they weren’t tired and they definitely didn’t want to go home yet.

Pro snowboarders …

Published in Berkshires Week on July 2, 2014
Original article: http://www.berkshireeagle.com/berkshiresweekcalendar/ci_26075921/making-folk-contemporary

BENNINGTON — Opening this Saturday, July 5, the Bennington Museum’s major show of the summer traces almost two centuries of American portraiture history through the work of two painters with ties to Vermont: 19th-century itinerant portrait painter Erastus Salisbury Field (1805-1900) and Alice Neel (1900-1985).

Playing off the strength of the museum’s portraiture collection (which includes nine Field portraits, tracing back to the time he spent in Bennington), curator Jamie Franklin said he hopes the new exhibit will help visitors make new connections with some of the museum’s historical collections.

“What has more baggage than old paintings of people? That’s the stereotypical example of what young, hip people think is old and boring,” Franklin said. This show is “taking on that challenge, and showing that actually they can be quite interesting.”

Museum director Robert Wolterstorff …

Published in Bennington Banner on June 26, 2014
Original article: http://www.benningtonbanner.com/localnews/ci_26020337/amelia-meath-sylvan-esso-benningtons-own-pop-star

Four years after her graduation from Bennington College, where she even stayed over the summers to work at the library, Amelia Meath might just be Bennington’s first pop star.

Meath’s music career started in the living room of her house on Main Street in North Bennington, where she heard future bandmate Molly Erin Sarle singing her original tune “Dog Song.” Meath and Alexandra Sauser-Monnig learned the song, and soon the trio became Mountain Man. Quickly attracting attention on the internet with their tranquil, unvarnished songs and layered vocal harmonies, Mountain Man released their debut album “Made the Harbor” in the summer of 2010, earning the band critical acclaim and the chance to perform at the Newport Folk Festival, tour with Sigur Ros frontman Jonsi and temporarily join Leslie Fiest’s band as backing singers.

Now, …

Published in Berkshires Week on June 25, 2014
Original article: http://www.berkshireeagle.com/berkshiresweek/ci_26030555/left-bank-north-bennington-opens-doors

NORTH BENNINGTON — With historic structures like the Park-McCullough house, Powers’ Market or the North Bennington Train depot, as well as the marvels of modern architecture at Bennington College, the buildings of North Bennington have played a huge role in shaping the culture and community of the village. Now, thanks to the Fund for North Bennington and the Preservation Trust of Vermont, the village gets to return the favor and re-imagine one of the village’s most prominent buildings to fit the needs, wants and whims of the local community.

Rechristened the Left Bank, a reference to the famously artistic neighborhood in Paris as well as the business that left the building in November, the former Merchant’s Bank building at 5 Bank Street was renovated over the winter and has now re-opened as a …

Published in Berkshires Week on June 25, 2014
Original article: http://www.benningtonbanner.com/berkshiresweek/ci_25806813/mayfest-attracts-art

WILMINGTON — Sitting about halfway between Bennington and Brattleboro, at the foot of Haystack Mountain in the Deerfield Valley, Wilmington is more than a stop along Route 9 for skiers and summer tourists. Less than three years after the rising Deerfield River flooded 48 of the town’s businesses during Hurricane Irene, Wilmington has rebuilt with all of its Green Mountain charm intact.

“The whole town is coming back, actually better than it ever was. All of these buildings needed renovation, and it probably wouldn’t have been done if not for the flood,” said Lenny Chapman, owner of Chapman’s Antiques. “It’s like the whole town is getting renovated.”

Chapman and his wife Diane started their antiques business 11 years ago after renovating an abandoned barn west of downtown Wilmington.

Open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through …

Published in Berkshires Week on June 18, 2014
Original article: http://www.berkshireeagle.com/berkshiresweek/ci_25986102/find-hidden-hoosick

HOOSICK FALLS, N.Y. — As part of their mission to build community and promote the arts around their town, the Hoosick Armory Youth Center and Community Coalition (better known as HAYC3) has invited Hoosick and Hoosick Falls residents of all ages to join in a community exhibition of photographs taken around town, hoping to fill the walls of their 120gallery90 exhibit space with images that show all the details and facets of life in Hoosick.

Opening this Friday, June 20, at 7 p.m. with a reception that will include music from Bennington cover band Funk in the Trunk, the Hidden Hoosick exhibition will give amateur and professional Hoosick photographers the chance to display and possibly sell their framed images of the town, whether or not they have any experience with professional photography.

“This show …

Published in Berkshires Week on June 18, 2014
Original article: http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_25986090/iron-and-wine-will-play-mass-moca

NORTH ADAMS — Three years after their sold-out Mass MoCA debut in the spring of 2011, progressive folk-pop pioneers Iron and Wine will return to the museum on Sunday for an encore performance with some new songs and a simplified lineup of musicians.

Originally the solo musical project of cinematography professor Sam Beam, who recorded the intimate first Iron and Wine album on a four-track tape recorder in 2002, the band has since expanded in size and creative scope, building to the lush string arrangements and classic pop orchestration of its most recent album “Ghost on Ghost.”

While he remains the lead singer, songwriter and recognizable bearded face of Iron and Wine, Beam often performs live concerts with a hand-picked band of backing musicians, which offers him the opportunity to recreate some of his …