iPutney Calendar

Presented as part of Sandglass Theater’s Winter Sunshine Series:

OMA by Sandglass Theater
Oma says that knitting is not just pom pom hats and sweaters. Oma’s knitting contains whole stories! This family show by Shoshana Bass and Jana Zeller is an intergenerational tale that revolves around Grandma, or “Oma,” and her family’s antics at her birthday celebration! Directed by Ines Zeller Bass and featuring a special musical score composed by Molly Gawler and the Gawler Family Band, the show runs 45 min and is recommended for ages 4 and up.

Since the runaway success of her first album, THE HONESTY ROOM, Dar Williams has become one of the most beloved singer/songwriters in America. Songs such as “When I Was A Boy,” “The Babysitter’s Here,” “The Christians and the Pagans” and “After All” are classics, and her books, “Amalie,” “What I Learned In A Thousand Towns” and “How To Write A Song That Matters” are thought-provoking and inspirational. Her fourth appearance at the Bellows Falls Opera House kicks off the Ray Massucco Concert Series. Fast-rising newcomer Crys Matthews opens.

Ticketing:
Band A, GOLD: $45.00
Band B, MAROON: $37.00
Band C, PURPLE: $28.00
Band D, BLUE (limited legroom): $18.50
(plus $2/ticket service charge)
Ticket sales are final. No refunds unless the show is cancelled and not rescheduled.

This series is presented by RED Concerts and Next Stage Arts. For further questions or information about this concert, please call 802-387-0102 or email info@nextstagearts.org

The Ray Massucco Concert Series is presented with the help of the Rockingham Arts and Museum Project and Great Eastern Radio: KOOL-FM and THE PEAK.

Balla Kouyaté and Mike Block have been collaborating for over a decade, bonding over their shared interest in music from across the world, and their commitment to innovating on their instruments. Balla Kouyate, a balafon player and singer coming out of the Djeli tradition of Mali, was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship from the NEA. Mike Block is an American cellist/singer/composer, and a Grammy Award-winning musician with the Silk Road Ensemble originally trained in Western Classical music.

To say that Balla Kouyaté was born into a musical family is an understatement. His family lineage goes back over 800 years to Balla Faséké, the first of an unbroken line of djelis in the Kouyaté clan. Djelis are the oral historians, musicians, and performers who keep alive and celebrate the history of the Mandé people of Mali, Guinea, and other West African countries. Balla explains that the word “Djeli” derives from his Mandinka language, “It means blood and speaks to the central role we play in our society.” One must be born into it. The Kouyaté family is regarded as the original praise-singers of the Malinké people, one of the ethnic groups found across much of West Africa. In 2001, the “Sosso bala” was declared a site of intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO. This powerful symbol of Mande culture is brought out once a year for ceremonial playing. Balla also regularly plays with world renowned West African musicians who are touring in the States. He often accompanies kora master Mamadou Diabaté, and in 2004 joined NEA National Heritage Fellow Sidiki Cond Kouyaté for a month-long residency at Carnegie Hall.

Mike Block is a pioneering cello player, singer, composer, and educator, hailed by Yo- Yo Ma as the “ideal musician of the 21st-Century”. Mike is a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble (SRE), having joined in 2005 while a student at The Juilliard School. Touring extensively throughout the world with SRE, he has been featured as cello and vocal soloist, contributed arrangements and compositions, and earned a Grammy Award in 2017 for their album, Sing Me Home. As an innovator, Mike is among the first wave of cellists to adopt a strap in order to stand and move while playing. With The Block Strap, Mike was the first standing cellist to perform at Carnegie Hall. The NY Times characterized the performance as, “Breathless … Half dance, half dare.” As an educator, Mike is passionate about creativity and collaboration, and is the founding director of Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop, and the Mike Block String Camp.

John Hughes is an internationally renowned composer, kora player, percussionist and vocalist whose style crosses myriad cultural boundaries and fuses disparate influences. Playing ancient traditional instruments not often heard in the United States, many of which he builds himself, John takes his audience on an intimate musical tour of universal expressions of joy and hope that soothe and up-lift the spirit. Whether playing elegant and stately pieces from the classical repertoire of the Jeli’s (Griot’s) of West Africa or original compositions, John’s kora playing has an uncommon beauty that is, at once, exquisitely detailed and bold. His signature pieces are rhythmically nuanced and laced with syncopations that cascade off the strings into whirlpools of mesmerizing sound.

Also a sculptor, dancer, instrument builder and educator, John holds a B.F.A. from the Tyler School of Art of Temple University and the West Surrey College of Art and Design in Farnham, England and an M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. John has studied the music, song and dance of West Africa for over 28 years, training with numerous master drummers and dancers from Guinea and Mali, including Mamady Keita and Famoudou Konate. As a Kora player, John is totally self-taught and has, thus, developed a style all his own. Having intently studied traditional kora music for 10 years before he even touched the instrument, however, his playing is deeply rooted in the ancient Mande tradition.

What does a people’s history of nuclear weapons look like? Through popular books and government records, the Manhattan Project is remembered as a triumph of scientific innovation. This institutional memory fetishizes the novelty of nuclear fission while ignoring the communities and ecosystems exposed to radiation and industrial contamination.

Through their project, Off Country, Dunne and Stewart interrogate the institutional racism of the nuclear weapons industry, using oral history to articulate how the creation of “National Sacrifice Zones” has disproportionately affected native and Anglo-ranching people as well as communities of color throughout the Southwest. The filmmakers will preview their in-production feature film Off Country and facilitate a conversation about how experimental cinema and documentary can augment, resist, and subvert the institutional memory of the nuclear weapons industry.

Cameron Crowe • 122m

A high-school boy in the early 1970s is given the chance to write a story for Rolling Stone magazine about an up-and-coming rock band as he accompanies them on their concert tour.

Cecilia Zabala of Buenos Aires, Argentina is a rising star on the global music scene. With 10 CDs and close to 20 years international touring experience to her credit, Zabala’s music embodies the deep soul of the acoustic guitar, from its Iberian and North African roots, to its versatility as a worldwide voice of modern musical expression.

Cecilia Zabala’s distinction as a performing artist is multi-dimensional. From a technical perspective, she is a master singer and instrumentalist, conservatory trained, and a respected guitar instructor in the cosmopolitan center of Buenos Aires. But her musical vision is far from staid. Her music bridges genres from the European classical guitar tradition to Brazilian bossa nova and MPB, from Chilean Nuevo Cancion and its Argentine relative, Nuevo Cancionero, to global jazz. Her music combines many elements of global folkloric music, in a synthesis that bridges so many styles and genres that it can fairly be described as “sui generis,” or without comparison. In one respect, the essence of her artistic identity is as a singer songwriter, but with a poetic rather than narrative character that seems distinctly South American. Her music is dreamlike, and steeped in the deep soul of her native Argentina, and by extension, Spain. In performance, whether solo or with an ensemble, Zabala is mesmerizing, from start to finish. As an instrumentalist, her performances are hypnotic. As a singer and presenter, she’s both seductive, and a bit of a sorceress, or as they say in Argentina, a “bruja.”

Vermont resident Eugene Friesen is active internationally as a cellist, composer, recording artist, and teacher. He has performed on six continents as a soloist and with the Grammy Award-winning Paul Winter Consort. Eugene is an artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, and on faculty at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. More information on Eugene can be found online at www.celloman.com

Le Patin Libre is a contemporary ice skating company from Montreal, originally founded in 2005 by ex high-level figure skaters. They regrouped with the intention of transforming their athleticism into a means of free expression. Far from sparkles, stereotypes and champions’ demos, the creations of Le Patin Libre propose real works of art exploiting the amazing choreographic and theatrical potential of glide.

In Carte Blanche, Le Patin Libre’s founders share the essence of their contemporary skating: glide, virtuosity, freedom. With joyful authenticity and no frills, the revolutionary skating-artists combine excerpts of their most-acclaimed pieces and short pieces to create a festive, accessible and impressive entry-door to their new choreographic art form.

Support for this program is provided in part by the Quebec Government Office in Boston.

Next Stage Arts and Twilight Music present an evening of contemporary folk and bluegrass music from near and far by Vermont-based The Stockwell Brothers and Oregon-based Fellow Pynins.

Bruce, Barry, Alan, and Kelly Stockwell’s music spans traditional and progressive styles, but their trademark acoustic sound features new singer/songwriter material recast with banjo, alternative rhythms, and three-part harmonies. Featuring 2005 Merlefest bluegrass banjo contest winner Bruce Stockwell, The Stockwell Brothers have performed alongside artists ranging from Bill Monroe, Doc Watson and Earl Scruggs to Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Jonathan Edwards and Asleep At The Wheel; recorded with Mike Auldridge and Phil Rosenthal of the bluegrass supergroup The Seldom Scene; and toured throughout the United States and in Canada and Europe.

Fellow Pynins is an award-winning contemporary folk duo with a keen and bucolic sense of vocal harmony and song craft. Wielding claw-hammer banjo, Irish bouzouki, mandolin, and acoustic guitar, Dani Aubert and Ian George sing predominantly original music as well as reworked traditional ballads gathered from their travels.

Come hear about a career path less travelled, and the lessons learned along the way. Rhymes With Orange newspaper cartoonist Hilary Price will talk about getting ideas, making comics, and living a creative life

This presentation will discuss the sociological and technological barriers that Dr. Cary Supalo encountered on his journey to receiving a doctorate in Chemistry. His ability to leverage both resources and networks to assist him in making technologies work more synergistically has resulted in more access for researchers who are blind. Supalo will share his multi-faceted approach to learning how to perform fundamental problem-solving in a scientific context which opened the door of opportunity to becoming a contributor to the field of chemistry.

This talk is cosponsored through a grant from the National Science Foundation’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics program