Music
• Open Mic Night in West Townshend: On Thursday, Feb. 24, at 7 p.m., there will be an open mic night at the old West Townshend Country Store on Route 30. Robert DuGrenier will be the master of ceremonies. All who wish to play or listen are invited, and any donations of refreshments are welcomed.
For more information, contact DuGrenier at rd@dugrenier.com.
• Dan Bern at the Hooker-Dunham: Frighteningly witty, thrillingly irreverent and monumentally insightful, Dan Bern is best known for his prolific songwriting and magical stage presence. He will be at the Hooker-Dunham Theater in Brattleboro with backing band Common Rotation on Friday, Feb. 25, at 8 p.m.
Bern has released some dozen albums since 1997, while performing everywhere from small clubs to Carnegie Hall. Recently, Bern has focused much of his talent and sharp wit on writing songs for movies and other projects.
He composed over a dozen songs for the Jake Kasdan/Judd Apatow spoof, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, starring John C. Reilly, and contributed several more songs to Apatow's Get Him to the Greek, starring Russell Brand and Jonah Hill. He wrote the title song for Jonathan Demme's 2008 documentary, Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains, and also contributed original songs for Demme's 2010 off-Broadway production of Family Week, which included a Bern duet with Emmylou Harris.
Tickets are $15. For reservations, call 802-254-9276. For more information, visit www.danbern.com, www.commonrotation.com and www.hookerdunham.org.
• Anais Mitchell at Hooker-Dunham: Twilight Music presents contemporary folk singer/songwriter Anais Mitchell and folk/rock/classical quintet Darlingside at Hooker-Dunham Theater & Gallery on Saturday, Feb. 26 at 7 p.m.
Part dustbowl rabble-rouser, part Cosmic American poet, Mitchell writes songs that are as intimate as conversations and as rich in detail as short stories. Her CDs shimmer with creative spark, spilling over with worldly metaphors, intense emotions and unshakeable reverence to the art of song.
Most recently, Anais has staged Hadestown, an original folk-opera based on the myth of Hades and Eurydice, and released Hadestown, the album, performed by Ani DiFranco, Justin Vernon/Bon Iver, Greg Brown and Mitchell herself, among others. A Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk competition winner, she is the rare musician who is equally comfortable wielding an acoustic guitar alone onstage, sharing a disc's worth of alt-country duets, or scripting a vast operatic journey into the underworld.
Opening for Mitchell is Darlingside, a Northampton, Mass.-based “string rock” quintet. Tickets for this show are $16 general admission/$14 students and seniors. For ticket reservations and information, call 802-254-9276. For more information, visit www.anaismitchell.com, www.darlingside.com and www.hookerdunham.org.
• Jayne Kelly in Bellows Falls: Stone Church Arts welcomes Jayne Kelly to Immanuel Episcopal Church and its Steinway nine foot concert grand piano in Bellows Falls, on Saturday, Feb. 26, at 7:30 p.m.
Kelly is a classical pianist, teacher, and jazz singer, and teaches extensively, with an emphasis on adult instruction. In her classical set, she'll perform works from Beethoven, Debussy, Janecek and Prokofiev. Then, in a jazz set accompanied by Walt Sayre on piano, she'll sings various songs, including jazz standards.
Admission is $17 for adults ($13 for seniors and children under 12) in advance and $20 ($15) at the door. Tickets are available at Village Square Booksellers (Bellows Falls), Toadstool Bookshop (Keene, N.H.), Brattleboro Books, Misty Valley Books (Chester), and at www.brattleborotix.com or available at the door. For more information, call 802-463-3100.
• Stockwell Brothers at Flat Street Brew Pub: Newgrass and contemporary folk trio The Stockwell Brothers will perform at the Flat Street Brew Pub on Saturday, Feb. 26, at 9:30 p.m.
Bruce, Barry and Alan 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 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.
Flat Street Brew Pub is located at 6 Flat Street in downtown Brattleboro. Admission to the show is $5. For information, call 802-257-1911. For more information, visit www.flatstreetbrewpub.net and www.stockwellbrothers.com.
• Merfeld, Keyes and special guests at Marlboro: Pianist Robert Merfeld and violinist Bayla Keyes return to Marlboro College for its Music for Sunday Afternoon series on Sunday, Feb. 27, at 3 p.m., in Ragle Hall.
The duo will be joined by Julia Glenn (violin) and Paul Glenn (violoncello and double bass) for portions of an eclectic program that includes Johan Halvorsen's Passacaglia, based on a theme by George Friedrich Handel, and 20th century composer Nelson Keyes' Three Love Songs for Piano. The group is also scheduled to perform sonatas by Bach, Bartok and Ravel.
This performance is free and open to the public. Donations will be accepted to benefit the Luis Batlle Music Chair during the concert. In case of inclement weather, call the Marlboro College Events line at 802-451-7151.
• Brattleboro Women's Chorus prepares for spring season: The Brattleboro Women's Chorus resumes weekly rehearsals on Wednesday, March 2, at All Soul's Church in West Brattleboro.
New and returning singers are welcome to join the singing gatherings Wednesday nights from 7-8:45. Director Becky Graber teaches many songs by rote and by ear, with practice CDs for home study, and financial aid is available to make the chorus available to all interested women and girls over 10.
The rehearsals culminate in May concerts, and the music selections this spring continue to be “songs of home”. For more information, visit brattleborowomenschorus.org, e-mail bwchorus@gmail.com or call Graber at 802-254-8994.
• Violinist Bella Hristova performs with VSO: The Bellows Falls Opera House will once again host the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, joined by famed violinist Bella Hristova, on Friday, March 4.
Music Director Jaime Laredo has already brought two outstanding young soloists to Vermont this season. In March, as part of the VSO's Masterworks performances, this one entitled “Voyages,” he introduces his protégé, violinist Hristova, who will perform Dvořák's Violin Concerto.
Hristova was born in Pleven, Bulgaria, in 1985, and began violin studies at the age of six. At age 12, she participated in master classes with Ruggiero Ricci at the Mozarteum in Salzberg. In 2003, she entered the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, where she studied chamber music with Steven Tenenbom. The award-winning violinist is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma with Laredo at Indiana University. She plays a 1655 Nicolò Amati violin, once owned by the violinist Louis Krasner.
The VSO will also perform Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3 and John Corigliano's Voyage.
Tickets are available through the Vermont Festivals LLC office at 802-463-9595, online at www.brattleborotix.com, or at one of the following outlets: Village Square Booksellers and Fat Franks in Bellows Falls, Misty Valley Books in Chester, or Brattleboro Books in Brattleboro.
• Contra dance benefits farmers: On Saturday, March 5, there will be a contra and square dance at the Jamaica Town Hall to benefit Taylor Farm in Londonderry, which had a barn collapse under all the heavy snow we received several weeks ago.
Music and calling will be provided by Sally Newton, Michael Donahue and friends. There will be an hour for children and beginners. starting at 7 p.m., experienced dancers are welcome to join and help out. Dances will be taught throughout the evening as well. Refreshments will be sold.
Those who wish to help with refreshments may contact Sally Newton at 802-874-7141.
Lectures
• Dante and his Inferno: Poet and Dante translator Michael Palma will discuss the popularity of Dante's Inferno in a talk at Brattleboro's Brooks Memorial Library on March 2. His talk, The Towering Inferno, is part of the Vermont Humanities Council's First Wednesdays lecture series and takes place at 7 p.m.
The most frequently translated work in America today is Dante Alighieri's Inferno-a 700-year-old book-length poem. Palma will consider the enduring appeal of this medieval masterpiece and what it has to say to a contemporary audience.
Palma is a poet and translator and serves on the board of the Italian Poetry Society of America. His fully rhymed translation of the Inferno was published in 2002 by W. W. Norton & Company.
The Vermont Humanities Council's First Wednesdays series is held on the first Wednesday of every month from October through May, featuring free lectures from speakers of national and regional renown.
Upcoming Brattleboro talks include “Did Karl Marx Predict the Cuban Revolution?” with Amherst professor Javier Corrales on April 13 (rescheduled); “The Changing Face of Islam: Transformation in Modern South Asia” with Mount Holyoke College professor Kavita Datla on May 4; and “Beethoven's Sketchbooks” with pianist Michael Arnowitt on June 1 (rescheduled from Feb. 2).
For more information, contact Brooks Memorial Library at 802-254-5290 or contact the Vermont Humanities Council at 802-262-2626 or info@vermonthumanities.org, or visit www.vermonthumanities.org.
• Documentarian comes to Landmark College: As part of its 25th Anniversary Speakers Series, Landmark College will host ABC News Executive Producer Terence Wrong on Thursday, March 3.
Wrong has been a producer at ABC news for more than two decades. During that time, his work has been recognized with more than 30 major awards for documentary journalism, including a Peabody, three Emmies, and an Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University award.
His most recent work was the ABC News docu-series Boston Med, which aired last summer. Other multi-part series have included Hopkins in 2008, and Hooking Up in 2005, a journey through the often bizarre world of online dating.
In 2003, Wrong and his team spent 18 months in various units of the NYPD to produce NYPD 24/7, the most invasive look inside the nation's largest police force to date. In 2002, an earlier multi-part series, Boston 24/7, focused on life inside a big city mayor's office. Wrong's first series was Hopkins 24/7, a groundbreaking voyage in medical cinema vérité.
Prior to producing multi-part documentaries, Wrong had established himself among network television's most accomplished producers of single hour documentaries. He spent the first 13 years of his career overseas as a “hard” news producer stationed at bureaus in Beirut, Jerusalem, Frankfurt, and London. In this capacity, he witnessed many momentous events firsthand, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Czech revolution, numerous African famines, acts of terror, and wars both large and small.
The lecture will begin at 7 p.m. on the Landmark College Campus in Putney. The public is invited. Admission is free.
Performing arts
• Winter Sunshine Series at Sandglass Theater: On Saturday, Feb. 26, at 2 and 4 p.m. at Sandglass Theater in Putney, Ines Zeller Bass will perform Punschi, her take on the classic German puppet character Kasper.
Zeller Bass performs two hilarious stories with hand puppets under a sun-umbrella. In the first story, Kasper and the Cow, the stocking capped hero is joined by his friend, the loveable giant, Augustin, to retrieve his red suitcase stolen by the insatiable cow named Babette.
In the second story, The Surprise, Kasper finds himself taking an unexpected flight that ends abruptly in his Grandmother's clothesline. This
playful inter-active family show is rounded out with an appearance from Tschokolino, a shy clown who lives in a box and only understands German.
This performance is part of the Winter Sunshine Series of family performances, a collaboration between Sandglass Theater, Crabgrass Puppet
Theatre and Puppetwork New England. It is recommended for ages 4 and up. Tickets are $8. To make reservations, or for more information, contact Sandglass at 802-387-4051 or info@sandglasstheater.org.
Poetry
• Poetry series begins at The Book Cellar: The Book Cellar in Brattleboro will host a two-part poetry series entitled Back West and Out East, aimed at exploring contemporary poetry in the United States. Featuring work from the heart of Western America as well as that of traditional New England, a broad spectrum of themes will emerge that illustrates notions of regionalism and diversity alongside shared kinship and unity.
Week one in the series focuses on the West and introduces author Frances McCue. She will be reading from her new collection of poetry, The Bled, and also from her prose collection, The Car That Brought You Here Still Runs.
Part travelogue, part memoir, part literary scholarship, The Car That Brought You Here Still Runs traces the journey of McCue and photographer Mary Randlett as they follow the path of iconic Western poet Richard Hugo through the towns that inspired many of Hugo's poems.
Returning 40 years after Hugo visited these places, and bringing with her a deep knowledge of Hugo and her own poetic sensibility, McCue maps Hugo's poems back onto the places that triggered them. Together with twenty-three poems by Hugo, McCue's essays and Randlett's photographs offer a fresh view of Hugo's Northwest.
“Even though the essays are about small towns in Idaho, Washington and Montana, the book has a reference to the Mole's Eye, a bar in Brattleboro that I've always loved,” McCue says. “It's a road trip book and one of my earliest road trips was hitchhiking up I-91 to Vermont and ending up in the Mole's Eye.”
The Bled is a different kind of book - a collection of poems about McCue's husband, who died in Morocco. McCue and her husband and daughter were living in Marrakesh while she worked as a Fulbright Senior Scholar.
McCue serves as the writer-in-residence and lecturer at the University of Washington's Undergraduate Honors Program. She was the founding director of Richard Hugo House, one of the nation's biggest literary centers, from 1996 to 2006. She has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar, an Echoing Green Fellow, and a Klingenstein Fellow.
The first reading in this series is scheduled for Friday, February 25, at 6 p.m. As always, events at The Book Cellar are free of charge, but seating is limited. Contact them at 802-254-6810 or info@bookcellarvt.com, or come by the store at 120 Main St. to reserve your place.
• Poet Wyn Cooper Reads at Marlboro College: A free, public reading by poet Wyn Cooper will be presented on Tuesday, March 1, at 7 p.m., at Marlboro College's Ragle Hall.
Cooper will read from his fourth book of poetry, Chaos is the New Calm (BOA Editions 2010). In it, he expands the parameters of the sonnet form, putting rhymes in unusual places, inventing new stanza structures, and addressing a variety of subject matter ranging from travelogue to inner monologue, from social commentary to solitary musing.
Wyn Cooper has published three previous volumes of poetry: The Country of Here Below (Ahsahta Press, 1987), The Way Back (White Pine Press, 2000), and Postcards from the Interior (BOA Editions, 2005). His work has appeared more than 60 magazines, and he has taught at the University of Utah, Bennington College, Marlboro College, and at The Frost Place, where he now serves on the advisory board. He is the co-organizer of the Brattleboro Literary Festival and a consultant for the Poetry Foundation's Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute.
Copies of Chaos is the New Calm will be available for sale during the reading. In case of inclement weather, call the Marlboro College Events line at 802-451-7151.