Community Calendar

Capture the beauty of the Berkshires in this beginner-friendly “plein air” soft pastel workshop set on the Museum’s picturesque grounds. Surrounded by sweeping views, historic architecture, and vibrant late-summer landscapes, participants will explore pastel application techniques, composition, and color blending in an outdoor setting. All materials provided; no experience necessary.

Instructor: Caren Kinne, Manager of Learning & Engagement, Norman Rockwell Museum and practicing artist. Caren holds a BFA in Painting and a master’s in art education. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally.

Rain Date: Saturday September 20 at 1:00 – 2:30pm.

For more information, visit https://www.nrm.org/events/from-nature-to-paper-beginner-pastel-workshop/

“New Songs for an Old Poet” is a series of four concerts spanning July through December 2025. Organized by long-time Valley vocalist Peter W. Shea, who is also the principal performer, the series presents an enormous variety of songs, all of them musical settings of the great nineteenth-century German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, whose verses have been set to music more than any other poet. All are works that Shea has in some way helped to bring into the world, either by suggestion, commission, or premiere, as part of his thirty- year project on Heine and the music his poetry continues to inspire.

“The Parting Summer” showcases the music of composer and pianist Kaeza Fearn, a former resident of the Pioneer Valley who now lives on Cape Cod. The major work is her song cycle “Der scheidende Sommer” (The Parting Summer) for voice and piano, based on a group of sixteen poems about a love affair with a woman named Kitty. In 1834 Heine sent a dozen of them to a composer friend, who unfortunately thought they were merely a joke. This inspired Shea to commission Fearn to write a complete, modern musical setting of Kitty’s story in 2006. The resulting song cycle was premiered by Shea and Monica Jakuc Leverett in 2009 on Fearn’s graduate composition recital at The Hartt School in West Hartford, CT. This will be its fifth performance. The other works on the concert include two stand-alone songs, the toy piano suite “A Day in the Life of a Toy Piano,” commissioned by Jakuc Leverett in 2015, and two short piano pieces performed by the composer.

Get ready for a magical evening with the return of the Lotus Festival hosted by the Desai Foundation!

Hosted at the beautiful Omni Seaport Hotel, this year's Lotus Festival is sure to be something special, as we celebrate an incredible milestone of 10 MILLION lives impacted through our health, livelihood, and menstrual equity programs in rural India!

Join us for an evening of inspiration, entertainment, networking, and dancing with a seated dinner, open bar, and a fun-filled and purposeful auction! All proceeds raised will support the programming of the Desai Foundation empowering women and children in India.

Tickets sell out each year, so be sure to get yours before they're gone!

Join us for a night to celebrate stories of joy, survival, and resilience that point to a future where we can thrive amidst oppression!

After a sold-out debut and packed second show, the Queer Story Slam returns with its third event Prepare For The Good on Saturday, September 13th, at 7 PM at the Bombyx Center for Arts & Equity in Florence, MA.

How do you Prepare For The Good? Bear witness with us as storytellers share personal truths about what it takes to feel safe, seen, and connected in challenging times. What does protection and safety mean amongst confusion and fear? How do we become stronger and find pleasure unapologetically during hard times? How can we balance strength with love and kindness? On the other side of grief, exhaustion and sacred rage there is a world where we thrive as the fullest expression of ourselves, standing with our backs straight, side by side, stronger as a united front. Storytelling reminds us that we never apologize for speaking out loud.

This season’s theme, Prepare for the Good, is the motto of seasoned trans and Indigenous organizers at Imagine Water Works, who protect and resource their community in New Orleans against storms. View their beautiful Queer/Trans Guide to Storms, for art, poetry, and advice from queer people of color who have lived through catastrophe, and found beauty in the midst of it.

Do we own our memories? The Onion is a new opera in which family secrets collide with a memory-enhancing AI. Through contact with their younger selves, its characters bring to the surface the experiences that have shaped their lives: a sexist theft of scientific work, the vanishing of a parent, the erasure of a gender identity. Will the intervention of an AI hurt or heal?

The opera unfolds on an island in the Pacific Northwest where a neuroscientist has sequestered herself with her daughter to create the Onion, an AI device that allows anyone using it to re-live a personal memory. Rounding out the human roles are the Onion’s young co-inventor and the neuroscientist’s ex-partner. The Onion itself is a character in the opera: its independence and influence on the human characters seem to grow each time they use it.

The Onion is a creation of composer/librettist Eric Sawyer and director/librettist Ron Bashford . The performance features a cast of five prominent Boston vocalists. The orchestra will be conducted by Ryan Turner, Music Director of Emmanuel Music. The production is co-presented by MassOpera.

Consistently rated the best local scavenger hunt since 2016!

Puzzling Adventures are a cross between a scavenger hunt, an adventure race, and an informative self-guided walking tour. Each adventure consists of a series of locations that you are guided to where you are required to answer a question or solve a puzzle to receive your next instruction. Compete as a group, individually or create multiple teams and race each other. Almost all of our adventures are designed to be wheelchair and stroller friendly and all are carefully crafted to be entertaining and informative with something to appeal to all ages. Complete the adventure as quickly as possible to win first place or take your time and enjoy the journey. Price is per team, not per person. Groups can be any size, but small groups are recommended for the best experience.

Enter the code EVENTPASS on the payment page for a $10 discount!

Most locations are available daylight hours every day.

The Norman Rockwell Museum is honored to present a rare series of early twentieth century lighting advertisements by Norman Rockwell and fellow Golden Age illustrators Maxfield Parrish, N.C. Wyeth, Dean Cornwell, Stanley Arthurs, Worth Brehm, and Charles Chambers created for Edison Mazda Lamps, a division of the General Electric Company. These luminous, richly painted works were widely circulated in published advertisements through the 1920s and are on loan to the Museum for the first time through the generosity of GE Aerospace.

Each service includes an uplifting talk that touches on real-life experiences—like relationships, resilience, and personal growth—offering down-to-earth reflections to help you navigate life with clarity, compassion, and a sense of connection.

The healing portion of the service begins with a peaceful, guided meditation accompanied by live harp music, creating a calm and supportive space. Those who wish may then receive gentle, hands-on energy healing from certified Spiritualist healers while seated.

The service concludes with a demonstration of mediumship from the podium, where the medium shares messages from loved ones in spirit. These brief, heartfelt messages are intended to provide evidence of the continuity of life and offer comfort, healing, and connection.

We're thrilled to celebrate the release of the latest book from the National Book Award-winning author of the Penderwicks series, Jeanne Birdsall: THE LIBRARY OF UNRULY TREASURES! On September 14 at 1pm, join us, Jeanne herself, and community star Monte Belmonte for an unforgettable celebration at Bombyx Center for Arts & Equity here in Florence.

We'll have crafts at 1pm, followed by a talk between Jeanne and Monte, a Q&A, and then a book signing. Readers are encouraged to bring their beloved Birdsall books from home, and we'll have copies of THE LIBRARY OF UNRULY TREASURES for sale.

Tickets are pay-what-you-will, and no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

The Climate Future Film Festival, with 10 short award-winning films from four continents, will be shown free of charge at 2:30 PM Sunday, Sept. 14, at Unitarian Universalist Society East, 153 Vernon Street West, Manchester CT.
The films, which explore the human and artistic response to climate change, run two hours and 10 minutes. Many of the films are in English. Those in other languages have captions. Come early to check out table information. Stay afterwards to discuss the impact of the films and ways to act on the climate crisis.