Best of Valley Voices Story Slam
Academy of Music, Northampton
Saturday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m.
New England Public Media and the Academy of Music Theatre celebrate the 10th season of the beloved competitive storytelling series. The show will feature nine local storytellers, each a top performer from the season, competing for the audience’s vote. From personal anecdotes to emotional narratives, the storytellers featured in this year’s Best of Valley Voices Story Slam represent the incredible diversity of talent that has emerged in Valley Voices over the past decade. Plus! Local hip-hop DJ PZO Pete will spin a custom set that reflects the themes and stories of the night.
Pittsfield CityJazz Festival
Thursday, April 24 – Sunday, May 4
Starting with an open jam session and ending with a jazz brunch at Dottie's Coffee Lounge, the 19th Annual Pittsfield CityJazz Festival events include the popular Jazz Crawl, the jazz prodigy concert, and headline concerts featuring local keyboardist Ben Kohn and his trio, The Legendary Count Basie Orchestra directed by Scotty Barnhart, and vocalist Dawning Holmes with Grammy-winning pianist Jeff Holmes and special guest Avery Sharpe (Friday host of NEPM’s Jazz á la Mode) on bass.
UMass Amherst Bach Festival & Symposium
Friday, April 25 – Sunday, April 27
The biennial UMass Amherst Bach Festival and Symposium brings exceptional musicians and scholars of international stature to UMass Amherst to connects them to students, alumni, faculty, each other, and the public (meaning us!) The ticketed performance, featuring the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 and the first three parts of the Christmas Oratorio, will be performed at Grace Church on Saturday and Sunday. There are also free concerts on Friday and Sunday. For a deep dive, you can rub shoulders with scholars at the Saturday symposium, “Why Bach?: Navigating 21st Century Scholarship, Performance, and Pedagogy.”
Loudon Wainwright III w/Olivia Nied
Iron Horse, Northampton
Friday, April 25 at 7 p.m.
Born in Chapel Hill, N.C. in 1946, Loudon Wainwright III came to fame when “Dead Skunk” became a Top 20 hit in 1972. He had studied acting at Carnegie-Mellon University but dropped out to partake in the Summer of Love in San Francisco and wrote his first song in 1968 (“Edgar,” about a lobsterman in Rhode Island). His songs have since been recorded by the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Johnny Cash, Earl Scruggs, his son Rufus Wainwright, and many others. He released a new album, “Loudon Live in London,” in January. Olivia Nied’s poignant songs reflect her life experience living as a transgender, neurodivergent young person.
Annual Amherst Sustainability Festival
Amherst Town Common
Saturday, April 26 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Learn from a huge variety of businesses and organizations dedicated to including renewable energy vendors, energy efficiency product suppliers, advocacy groups, and sustainable crafts and artisans. Participate in hands-on learning experiences with experts in various fields. Enjoy a lineup of local musicians and artists. Check out Amherst Fire Department's first hybrid fire truck, and more.
Asparagus Valley Pottery Trail
Saturday, April 26 – Sunday, April 27
The annual Asparagus Valley Pottery Trail is a tour of eight studios with 20+ nationally recognized potters. The free, self-guided tour winds along beautiful back roads and scenic historic towns from Florence to Shelburne Falls. The Pottery Trail celebrates the rich agricultural history and cultural vitality of our area, as well as our longstanding connection between pottery and food.
Voices of Easthampton
CitySpace, Easthampton
Saturday, April 26 at 2 p.m.
Join Easthampton City Arts for this year’s installment of Voices of Easthampton in CitySpace’s Blue Room. Enjoy a group poetry reading hosted by outgoing Poet Laureate Carolyn A. Cushing, and take part in the inauguration of Easthampton’s incoming Poet Laureate, Carolyn Zaikowski.
Schooling the Nation: The Success of the Canterbury Academy for Black Women
Bombyx, Florence
Sunday, April 27 at 2 p.m.
Canterbury Academy was a small private school in Northeast Connecticut that opened its doors to young Black women in 1833. The students there endured months of intense harassment from townspeople and the state before a vigilante attack forced the school to close. The attack drew a promising young law student named Charles Burleigh into anti-slavery work. He spent his last years doing important work in Florence and is buried on Park Street. Jennifer Rycenga Professor Emerita at San Jose State University, will weave these two histories together in her talk at the Bombyx Center. The event is brought to us by the David Ruggles Center for History and Education.
Pioneer Valley Symphony: Ancient Burlesque
Greenfield High School
Saturday, April 26 at 7 p.m.
The PVSO opens the night with the intricately fun Lollapalooza by John Adams. Then the PVS Chorus, Illumine Vocal Arts Ensemble, the Hampshire Young People’s Chorus and soloists join the Orchestra for Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, a powerful and dramatic work instantly recognizable from its opening. The text from the 13th century explores some wonderfully secular themes — the fickleness of fortune and wealth; the pleasures and perils of drinking, gluttony, gambling, and lust; the ephemeral nature of life; and the joy of the return of spring. A passionate finale to the PVS’s 86th season.
The Boston Camerata
Trav’ling Home: American Spirituals, 1770 – 1870
Trinity United Methodist Church, Springfield
Saturday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m.
The Boston Camerata’s pioneering programs of early American music have brought pleasure to thousands of music lovers and have helped to clarify and define our country’s rich and diverse cultural identity. This program traces migratory currents and flows of early American song, largely spiritual but also secular, from Puritans of New England, Shakers, Amish and Mennonites of Pennsylvania, and the newly-freed African-American religious communities.
Berkshire Opera Festival: Young Verdi in Love
Saint James Place, Great Barrington
Sunday, April 27 at 2 p.m.
Giuseppe Verdi, the composer of La Traviata, was a man of incredible passion and creativity who transformed the world of Italian opera. And he did it while writing some of the world’s most captivating and beautiful music! Take a tour of the many facets of love through Verdi’s music with a few of opera’s up-and-coming stars — young singers who are debuting at places like the Met, La Scala and Santa Fe Opera and winning lots of competitions and prizes! Director Brian Garman, as they take you on a tour of the many facets of love through Verdi’s music.
Rock Voices w/ Charlie Farren
Academy of Music, Northampton
Sunday, April 27 at 6 p.m.
Rock Voices is the non-audition community choir that only sings rock! This concert is special for three reasons. First, it will feature musical guest Charlie Farren, a well-known Boston rocker. Secondly, this will be the final concert to be directed by Rock Voices founder Tony Lechner before his family moves out of our region. Thirdly, they will be holding a fundraiser for Ascentria Care Alliance.
Hinge Quartet
Buckley Recital Hall, Amherst College
Monday, April 28 at 5 p.m.
Lying somewhere between a chamber ensemble and an avant-garde rock band, the Hinge Quartet combines cutting-edge contemporary classical and experimental music with seamless multimedia integration and the innovative re-imagining of rock and pop songs. The program for this free concert includes the world premiere of Amherst College visiting Valentine faculty LJ White’s "bronze, not yellow" and music by Enno Poppe, Kirsten Volness, Carl Schimmel, Joseph Haydn, and a number of Amherst College composers.
Cinema Seminar: Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Amherst Cinema
Tuesday, April 29 at 7 p.m.
Cinema Seminars from Amherst Cinema offer us the opportunity to thoughtfully explore, engage and foster new understandings of the film form within historical and cultural contexts. The film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, is set on an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, where a female painter is obliged to produce a wedding portrait of a young woman. Intimacy and attraction grow. Before the film, Smith College Professor Emerita Naomi Miller presents: “Shakespeare’s Sisters: Picturing Women Creatives in the Renaissance.”
Nab tickets now . . .
Lake Street Dive
MASS MoCA, North Adams
Saturday, Sept. 6 at 8 p.m.
Lake Street Dive formed in 2004 at the New England Conservatory of Music. In 2010, they collaborated with Northampton’s Signature Sounds to release their “Lake Street Dive” album. They push the possibilities of pop music as a unifying force through their eclectic sound — an original cross-pollination of soul, folk, jazz, classic pop, and more. Their all-embracing ethos has earned them an international reputation as a beloved live band known for building connection among every crowd.