All about quarries, ponds and rocks! This article presents a photo and word essay - in the format that I have exhibited at the Eclipse Mill as well as this summer/fall at the Berkshire Art Museum in North Adams, MA.

Leave it to Gil Rose, Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera to present one of the most important operas of the last decade. At Jordan Hall in Boston, Rose and his company gave a superb concert production of  John Corigliano’s “Lord of the Cries.”  Commissioned by Santa Fe Opera, this was its east coast debut. Corigliano’s first opera, The Ghost of Versailles met with consistently rave reviews and was not performed often after its premiere. Corigliono swore off the form.  He wanted to write music that was heard.

Whether this is autobiographical or only suggested by Stoppard’s family, it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is the brilliant acting and story-telling.

OUT magazine suggested an opera based on the film The Hours back in 2014.  At the time, Fabian Brathwaite wrote: (wishful thinking) Based on Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the 2002 Stephen Daldry film is basically two hours of “EMOTION!” Tears, breakdowns, more tears and a prosthetic nose — ingredients for operatic gold. And look no further for casting. Just give Meryl three weeks and a pack of lozenges. Renee Fleming now takes on Meryl Streep's role.

George Fifield, founder of the Cyberarts Festival and Boston Cyberarts, curator, scholar, arts administrator, creative mentor, videographer, educator, and a major champion of fusing art with technology, passed away on November 11 at the age of 72 from complications that followed a devastating fall that occurred at his Martha’s Vineyard home early last summer

Before he writes in the morning, Michael Cunningham as always listened to PHilip Glass's music. Serendiptiy brought Glass's score to the Stephen Daldry film based on Cunningham's book, The Hours. He discusses the works with Berkshire Fine Arts.

The Cape Ann Museum’s auditorium was packed for a Sunday afternoon book launch. Edited by Martin Ray, Gloucester Encounters: Essays on the Cultural History of the City from 1623-2023, is a compendium of 37 largely community based essays on aspects of Gloucester’s lifestyle, issues and concerns.

It was fun to revisit our old haunt the Gloucester Writers Center. Much has changed since we were residents several years ago. Last night we attended a reading by Joe Rukeyser and Kathleen Williams.

We're returning to the world of Jane Austen-inspired theater with a costumed, staged reading of Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, written by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon, and directed by Ariel Bock! 

Eddie Allen has worked with such jazz greats as Art Blakey, Billy Harper, Randy Weston, Dizzy Gillespie, and Benny Carter. He has recorded and performed with, as well as composed for: Louis Hayes, Lester Bowie, Jack McDuff, Etta Jones & Houston Person, and Mongo Santamaria.

Mixed programming for MASS MoCA.

The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts presents Please Stay Home, an exhibition featuring the work of Darrel Ellis, Leslie Hewitt, and Wardell Milan. An additional contextual installation will include photographs by the artist’s father, Thomas Ellis, and close friend, artist Allen Frame. Centered on a less recognized body of Ellis’s work and featuring new commissions by Hewitt and Milan,

Top honors at the Berkies were Outstanding Musical Production to Barrington Stage Company for their production of A Little Night Music. Barrington Stage shared the Outstanding Play Production award with Bridge Street Theatre, for productions of Waiting for Godot and A Long Day’s Journey Into Night respectively.

The Lord of Cries is a mélange of two classic literary works written two millennia apart: the Greek tragedy The Bacchae by Euripides, and the Gothic novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Set in Victorian London at the fearsome time of Jack the Ripper, the opera begins with its title character – Dionysus, the god of fury – returning to earth. Anthony Roth Costanzo featured.

 Four First Prize Winners have been announced following the Finals of the 2022 Young Concert Artists International Auditions:   

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, presents the first exhibition in the Americas dedicated to the art of Michaelina Wautier (1614–1689), a painter from Brussels all but forgotten until the recent rediscovery of her work.

Kingston Gallery is accepting APPLICATIONS by contempory artists for Associate Member Artist status at Kingston Gallery in Boston’s SoWA arts district. Terms begin in January 2023.

The Berlin Philharmonic, inarguably the greatest symphony orchestra in the world, came to New York to show us how much fun music can be.  Their showpiece example, the famously tormented Gustav Mahler. 

George Fifield, founder of the Cyberarts Festival and Boston Cyberarts, curator, scholar, arts administrator, creative mentor, videographer, educator, and a major champion of fusing art with technology, passed away on November 11 at the age of 72 from complications that followed a devastating fall that occurred at his Martha’s Vineyard home early last summer

“We all come from sort of a traditional background, but then we have different influences that we’re interested in,” explains fiddler and singer Rachel Davis. “Chrissy (Crowley, fiddler) likes to dive into a lot of world music, Darren (mandolin, guitar, banjo, etc.) comes from a kind of Irish theme from playing around a lot. More of the traditional Cape Breton stuff is really what I love, plus all the folk songs, so it’s an interesting mix.”   

One of the most distinctive and creative of all jazz singers, NEA Jazz Master and self-described “Jazz Child” Sheila Jordan is one of those rare vocalists whose voice can be regarded among the great instruments of the music.

Kevin Connors has managed to keep the pace fast and the timing almost perfect. That’s a key to effective farce. Too slow and you lose interest. You can’t have time to really think about what is happening.

The recipients of the 2022 Boston Artadia Awards are Stephen Hamilton, the Liberty Specialty Markets Artadia Award recipient, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, and Shantel Miller. The 2022 Boston Artadia Awards were also supported by the Paul and Edith Babson Foundation, the Meraki Artist Award, the Artadia Board of Directors, Artadia Council Members, anonymous funders, and individual donors across the country.

Ellen Schön’s New Directions Home, her second solo exhibition at Boston Sculptors Gallery, features two discreet series of new ceramic sculpture. Inspired by diverse cultural traditions, Schön employs both ancient and contemporary technologies in her sculptural interpretations.  

Did you hear the one about the time the Duke of Burgundy Philippe the Bold, outlawed the cultivation of Gamay back in 1385? He claimed it was a "disloyal and bad plant." He reserved his region for the more elegant Pinot Noir. You may wonder why we have such an affection for Gamay at Mezze. We often root for the underdog.