Music
• Mal Blum headlines concert for Marlboro College Women's Resource Center: Rising indie singer/songwriter Mal Blum headlines a benefit concert for the Marlboro College Women's Resource Center on Thursday, April 21, at 7:30 p.m., in the college's Campus Center.
Blum has opened for national artists including Amanda Palmer, Kimya Dawson, and Melissa Ferrick. Her music earned top 10 status on the 2009 Click List, a feature of the LGBT television and web network, LOGO. Deborah Singer of Hear/Say magazine calls Blum, “A talented artist that makes songs where you don't want to miss a word.”
Admission is by suggested donation of $10 ($3 for Marlboro College students with ID). Also performing during the benefit concert are Shea Witzo and Turning into Softy. Witzo is a current Marlboro student and activist whose performances blend jazz vocals with ukulele and oftentimes a megaphone. Turning Into Softy plays acoustic pop and is led by Marlboro students Christina Schneider and Michael Schneeweis.
The Women's Resource Center was founded in the spring of 2010 by several concerned female students who felt the community would benefit from more education around issues of sexism, gender and women's health as well as advocacy for female students. Since its foundation, the WRC has brought in speakers and consultants, encouraged discussion of racism, sexism, and sexual assault, and worked as an institutional advocate for women at Marlboro.
• Strawberry Hill Fiddlers at Hooker-Dunham: Twilight Music presents a benefit concert for Hooker-Dunham Theater & Gallery, 139 Main St., Brattleboro, featuring The Strawberry Hill Fiddlers, a teenage ensemble of 10 fiddlers, two cellists, a bassist and a guitarist from the Hudson Valley in New York, on Thursday, April 21 at 7 p.m.
The Strawberry Hill Fiddlers perform a spirited program of traditional music of many genres. Directed by Emily and Carole Schaad, the fiddlers include singing, improvisation and Appalachian clogging with their fiddle tunes. The band members, who also study classical music and play in orchestras, meet weekly to learn, arrange and perform traditional tunes from many cultures. They are part of a fiddle program administered by Stringendo, Inc., a community music school that also directs a Saturday orchestra program during the school year and a summer day camp for young string players.
The “Strawberries” have released two CDs, performed on PBS Radio's “Dancing on the Air,” shared the stage with Natalie MacMaster, Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, Alasdair Fraser and Barrage, and toured the U.K. Tickets for the show are $10 general admission, $8 students and seniors, and free for kids 6 and under. For ticket reservations and information, call 802-254-9276 or visit www.hookedunham.org.
• A “Gather-ring at the River”: The Vermont Spring Ring, a handbell concert involving 30 choirs, will be held Saturday, April 30, at 4 p.m., at the Bellows Falls Union High School gym in Westminster.
Local choirs participating include the West B Bells from the First Congregational Church in West Brattleboro, the St. James Episcopal Church Choir in Keene, N.H., the Ringers on the Square from the United Church of Christ in Keene, and the Saxton River Ringers from Christ's Church in Saxtons River.
The more than 270 ringers from across Vermont and southern New Hampshire attending this event will spend the day working with nationally-known handbell director Monica McGowan, who has an extensive background in handbells and hand chimes. The concert will feature the full group of ringers presenting four pieces especially composed for handbells: Renewed Spirit by Michael Mazzatenta, Animato by Arnold Sherman, For the Beauty of the Earth by J.D. Frizzell and Immortal Invisible by Douglas Smith. In addition, 12 choirs - including the Ringers on the Square, the Bellisimo Ringers and the Saxtons River Ringers - will perform solo pieces.
The Vermont Spring Ring is sponsored by Area I of the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers. It originated 30 years ago to allow bell ringers from across Vermont and southern New Hampshire to gather and share their love of this musical medium while enhancing their ringing skills.
Performing arts
• Kali Quinn at Sandglass Theater: Acting on Impulse and GUTWorks present Overture to a Thursday Morning, featuring virtuosic performer Kali Quinn, at Sandglass Theater in Putney on April 28-May 1.
Quinn's newest solo performance is a suspenseful and inspiring journey that questions the will to go on and who to take with you. The play tours to Vermont after a successful run in New York City and Rochester, N.Y. Quinn plays Lila, a character who smokes, listens to Talking Heads and wants to be a violin rock star, but unwanted discoveries push her toward the secret truth about her own birth. A clash of 1950s nostalgia, visual poetry, and contemporary angst are all explored through real-time musical composition, physical tragic comedy, and common household objects.
Performance are April 28, 29, and 30 at 8 p.m. On Sunday, May 1, at 2 p.m., a matinee will benefit for Making the Most of I, a local organization offering women support, education and resources for making healthy changes in their lives. Tickets are $15 and may be purchased at brownpaperickets.com, by calling 800-838-3006, or at the door 45 minutes before each performance. The performance runs one hour, and all performances will include an optional talkback.
Visual arts
• Theater curtains at Main Street Arts: Before movies, Vermonters glimpsed far-off worlds through immense, hand-painted theater curtains. These painted back-drops set the stage for dances, concerts, and vaudeville shows.
Come to Main Street Arts in Saxton's River on Wednesday, April 27, at 7 p.m., for Suspended Worlds: Vermont's Painted Theater Curtains. This is an up-close and personal look at these amazing pieces with Christine Hadsel. This program is especially exciting as Main Street Arts happens to house Vermont's largest single collection of these theater curtains, so attendees will be able to see the actual curtains “in person.”
Between the 1880 and the 1940s, traveling actors would visit Vermont towns, painting curtain back-drops and putting on shows. They would leave the curtains for the buildings' permanent use. Due to the generosity and enthusiasm of these itinerant artists, a culture of local variety shows, school performances and theatrical productions flourished in Vermont - also attracting touring troupes of performers, opera companies, vaudeville singers, and itinerant musicians.
Hadsel is the director of Curtains Without Borders, Inc., of the Vermont Painted Theater Curtain Project. Starting in 1996, the project has restored 160 out of the state's 185 curtains, most of which are now installed for use, or are on public view. Vermont is the first state to pay attention to the restoration and conservation of these curtains. She will talk about the project, show slides and tell stories of Vermont's many curtains and their artists, along with a viewing tour of Main Street Arts' collection.
This program is hosted by the Rockingham Free Public Library in Bellows Falls and sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council. It is free and open to the public. For more information, call Rockingham Public Library 802-463-4270 or Main Street Arts at 802-869-2960.
• Paintings by Terry Carter at the Blue Moose: “Fall into Spring” an exhibit of painting by local artist Terry Carter will be shown for the month of May at The Blue Moose Café, 29 High St., Brattleboro.
Working with materials that span these two seasons, Carter has gone beyond traditional painting on canvas to try out her skills on gourds. In keeping with the time honored genre of landscape and still life, her painting on more conventional surfaces such as canvas, highlights the lush colors of the summer.
During the fall harvest season, Carter collects gourds for her work, choosing them for their unusual shapes and curves. Each unique find suggests to her a particular composition and design. After the gourd is dried, she works with numerous coats of varnish and primer, layered with paint. When completed, the finished pieces have an organic look and feel to them and will last indefinitely.
Painting landscapes and common wildflowers found in Southern Vermont, Carter's direct experience and intimacy with nature is reflected in her work. Her visual memories of growing up in rural New Hampshire inspired her to work with subject matter close to home. The exhibit will be on display during the café's regular hours, Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m.-5 p.m.
Film
• Headline Vermont shown in Wilmington: Vermont Independent Media, publisher of The Commons, Windham County's award-winning weekly newspaper, will present Headline Vermont, a Vermont Public Television documentary film about the history of journalism in Vermont.
Produced by Daniel Lyons of Brattleboro, Headline Vermont combines archival images, interviews with historians and journalists, and re-enactments to tell colorful stories of newspapering from the frontier era into the 21st century. The film recently received a nomination in the 2011 Boston/New England Emmy Awards in the Historical/Cultural Program/Special category.
Segments of the film feature the staff of The Commons in action. Jeff Potter, editor of the paper, will be on hand for a discussion period after the film.
The film will be shown at the Pettee Memorial Library, 16 South Main St., Wilmington, on Wednesday, April 27, at 3 p.m.
Books
• Best selling mystery author returns to Brattleboro: Mystery on Main Street, New England's only bookstore devoted exclusively to tales of mystery and suspense, will host an author signing with Edgar-nominated author Ken Wishnia, Saturday, April 23, at 3 p.m. Wishnia will discuss The Fifth Servant, now available in paperback.
The Fifth Servant follows a young Talmudic scholar's attempt to save his Jewish community in 16th-century Prague during the Inquisition. He has only three days to discover who killed a Christian girl found in the store of a Jewish shopkeeper, against whom the authorities have brought a blood-libel charge.
Space, as always, is limited; reserve a spot to avoid disappointment. All events are free and open to the public. If you cannot make an event but would like an autographed copy of The Fifth Servant, contact Mystery on Main Street. For information, reservations or to reserve books, call 802-258-2211 or email to: [email protected].