Tuesday, July 30, 2019
After a deep exhale, the 27-year-old native of Mexico played Bach’s first “Goldberg Variation” as if he believed it to be the most beautiful piece ever composed. As indeed it was, in his hands.
Despite its generalized name, Adamant Music School is solely for pianists. It has been helping them hone their skills for 77 years — ever since cofounder Edwine Behre chose the tiny rural hamlet as a summer respite for her New York City students.
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Monday, July 29, 2019
Burlington hip-hop collective 99 Neighbors have taken one step closer to the big time. As Complex reports, the group has entered a relationship with Chance the Rapper manager Pat Corcoran's entertainment group Nice Work, which has struck a deal with Warner Records. To celebrate the partnership, 99 Neighbors will release a new single and video, "Fake Pods," on Tuesday, July 30, at noon EST. The track will premiere on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 Radio Program on Apple Music.
"Thanks to this new partnership, we have some new flexibility and resources," said 99 Neighbors manager Cal Rawlings in a recent phone call. He noted that, despite signing with a major label, the group will retain full ownership of its music forever, as well as retain creative control of future work.
Tags: 99 Neighbors , Cal Rawlings , Sam Paulino , Hanknative , Somba , Zane Lowe , Pat Corcoran , Warner Records , record deals , Web Only , Image
Friday, July 26, 2019
Tags: Francesca Blanchard , Erin Cassels-Brown , J Bengoy , the Pyros , Fever Dolls , Matthew Mercury , the DuPont Brothers , Dwight & Nicole , Web Only , Image , Video
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Tags: James Kochalka , Eisner Awards , Johnny Boo , Web Only , Image
Monday, July 22, 2019
The Ruth Stone Foundation is a nonprofit honoring the legacy of the former Vermont Poet Laureate and National Book Award winner. Stone owned the house from 1956 until her death in 2011, though it sat unoccupied for several years. The foundation has been working to repair the house since 2011, aiming to turn it into a space for writers retreats and workshops.
A majority of the carpentry thus far has been done by the family and volunteers, including Ruth's granddaughter Bianca Stone and her husband Ben Pease, both poets. They think the house was built around 1800. It's listed on the National Registry of Historic Places because of Ruth Stone's importance to the state.
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Friday, July 19, 2019
“Reverence,” a similar sculpture by Sardonis, was originally sited on the land in 1989 and remained for a decade. When the farmland was sold to developer Jesse "Sam" Sammis in 1999, the sculpture was moved to a spot along I-89 in South Burlington.
Thanks to a group of local fundraisers, the Preservation Trust of Vermont and the Vermont Community Foundation, Randolph residents got their whales back. Sardonis was commissioned to make another pair.
Tags: Sculpture , public art , Jim Sardonis , Randolph , Preservation Trust of Vermont , whales , Web Only , Image
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Oliver won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984 and the National Book Award for Poetry in 1992. She also had New England connections, teaching at Bennington College from 1996 to 2001 and living in Provincetown, Mass. for many years.
Oliver’s work is ubiquitous across Instagram, and read at both weddings and funerals. A New York Times obituary called her “a phenomenon: a poet whose work sold strongly.” When she died in January, the loss was felt not just by the poetry community, but by many fans outside it.
“Mary Oliver’s poetry is [about] more than other poets reading her,” said Vermont poet Laura Foley. “She didn’t put herself up on a pedestal. Her words are very clear, she uses images from nature. And she has a message, which is, ‘Slow down, look around you.’”
Foley wrote a poem called “It Matters” upon hearing of Oliver’s death that borrows and appreciates various lines of Oliver’s poetry, which are presented in italics. Foley said she knew these lines by heart when she sat down to write the poem.
“It matters that I clutch / my stack of her books—those fields of light—” she wrote, “now that her body has gone / into the cottage of darkness.”
Foley's poem and others will be featured in Homage to Mary Oliver in Poetry and Dance on Thursday, July 25, ArtisTree Community Arts Center & Gallery in South Pomfret at 7:30 p.m. The multidisciplinary performance kicks off Bookstock, an annual literary festival that takes place in Woodstock from Friday to Sunday, July 26 to 28.
Tags: Bookstock , Mary Oliver , Peg Brightman , Laura Foley , poetry , poetry slam , dance , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Throughout my last semester of high school, acquiesced beyond repair to my senior year slump and basking in the independence of my new driver's license, I often spent weeknights at my friends' houses until three or four in the morning. At that point, I'd exhaustedly summon every drop of my remaining energy, get in the car and make the five-minute commute home.
Eventually, driving back from these hangouts became second nature, each stoplight and turn through my sleepy suburban hamlet deeply familiar. Most nights, I would end up as if by magic in my driveway, with no recollection of even driving back at all.
During each of these zoned-out drives, Karen Gray told me, I was in a hypnotic trance. My conscious mind had strayed from the situation at hand, like it does in hypnosis, while my subconscious mind slipped into autopilot. A person can drive home without really thinking about it, as unsettling as that is.
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Tuesday, July 16, 2019
Michael Dabroski was the leader of the Vermont Mozart Festival until June 16, when he resigned and notified concert venues and the board that this year’s festival would be cancelled. The festival publicly announced the cancellation via Facebook on July 9, as reported by the Shelburne News. According to the festival website, the shows were scheduled to begin Monday and run through August 4.
On Monday afternoon, a post appeared on the VMF Facebook page titled “Official Statement by Michael Dabroski.” This was posted without prior knowledge of the board, according to Gene Richards; the director of the Burlington International Airport has volunteered to help the board navigate the cancellation. Dabroski did not respond to Seven Days' requests for comment.
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Monday, July 15, 2019
Many of the recipients are new, but the ONE Ramble also received a BCA grant in 2018. The free annual festival returns for its 16th year on Saturday, July 27, with a full day of art, music and food. The event, which celebrates Vermont’s most racially and economically diverse neighborhood, received $2,500 in support from the BCA in 2018 and $3,000 this year.
Among the grantees this year are several education programs for Burlington’s youth. Girls Rock Vermont, a music nonprofit that provides a summer camp and after-school sessions for girls and gender-nonconforming youth to encourage self-expression, received $3,000.
The Bhutanese Nepali Cultural Heritage Dance Group of VT, which teaches Nepali dance to the young members of the Bhutanese and Nepali refugee community and works to raise awareness of their cultural heritage, received $3,000. BCA also awarded $2,400 to Mindy Wong to support the continuation of writing workshops for high school students through the Young Writers Project; and $3,000 to Alyssa Faber for a program to create public art with middle school students.
Not all the grantees are focused on the young, however. One project, led by Michael Kellogg and awarded $1,500, will record and present stories from elders at the Champlain Senior Center.
Grant funds will also be used to explore new technologies. The Illumination Collective, an artist group that created an interactive lighting exhibit during the 2018 Highlight Festival, will invite the community to help create an illuminated artwork to be displayed at the Generator maker space.
Yet another project will explore the history of some of Burlington’s most controversial art. Matthew Kelly was awarded $3,000 to make a documentary about the “Everyone Loves a Parade!” mural, which protestors have called “white supremacist,” and which the Burlington City Council voted to remove by 2022. The mural was vandalized and partially covered by a tarp in November 2018.
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