On Saturday, August 6, the Jamal Jackson Dance Company (JJDC) will present a program of dance entitled Footprints from My Head’s Rhythm, at Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs. The dance troupe was founded in 2004 with the purpose of fusing various traditional African dance styles with contemporary movement and music. If you have ever seen JJDC then you know what you will be doing on August 6 at 8 p.m. And if you haven’t, well, now is the time to mend your dance deficient ways.
Waban Park last Saturday was reminiscent of days when folk music swept the nation and outdoor concerts became legendary events representing a social movement of peace, love and community.
People lay in the grass, kids ran around and blew bubbles, and many local bands played short sets, including Willy Mason, Nina Violet, and the duo Jemima James and Dan Waters.
The Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society summer program this year has strayed from some of the more traditional offerings.
“The whole business of going to a chamber music concert — well, we’ve really given that a shake-up,” declared Nora Nevin, the society’s director of publicity.
When David Gans was sent to Jamaica in 1982 by his employer, Record Magazine, he never suspected he would be setting in motion the rest of his career. While in Jamaica, Mr. Gans met photographer Peter Simon, with whom he would later coauthor his first book, Playing in the Band: An Oral and Visual Portrait of The Grateful Dead.
This weekend KCT Concerts gets going again with a show featuring Richie Stearns and special guests Willie Watson from Old Crow Medicine Show and Rosie Newton of the The Pearly Drops and the Evil City String Band. Now there’s a cool name for a band.
Eleven-year-old Sophie Donohue doesn’t have far to travel for the Community Sing each week. During the summer she lives with her family in the Oak Bluffs Camp Ground. Sophie’s Vineyard experience could be described as a time to swim, sail and, of course, sing.
On Wednesday, July 20, at the third Community Sing of the summer, Sophie mingled with the crowd. “I’m waiting for my friends,” she explained. “We come every week to sing together.”
The Chamber Music Society of Martha’s Vineyard is beginning their summer festival with concerts on Monday, July 11 at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown and Tuesday, July 12 at the Chilmark Community Center. Both concerts begin at 8 p.m.
Charlie King has played with Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, John McCutheon and a host of other folk music greats. Pete Seeger even nominated him for the Sacco-Vanzetti Social Justice Award, which he received in November of 1999. Since 1976, Mr. King has released dozens of albums, including three collaborations with Bright Morning Star.
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Adam Sandler, no it’s OperaFest. That’s right, this week at various venues around Oak Bluffs the sounds of passionately, tormented love affairs will fill the air. Note, this is not to be confused with recent events: Passionate, but illegal, sounds of tormented love affairs, the result of too much time spent at the Sand Bar.
Mezzo-soprano opera singer Lia Kahler-Littlefield and pianist Richard Gordon are coming to the Island to perform a benefit concert entitled, Songs for My Father. Ms. Kahler is dedicating the concert of songs and arias about flowers, plants and animals to the memory of her father, Albert Littlefield, who was born and grew up on what is now the Polly Hill Arboretum.
The concert benefits both the arboretum and the Animal Shelter of Martha’s Vineyard.
