Gloucester Stage will host a special fund-raising event called "Celebrate the Guitar," Tuesday at 8 p.m. at Gloucester Stage, located at 267 East Main St. in East Gloucester.
Acclaimed guitarist Paul Asbell will play a solo concert designed to complement the fascinating and revolutionary guitars of Ken Parker. A master guitar maker, Parker has produced guitars used by the likes of Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Pops Staples, Joe Walsh, Reeves Gabrels and many others — and his instruments have been showcased at the Smithsonian and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Asbell has played and recorded with Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Lightnin' Hopkins, Otis Rush, Magic Sam, Earl Hooker and many others. His most recent performance and recording credits include working with David Bromberg, Paul Butterfield, Betty Carter, Joshua Redman, James Carter, Kermit Ruffins, Michael Ray, the Sun Ra Arkestra, The Wild Magnolias, John Stowell, guitar wunderkind Julian Lage, and ex-student Trey Anastasio of Phish.
Tickets for Celebrate the Guitar are priced at $30, and proceeds benefit the Gloucester Stage Company. For tickets and further information, call the Box Office at 978-281-4433 or visit www.gloucesterstage.org.
RAA opening
There will be an Artist Reception for 3rd Summer Photo Show on Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Rockport Art Association. Free event, all are welcome. The 3rd Summer Shows in Painting, Graphics, Sculpture & Photography runs through Aug. 19. Call (978) 546-6604 for more information or visit www.rockportartassn.org.
The Rockport Art Association is located at 12 Main Street, Rockport MA 01966. Admission is always free and open to the public. We are open Monday-Saturday, 10am-5pm, Sunday 12pm-5pm. For more information, visit www.rockportartassn.org, call (978) 546-6604, or email rockportart@verizon.net.
'Going to St. Ives'
Gloucester Stage will also continue to present a drama focusing on the lives of two powerful women — one an affluent English doctor, the other the mother of an African dictator — whose lives become irrevocably intertwined in the two-act play titled "Going to St. Ives."
The theater work, written by the award-winning playwright Lee Blessing, features Gloucester resident and Academy Award nominee Lindsay Crouse and Elliot Norton Award Winner Jacqui Parker. The show, directed by Eric C. Engel, opens tonight and runs through Aug. 3 at the Gloucester Stage theater at 267 East Main St. in East Gloucester.
Crouse returns to Gloucester Stage after performing here last summer in The Belle of Amherst. A television and film actor, she is also a veteran of the New York stage, where she has performed off and on Broadway, and has won the Obie and Theater World Awards. It was her role in "Places In The Heart" from which she received an Academy Award nomination. She teaches acting in Los Angeles. She also teaches Buddhism and organizes a meditation and teaching retreat on Cape Ann each summer.
Parker, a Boston actress, made her Gloucester Stage debut in last season's "Ponies." Her Boston credits include Miss Witherspoon and the Elliot Norton Award winning Old Settler. She serves as artistic director of Our Place Theatre Project. She received the 2004 Boston Theatre Hero Award from StageSource. She is the founder of the annual African American Theatre Festival.
In addition to evening show times, there are Sunday afternoon shows and Saturday matinees. Ticket prices are $35 for all performances. Senior citizen and student tickets are $30 for all performances. For reservations or information, call the box office at 978-281-4433 or visit www.gloucesterstage.org.
Gloucester Stage also continues its reading series on Sunday, July 27 at 7 p.m. with Nitzan Halperin's "Sow and Weep" featuring Nancy E. Carroll and directed by Judy Braha. The reading will be followed by a discussion involving playwright, cast members and director. For more information, call 978-283-4433
Fiddle Virtuoso at the Manchester Arts Festival
Renowned singer, songwriter, fiddler and keeper of traditional New England songs, Lissa Schneckenberger, will grace the Manchester Arts Festival with the sweet sound of her traditional fiddle music. Schneckenberger recently returned from touring Scotland, Denmark and beyond, and will be playing solo, roaming throughout Manchester by the Sea as part of the first Manchester Arts festival. (See news story, Page 1).
Raised in a small town in Maine and now living in Vermont, Lissa began playing fiddle at the age of 6, inspired by her mother's interest in folk music and a family friend who was a professional violinist. Soon, she was studying with influential Maine fiddler Greg Boardman and sitting in with the Maine Country Dance Orchestra.
By the time she was in high school, she was playing concerts on her own, and in 2001, she graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music with a degree in contemporary improvisation, and since then has been performing around the United States and internationally for a growing audience of enthusiastic listeners. She has recorded seven CDs including her new single, Song.
The Manchester Arts Festival will take place Saturday, July 26, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Lissa will be performing between noon and 2. The festival will include more than 60 professional, high quality artists and artisans displaying and performing their works.
For more information about the festival, please call Chuck Hayback at Nor'east Frameworks at (978) 525-3322. Stage Fort concert series
The 2008 summer concert series is returning to the Antonio Gentile Bandstand Sunday in Stage Fort Park in Gloucester.
The free outdoor concert kicks off with Joey Scott Experience this Sunday at 7 p.m., followed by the acoustic bluegrass masters Old Cold Tater on Sunday, Aug. 3 at 7 p.m..
The Cape Ann Community Band takes the concert stage on Sunday, Aug. 10, country and western favorites the John Penny Band will perform on Sunday, Aug. 17 at 7 p.m., and the rhythm and blues rock of Overdrive closes the concert series on Sunday, Aug. 24 at 7 p.m.
Parking is free for all concerts at Stage Fort Park. For further information call 978-281-0543.Theatre in the Pines
The Windhover in Rockport will host the Theatre in the Pines production of Shakespeare's "As You Like It," beginning Thursday, July 31, and running through Sunday Aug. 3.
Tickets are priced at $15 for general admission and $12 for students and seniors.
The Windhover is at 257 Granite St., in Rockport. Tickets can be purchased at Toad Hall bookstore on Main Street or by calling (978) 546-3611.
A little sailing music
Two of the North Shore's best guitar players and songwriters, Fly Amero and Allen Estes will be picking their guitars and singing aboard the Schooner Thomas E. Lannon tonight from 6:00-8:30.
Their performance will give concert-goers the chance to sail around Gloucester harbor at sunset to the tunes of bluegrass, folk and rock music.
The Schooner will also host a Celtic music sail tomorrow from 6:30-9 p.m. Celtic musicians and singers will perform traditional songs as the Schooner Lannon sets sail around the harbor. Hosted by Michael O'Leary and friends, performers include piper/singer David de la Barre, harper Bobbie Wayne, flute/whistle players Lisa McManus and Fran O'Donnell, fiddler Jen Strom and guitar/banjo/bouzouki players Bob Strom, Dan Mozell, Lin Swicker and Steve Levy.
The Lannon sets sail from Seven Seas Wharf at the Gloucester House Restaurant, Rt. 127, Gloucester. Seating is limited and reservations are suggested. Go to www.schooner.org or call (978) 281-6634 for information and reservations Harbor Loop series
The Inge Berg band will perform tonight at the Harbor Loop Concert Series, with the show to start at 6:15.
The series is held in conjunction with the Cape Ann Farmers' market.
Upcoming concert series performances include The Fundamentals on July 31 at 7 p.m., Elegant Trash, Major Nelson and The Screaming Jeannies at 6:15 p.m., on Aug, 7, and Wilie "locl" Alexander & the 4 Boom Boom Band with Reddy Teddy on Aug 21 at 6.
Meet live mushers
Residents can meet with real life sled dogs at a program titled "Mountain Mushers" on Wednesday, July 30, at 3 p.m., at the Rockport Public Library.
The program includes hearing about the adventure of Pixie, Sorrel, and Su, who are sled dogs in Denali National Park. The audience, which is invited to bring their cameras, can see the equipment and pet the animals. The sled dog team is brought to Rockport by Harry and Lela Schlitz of Montana. The program is free but tickets are required. Call 978-546-6934.
'Journey Into Memory'
Davida Rosenblum, an octogenarian Beverly resident and a former folksinger, speech pathologist, college professor and playwright, will appear at the Sawyer Library in Gloucester at 7 p.m., July 28 as the guest of Leslie Wind in the next "Know Your Neighbor" program series.
She will read from her new memoir, titled "Reflections." The book, a chronicle of her life and family, includes, among many other things, a frank and touching description of her marriage to filmmaker Ralph Rosenblum, and her precipitous move at the age of 78 to a small house on the North Shore.
A discussion of the whys and hows of the genesis will follow, and questions will be encouraged. Lyceum programs are open to the public and free of charge. For more information please call 978-281-9763. 'Up Front,' up close
The Gloucester Lyceum will also present "Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front," on Thursday July 31 at 7 p.m., at the Sawyer Free Library.
Author Todd DePastino will give an illustrated talk on the great World War II cartoonist Bill Mauldin, an army infantry sergeant who rocketed to fame at age twenty-two with his wildly popular feature "Up Front." Week after week, Mauldin defied army censors, German artillery, and General George Patton's pledge to throw him in jail to deliver his grim depictions of war to "Stars and Stripes" and hundreds of homefront newspapers. There, readers followed the stories of Willie and Joe, two wise-cracking 'dogfaces,' whose mud-caked uniforms and pidgin of army slang and slum dialect bore eloquent witness to the world of combat and the men who lived — and died — in it. We have never viewed war in the same way since.
Todd DePastino is the author of Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front (W.W.Norton, 2008) and editor of Willie & Joe: The WWII Years (Fantagraphics Books, 2008), the first complete collection of Mauldin's World War II cartoons.
Lyceum events are free of charge and open to the public. For more information call 978-281-9763 or visit the library website at http://www.sawyerfreelibrary.org/.
Jazz Cabaret at Windhover
Mulholland and Stewart, both teachers at Berklee School of Music in Boston, will return to the shores of Cape Ann for their annual show tomorrow and Saturday at 8 p.m. at Windhover at 257 Granite St. in Rockport.
Mulholland has a diverse background including having done a performing/teaching tour in Mozambique. Stewart is a two-time winner of Boston Magazine's "Best Nightclub Singer" award. She appears frequently in the Boston area.
What: Joe Mulholland will perform his 20th anniversary Jazz Cabaret with vocalist Didi Stewart
Tickets are $30 and include hors d'oeuvres and beverages; guests are welcome to bring their own wine. In addition to their usual repertoire, Joe and Didi will present some of their favorite songs from each of their Windhover shows from the past 20 years.
For information, call 978-546-3611.
Perspectives on the waterfront
The Gloucester Lyceum and Sawyer free Library will present "Four Perspectives on the waterfront: an educational and Art presentation" to be held at Gloucester City Hall in the Kyrouz Auditorium tonight at 7 p.m.
Gloucester artists Jeff Weaver and Ernest Morin will join with Matthew Rose and Sarah Robinson to present works about our waterfront.
Jeff Weaver and Matt Rose will display their recent paintings of harbor areas. Areas that continue to be a rich source for artists be they realist or abstract painters. Jeff Weaver is a graduate of the Boston Museum School, In 1972 he took up residence in Gloucester, sketching and painting the waterfront on an almost daily basis. His work is found in many collections, and his murals are found all over Gloucester's downtown. Matt Rose is a recent graduate of Elmira College and will be at the Academy in Florence, Italy to pursue his graduate work in painting in the fall. Matt has been working on a series of paintings of the working waterfront this summer.
Ernest Morin will present a slide show of 155 recent black and white pictures of the Fort area, a microcosm of the gloucester waterfront that features a number of businesses as well as the people and architecture of the neighborhood. Ernest was recently selected as one of twenty socially concerned photographers in the world, by the Not for Profit Network Foundation in New York City and his recent Gloucester work was presented at the annual Society of Photographic Educators Conference in Denver Colorado in March, by NFPN.
In conjunction with the Ernie Morin slideshow, there will be a walking tour of The Fort Sunday, beginning at 6 p.m. Walkers should meet at the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce building.
Church concert in Rockport
Pianist and composer Bonnie Barish and soprano vocalist Nancy Williams will perform at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Rockport Saturday, July 26, at 7:30 p.m.
The church is located at 4 Cleaves St. Admission is $15 at the door — $10, for senior citizens and students.
Barish will perform her original compositions, as well as classical, show, and movie themes. She is from Philadelphia, where she attended Combs College Of Music as a piano major, and voice minor. She later moved to New York City, where she earned a scholarship with Adi Bernard, an internationally known concert pianist, composer, and protégé of the late Jose Iturbi.
Bonnie has appeared in multiple performances on radio, including National Public Radio, and on televised news stories. She recorded a CD titled "The Grand Rapids," which consisted of her original works, and classical repertoire.
Nancy Williams is a Soprano Vocalist, and will be performing Broadway show music, movie themes, Disney themes, 1940's pieces from the Big Band era, and religious music. She will be accompanied by Jennifer Ober, who is music director of the Unitarian Universalist Church In Rockport. She has appeared in local and regional theater.\
NSAA's Associate Members show
The North Shore Arts Association continues to present its Associate Members Exhibition through Aug. 10. NSAA currently has over 140 Associate Members who come from Cape Ann and beyond.
NSAA's historic old building, located at 11 Pirates Lane in Gloucester, provides the opportunity to view the largest collection of paintings and sculptures on Cape Ann. The Associate Exhibit includes all media with a wide variety of styles.
North Shore Arts Association is open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. and Sundays from Noon - 5:00 p.m. In addition to exhibitions, NSAA also offers demonstrations, workshops, classes, lectures, critiques, art auctions and more. Please call 978-283-1857 or visit www.nsarts.org for more information.
Around Cape Ann is a column devoted to events happening on Cape Ann and artists from Cape Ann performing elsewhere. If you would like to submit an item, contact reporter Gail McCarthy at 978-283-7000, ext. 3445 or gmccarthy@ecnnews.com, or fax to 978-281-5748.
