Recently in Arts Category
For elementary school children, one of the major social events of the year is the Stow Arts Buffet Festival. Held at Center School and sponsored by the Stow PTO, upwards of 200 kids engaged in numerous arts and crafts projects in the school's gymnasium. T-shirt decorating and clay modeling were probably the favorites. The time capsule will be the most enduring. Kids answered some questions about themselves and put the paper inside a plastic tennis ball can which is only to be opened upon graduation from high school! The recycled art section challenged kids to be creative and many unique pieces of art were made. In addition to the art, music teacher Judy Dyer coordinated a musical talent show with acts student acts including guitar, flute, trumpet, saxophone, piano and violin performances. On stage was the Art Show, displaying kids' framed art.
To view a larger set of images, visit: Arts Buffet Slideshow.
Art teacher Marion Rayner loves art and her enthusiasm is a gift to the children she teaches. Tomorrow there will be hundreds of framed art pieces at Center School in Stow for the annual Arts Buffet. This year, the school is trying to raise funds to replace the broken kiln. Framed art can be purchased for $29.95 plus tax, with 20% of the sales going directly to the "Kiln Fund." If you would prefer to donate directly to the fund, you can make out a check to "Stow PTO" and write "Kiln Fund" in the memo line.
I've been following Jackie Murtha (pictured) for over a year now. She's an extremely talented senior at Nashoba Regional High School, full of expression and super easy to photograph. Jackie reprises the role of Eliza Doolittle in Nashoba Drama Society's production of "My Fair Lady" which will run from March 20-22, 2009 at the high school in Bolton, MA. The set is wonderfully done and the production is fantastic as always.
"Arsenic and Old Lace" is a play by American playwright Joseph Kesselring. It was performed this past weekend by Nashoba Drama. The play is a comedy, and certainly has its funny moments, but it was written in 1939 and certainly has that sense about it as you watch. Nick Sestito certainly stole the show as the eccentric Teddy Brewster, who believes he is Teddy Roosevelt. Mike Sestito (as Jonathan Brewster) and Jackie Murtha (as Abby Brewster) performed fabulously as always. Image: Mike Sestito and Taylor Leaming perform as Jonathan Brewster and Elaine Harper.
Related Galleries:
- Thoroughly Modern Millie (Spring 2008)
- It's a Wonderful Life (Fall 2007)
There are a lot of Irish folk in Southie, but you wouldn't guess that out here in apple country. Aside from Sunday night's at JP O'Hanlon's in downtown Ayer, there really isn't a place to go to for traditional irish session music. Say hello to Mary, Phil, Marilyn, and Tom from Rhode Island and their "Celebrating Ireland" program which made its way to Marlborough and Hudson today. Marlborough is hosting their Saturday Morning Discovery Series at the Union Common and Hudson is hosting Saturdays at South Street at Cellucci Park.
Interspersed between the fiddle, harp, tin whistle, button accordion, and bodhran music, Marilyn told some rather interesting stories, one poking fun at marriage and another that may have my kids scared tonight at bedtime. They came prepared with lots of percussion instruments for the little ones (and not so little ones). It was a great time. And I look forward to them coming back next year.
If you like Irish/Celtic music, you may love the all female group Cherish the Ladies. We caught their concert at Regis College this past April and their tour schedule has them playing May 5, 2009 at The Somerville Theater. At their concert in April they did a song that the group today did called "Welcome Poor Paddy Home." Of course Joanie Madden and crew did it much better, but the song is awesome. The chorus goes:
No more do I wish for to roam
For the sun it will shine in the harvest time
To welcome Poor Paddy home
It's almost a good a song as "Fields of Athenry" about the Irish famine which was the closing song at every bar in Ireland when we were there in 1997. But you don't here it much over here. There are, however, 150 recordings of that song on iTunes and the Boston band Dropkick Murphy's recorded it for their 2003 Blackout album.
External Links: Harpist Mary King | Cherish the Ladies
School may be out for the summer, but local libraries are definitely in! At the opening of Randall Library's Summer Reading Program in Stow, children's librarian Denise Flynn once again brought back the fun moonwalks. This year, the reading program kicked off on the last day of school. Children signed up for the program inside the library, received their packets with reading logs, and then went off to have fun. One child (you know who you were) was even reading on the lawn! Children receive points for how many books they read (or listen to) and get prizes at the end of the summer. In addition, there are a number of events scheduled including a magic show, dinosaur presentation, jungle encounters, and Three Apple Storytelling.
Outside of Stow, the Concord Free Public Library is having their own summer reading program where young readers write short reviews of books online. The library website also lists the Concord Public School's reading lists for incoming first through eighth graders. On Wednesday evenings the library hosts a "Music on the Lawn" concert series featuring bluegrass, reggae, and afro pop. Sudbury's Goodnow Library has a Wednesday evening book discussion group for 4th-6th graders. Truck Day is July 16th where kids (and adults) get to see and touch all the trucks owned by the town. Lincoln Public Library is hosting "Wild Times" on Wednesdays at 11am featuring presentations about animals. Hudson Public Library hosts their own reading club, a weekly Monday morning Bingo contest, picnics for kids 5 and under, and more. The Marlborough Public Library has a "knights" theme to most of their events. They have a number of activities that require registration and are limited to a small number of children. If your little one is interested in magical creatures or "Harry Potter", you will not want to miss the activities in Marlborough. Finally, in Harvard you can find reading lists for Bromfield School students, participate in an online reading log club, and attend a variety of activities.
External Links:
The Persuasions are one of the world's premiere a capella groups who began singing together in Brooklyn on street corners and subway stations in the 1960s. From there they went on to release 20 albums. How did they come to our little town? You may remember the tragedy of the death of 19 year old Frankie DeMeo, captain of Nashoba Regional's wrestling squad. Vinnie Sestito, an entertainment industry executive and Stow resident, brought the Persuasions here to kick off the Frankie DeMeo Memorial Scholarship Fund. The fund, which is being run by high school students, aims to create "a Northeastern experience inside the high school," according to Sestito. The reference is to Northeastern University's well-known internship program that combines classroom experience with real-world training. The fund aims to help learning disabled students achieve their potential. Frankie struggled with an autism spectrum disorder, but through wrestling and hard work became a success in high school and was preparing for college.
Donations can be sent to Frankie DeMeo Memorial Scholarship Fund, c/o Nashoba Regional Scholarship Fund, PO Box 523, Bolton, MA 01740.
The social and entertainment event of the year in our neck of the woods has to be the Battle of the Bands at Nashoba Regional High School in Bolton. This is the second annual event and proceeds benefit the Friends of Sudanese, an organization that assists Sudanese refugees who were brought to the Boston area in 2001 by the State Department after 9 years in a Kenyan refugee camp. Last year we had the opportunity to meet one of these people who told us how different things are here and helped us to appreciate just how great this country is.
I bring my daughters to this annual event because there are very few opportunities for 9 and 6 year olds to see live rock concerts. To them, these musicians are every bit as famous as Avril Lavigne or Miley Cyrus--well, okay maybe not that famous. They dress up in their concert gear (i.e., leather) and sit in the front row and take in all the sights and sounds. They have a couple of teachers host the event, with some bad jokes that the students are quick to jump on, and this year's show was coordinated by Stow's Sam Tobia. They have judges. They have scoring. And, yes, they have a winner. But the winner doesn't get a recording contract. Instead they get a $100 gift certificate to a local music shop. What did you think this was Fox's America's Best Band?
Top Image: Stow's Adrienne Wickham-Gobert adds a female vocal presence to the all-acoustic trio The Travis and Wes Experience (plus Adi). Bottom Image: Stow's Mike Sestito fronts for the rock band Timeless Infamy.
Destination ImagiNation (aka DI) is a wonderful program that encourages creativity and problem-solving skills. Kids work in teams, grouped by age, and are lead by Team Managers who provide the problems each week and guide the team as it works on its challenges. There were several Stow teams who competed at Regionals ranging from kindergarten through high school. Yours truly was honored to have managed a K-2 team (called History Kids) who did an exceptional job in the non-competitive Rising Stars division.
The fourth and fifth grade team from Center School (pictured) came in first place at the 2008 Massachusetts state championships and will be competing at the Global Finals in Tennessee. Their performance utilized some engineering skills (i.e., creating the illusion of a long school corridor using blinds) and theatrical skills.
There are basically two components to DI: the Instant Challenges and Central Challenge. Instant Challenges are tasks that the team needs to solve in a short time interval. For example, when we were preparing for our regional competition, most of the Stow teams got together and were given an Instant Challenge by some older kids who had been to Globals in years past. My kids were given a strange looking object and were supposed to make a skit that answered "What it was?", "Why it was here?", "How it works?", etc. The Central Challenge is a long term project that teams work on throughout the season and perform at the competition. Our team's challenge was to take something from history, make a prop that will change history, make a play about it, and sing a song. Our team chose Abraham Lincoln's assassination as the period of history and decided to change it by inventing a TV remote control and having Paul Revere come riding in on a horse to scare away John Wilkes Booth.
External Link: Stow Destination ImagiNation
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"The place for happenings in Massachusetts' Apple Country"
Welcome to Apple Country Living. This site mainly covers events in area towns such as Acton, Bolton, Concord, Harvard, Hudson, Lincoln, Maynard, Stow and Sudbury. There's a bit of a special emphasis on my hometown of Stow. The goal is to chronicle our area of the world in images and text.
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