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The cultural highlights for our region this weekend include chamber music, orchestral music, experimental music, indie-pop … plus a whole lot more.
The Mahaiwe in Great Barrington, Mass., presents Heartbeat Opera’s Breathing Free, a visual album screened for free on Saturday at 7 p.m. Breathing Free focuses on Black empowerment in the arts, featuring excerpts from Beethoven’s Fidelio, a selection of Negro Spirituals, and songs by Harry T. Burleigh, Florence Price, Langston Hughes, Anthony Davis, and Thulani Davis. Immediately following the event there will be a live virtual talkback with the concert’s creators, Ethan Heard and Ras Dia. Although the event is free, registration is required – find details at mahaiwe.org.
Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! This week, as we honor King’s work, life, and legacy and celebrate the inauguration of a new administration that includes America’s first African American vice president, we offer this list of alluring local activities.
Paul Bermanzohn Presents “King Was a Revolutionary” | January 18
At 4pm on January 18, Dr. Paul Bermanzohn will host “King Was a Revolutionary,” a Zoom talk sponsored by the Library at the A.J. Williams-Myers African Roots Center in Kingston. The presentation discusses two of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s most famous speeches: his celebrated “I Have a Dream” speech and “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” an anti-Vietnam War and pro-social justice speech. Bermanzohn, a Poughkeepsie psychiatrist, is a survivor of the 1979 Greensboro, North Carolina, attack on civil rights marchers by Ku Klux Klan and Nazi assailants that left five dead. The talk is free, but registration is required.