Classical music concerts often seem inaccessible to those who haven’t spent many evenings discussing Mozart, and wine-and-cheese pairings are often considered boring. However, the Centennial Tribute to Leonard Bernstein on Saturday, March 3, was utterly different. The Amherst College Choral Society and the Amherst College Symphony Orchestra joined forces, along with guest soloist Wee Kiat Chia, to perform some of Bernstein’s most famous pieces.
I never thought I would hear Arabic in Amherst Cinema.
Although the album “No Dogs Allowed” by Sidney Gish debuted on the last day of 2017, it merits a review even months after its release. Sidney Gish is a 20-year-old student at Northeastern University in Boston, and she has a penchant for songwriting well beyond her years. On “No Dogs Allowed,” she writes about what she knows best, inviting listeners to see the world through her eyes. She deftly immerses us in both everyday happenings and the larger quandaries of coming of age in the era of the internet.
Amherst is a great little town. Nice restaurants, friendly people, fresh air, squirrels, trees, rocks ... Really, when Amherst promised us the best of all seasons with plenty of snow, amazing fall colors and lush green spring leading to summers spent outdoors, it wasn’t joking around. Every day Amherst surprises us with its ever-changing wealth of nature; we can’t help but be grateful for the quiet lives we are able to lead on the college’s private grounds.
In recent years, campaigns for more diverse representation in the media have overtaken public discourse surrounding both the small and big screen. In the realm of Hollywood, a market for progressive, diverse films has slowly but surely developed as a result, and this year’s “A Wrinkle in Time,” directed by Ava DuVernay is just one of many said films.
This past Thursday, Amherst kicked off the third annual LitFest with one of the more exciting events in the weekend lineup: the Poetry Slam. The midweek slump didn’t seem to discourage the audience, which filed in by the dozens. At 10 p.m., the Powerhouse, gutted and blue-lighted in preparation for the evening, was buzzing with chatter. However, the moment the host, Daniel Gallant — chief executive director of the Nuyorican Poets’ Café in Brooklyn — shuffled up to the mic, the room fell silent in a hush of anticipation.
In recent years, the film industry and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences itself have grown progressively more political, a change which has manifested itself in positive ways (this year the Oscars were perhaps #marginallylesswhite). Much like many of the big name films that vied for Best Picture this year, four of the five films nominated in the Live Action Short Film category had some sort of political bent or message to them.
