Music in Common Celebrates 1-year Anniversary of Black Legacy Project

09:08AM / Monday, September 19, 2022Print Story | Email Story

SHEFFIELD, Mass. — Music in Common, a Berkshires-founded nonprofit that connects communities through music, celebrates the one-year anniversary of the launch of The Black Legacy Project, a musical celebration of Black history to advance racial solidarity, equity, and belonging.

The Black LP is a national project produced in partnership with community stakeholders at the local level. As it travels the country, the Black LP brings together Black and White artists and artists of ALL backgrounds to record present-day interpretations of songs central to the Black American experience and compose originals relevant to the pressing calls for change of our time.

Community roundtable discussions help inform how these songs are interpreted and written. The Black Legacy Project launched in Sept. 2021 in the Berkshires and is traveling to Atlanta, Los Angeles, the Mississippi Delta, Denver, and Boise in 2022 - 2023. Music in Common has partnered with Berkshires-based Outpost to produce a docuseries of the Project.

Since the September 2021 launch, Music in Common has produced ongoing Black Legacy Project programming in the region including a Black LP concert at the Colonial Theatre, a series of film screenings throughout the county, and a week-long course at Berkshire School. The upcoming anniversary celebration includes a combination of all of these.

On Friday Sept. 23 at 7:30 p.m., a Black LP concert featuring a host of local musicians including Rob Sanzone, Rufus Jones, Bryan House, Glori Wilder, Terry a la Berry, Olivia Davis, Liam Giszter, and Brianna Nicola will take place at the Boland Theater at Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield. The concert will feature the Black Legacy Project songs recorded in the Berkshires which featured nearly three dozen local musicians including Wanda Houston, Billy Keane, Gina Coleman, Matt Cusson, Chantell McFarland, Chris Merendaas and others, as well as songs from other Black LP locations such as the Ozarks and Denver.

A screening of the Berkshires episode of the docuseries will kick off the evening and a talkback with Black LP directors and musicians will follow the performance. The event is free and open to all. Tickets can be reserved at eventbrite.com/e/405652967947. Masks are required.

Other events during the week-long celebration include a Black LP performance at the FreshGrass Festival in North Adams on Saturday Sept. 24 and school programs at Berkshire Community College, DuBois Middle School, and BART. A community roundtable on the theme of "After Sundown" will take place at the Guthrie Center in Housatonic at 7PM on September 21st. Interested participants can register at https://www.theblacklegacyproject.org/roundtables.

The Black Legacy Project one year anniversary is sponsored in part by Berkshire Community College. Sponsorship opportunities are still available. For more info and to learn how you can get involved, contact Music in Common Marketing & Development Coordinator, Simone Alyse, at simone@musicincommon.org / 404-458-7982.

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Lee Wants Bioremediation in Housatonic River Vernal Pool Study

05:24AM / Thursday, September 03, 2026

LEE, Mass. — The town has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and General Electric to include PCB bioremediation in its vernal pool study on the Housatonic River.

Lee officials are urging the EPA to require GE to add a bioremediation treatment arm to the vernal-pool study or provide the public with a clear explanation for why such testing is being excluded.

"This is exactly the kind of question EPA and GE should be asking before final remedy decisions are locked in," Select Board Chair Bob Jones said in a statement released to the press. "The town is not asking to slow the cleanup. We are asking EPA and GE to make the cleanup smarter, less destructive, and more protective over the long term."

An open house was held in Pittsfield earlier this summer for the Vernal Pool Pilot Study on Reach 5A of the Housatonic River, a five-mile stretch between the river's confluence and Lenox border.

EPA has required GE to conduct a Vernal Pool Pilot Study as part of the Housatonic River Rest of River remediation, comparing excavation and restoration with activated-carbon-based treatments, including a product called SediMite and powdered activated carbon, the town said.

Ten vernal pools will be cleaned of polychlorinated biphenyls in total, five with excavation and five with active carbon, and seven additional vernal pools will be monitored as controls. Construction will be complete around October, but the pools will be left to their natural processes and monitored with surveys and sampling for three years.

The Lee PCB Advisory Committee wrote a letter calling for the 21st-century approach it said could reduce long-term toxicity, avoid unnecessary destruction of sensitive habitats, and improve the effectiveness of the cleanup.

It states that Lee supports the study's purpose and agrees that EPA and GE must understand how cleanup activities affect sensitive vernal-pool ecosystems.

"The current pilot includes 10 treatment pools and seven control pools, while local officials understand that roughly 100 vernal pools may occur in the broader remediation corridor," the Aug. 27 letter reads.

"That makes the pilot study consequential: the methods tested now could shape how many sensitive wetlands are excavated, reconstructed, treated, or left with PCBs managed in place."

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