Clark Art Kicks Off Music in the Manton Series

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Clark Art Institute presents the first of its three-part Music in the Manton concert series with Flore Laurentienne, Canadian Mathieu David Gagnon's incomparable musical project, on Friday, March 21 at 7 pm in the Manton Research Center auditorium.
 
According to a press release:
 
Flore Laurentienne comes from a happy marriage between electronic and classically influenced music. The project is committed to constantly pushing the boundaries between various genres, including ambient, experimental, and progressive rock. Flore Laurentienne has recently released a new album, 8 tableaus, available on Secret City Records. Composer, orchestrator, and musician Mathieu David Gagnon draws inspiration from the works of Canadian painter and sculptor Jean Paul Riopelle with this new offering.
 
This program is presented in collaboration with Belltower Records, North Adams, Massachusetts.
 
$10 ($8 members, $7 students, $5 children 15 and under). Advance registration encouraged. Capacity is limited. Accessible seats available. For more information, visit clarkart.edu/events. Admission to the Clark is free January through March 2025.
 
The next Music on the Manton concert is Sunday, April 27 at 2 pm, featuring pianist Umi G
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Theater Review: 'Driving Miss Daisy' Is a 'Wondrous' Production

By Alan PetrucelliSpecial to iBerkshires
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Alfred Uhry's "Driving Miss Daisy" rolled into the St. Germain Stage in late May, marking the opening of Barrington Stage Company's 2026 season.
 
And what a wondrous, welcoming production it is. Uhry won a Pulitzer Prize for his work; he won an Oscar for the 1989 film adaptation of the play, which also won the Best Picture Oscar. Yes, that's how good it is.
 
Daisy Werthan is a 72-year-old white Jewish widow in Atlanta whose car accident destroyed her Packard — and her chance to ever drive herself again.
 
"Mama, we are just going to have to hire someone to drive you," her adult son Boolie tells her. 
 
She is adamant: "What I do not want — and absolutely will not have — is some chauffeur sitting in my kitchen, gobbling my food and running up my phone bill."
 
Enter Hoke Colburn, an unemployed African-American illiterate who grew up in rural Georgia during the Jim Crow-era South. Boolie hires him at $20 a week, and in a span of 85 minutes and a decade or so, this odd couple develop a tight bond that overcomes their cultural, gender and class differences. 
 
Though she's living in a racially explosive time in the South, the irascible Miss Daisy doesn't consider herself racist, nor does she fully accept the realities of the racist culture that has even resulted in a bombing at her own synagogue (a true event in Atlanta, in 1958).
 
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