My View of Life on the Dock
morning photos: cloud drama starting 8:45 AM on March 18, 2024 in Gloucester, Mass.
View from Thatcher Road–tapers to the right
as if it were a daylight aurora in the bottom layers
All day 🍀🌈🎩💚☘️
May have heard some talk about CNN Irish history article and GMG smashburger competition
Shamrock tree & clouds plus a rainbow top o’ the evening –what else would it do on St. Patrick’s Day 🙂
Just four days away! Heidi Dallin shares a reminder about Cape Ann Symphony spring concert in this their 72nd season:
The Cape Ann Symphony’s 72nd Concert Season continues with The Known (and Unknown) Greats Concert featuring world renowned pianist Janice Weber on Sunday, March 17 at 2 pm at Manchester-Essex High School auditorium on 36 Lincoln Street in Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA. For tickets and information about the concert, call 978-281-0543 or visit www.capeannsymphony.org
The program for The Known (and Unknown Greats) Concert features Louise Farrenc’s Overture No. 1; William Grant Still’s Woodnotes and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 performed by Janice Weber. Ms. Weber made her Cape Ann Symphony debut in 2008 playing Saint Saens’ Piano Concerto No. 2. in The French Fantasy Concert. CAS Music Director and Conductor Yoichi Udagawa looks forward to the upcoming concert,
“Virtuoso pianist Janice Weber is an amazing artist! She has a long history of breathtaking performances with CAS. We can’t wait for our audience to hear her perform Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto. We begin the concert with a sparkling Overture by the French composer Louise Farrenc followed by a gorgeous suite for orchestra by American composer William Grant Still.”
Yoichi Udagawa
Read the press release and print and share the poster!
IMAGES
Photo 1: CAS Music Director and Conductor Yoichi Udagawa
Photo 2: Guest Artist Pianist Janice Weber
Photo 3: Composer Louise Farrenc
Photo 4: Composer William Grant Still
Photo 5: CAS In Concert, Credit: Jeph Ellis, Image Maker
Photo 6: CAS Players, Credit: Jeph Ellis, Image Maker
Turners Seafood operates in several communities. Its Gloucester branch, Turner’s Seafood Market & Fish n Chips is located near St. Ann’s on Smith Street between Maplewood Ave. and Pleasant St., on the same side of the street as Holy Cow ice cream. On Turner’s Seafood main website, you can find descriptions for the daily fresh catch options. And from the “more” option you can select LEARN MORE: FISH FACTS to see a few local video shorts including, Real Local Haddock from the Dock to Your Plate. You’ll see master filleter, Milton, who has honed his decades of artful expertise at Turner’s, inspecting and fish cutting; and then on to Joey for another round of skinning and inspecting the fillets.
**Thanks to Heidi Dallin for recommending their local video production: Turner’s Seafood gets 2 Heidi Dallin thumbs up for their short reel Fun Facts 🙂
Turner’s Seafood shared the short videos on social media, too.
Photos February 2024: On different days & weather conditions, same bicycle rider on Bass Ave with sweet passenger Westie riding in back.
photo caption: 3/10/2024 at about high tide, views from Gloucester and Rockport, Long Beach, Twin Lights. Before the sun came out, the wind was strong enough this morning to move a portapotty off site 100′ down a street. Later, when the sun broke, waves in the surf matched up with a cloud filled blue sky.
porta potty almost put back to construction site. gray sky on left. blue sky hours later
-loading a few-
From the seawall, ricochet wave rolls
From Cape Ann Motor Inn
Photos above: C. Ryan 3/10/2024
March 9, 2024: The gray days are pretty, too. Snow buntings still about.
snow bunting dips- flying down from cottages over rip rap on the beach and back up again
An article in today’s Gloucester Daily Times newspaper 3/9/2024 encouraged the public to attend the Comprehensive Plan Draft Day, today– underway in City Hall from 10-2, if you can make it. See the article for more information, links to the plan’s website and next steps for the project. The Director of Community Development responsible for the plan stepped down. Staff from that department was on hand and members of various boards. Mayor Verga welcomed attendees and introduced the consultants.
Check out a Master Plan blast from the past: Read WALKER HANCOCK AND THE 1958 COMPREHENSIVE PLAN FOR GLOUCESTER. Zoning, master arts plan, signage, trees, inventory of significant homes (dozens of addresses across town), and more
Bringing home the bacon and the baking!
After a 6 year hiatus from barbecue competitions, Doug Keiles went down with his rub and won the whole thing. Congratulations to the 2024 Grand Champion! The Great American Kosher BBQ and Jewish Festival was held in Palm Beach, Florida.You can see the custom wood burned cutting board trophy on display.
photos would be better scratch n’ sniff ( imagine brisket wafting): smoked sea bass and other specialties in the case and a counter brimming with homey baked goods that are truly inspired by heirloom recipes their* mom used to bake, amped up and generous. Meat and Sweet is located at 23 East Main Street. Hours: Saturdays 10- or earlier if they sell out. Customers can order ahead. It’s a cheery shopping experience.
author’s note update: “their” as in Laurie and her sister, who can be seen in the photos and working front of the house 🙂
Spouses and business partners are both award winning foodies: Doug Keiles at doug@meatandsweetfoods.com | Laurie Lufkin at laurie@meatandsweetfoods.com | 978-559-7564
Artist Donna Caselden shares a release for an upcoming artist talk special event:
Please join us as we listen to artist Robin Colodzin. This exciting talk is free and open to the public! All are welcome!
The New England Experimental Art Group presents Robin Colodzin
Robin Colodzin’s work is inspired by the ocean, poetry, philosophy, and feminism. She is an artist, a software engineer, a swimmer, and an avid reader.
I find the practices that get me most fully embodied and expressive sometimes conflict with those that would allow me to shape a painting into something that would say something to others. This talk will explore those tensions.
Robin Colodzin
Her latest solo show (fall 2023) entitled ‘Embodied’ was a month-long exhibit at The Copley Society for Art in Boston. She has recently published a monograph of the same title, including artwork and writing. www.colodzin.com
Who: The New England Experimental Art Group
What: A Timely Talk: An evening with Robin Colidzin | My studio of safe uncertainty: An exploration of the gap between pure expression and communication in art-making
Where: ZOOM
When: March 20,2024 7:00pm
The New England Experimental Art Group is a creative forum. Its main mission is to increase public awareness and to foster self-expression by bringing artists together to explore and share ideas that cultivate creative freedom. If you would like a zoom invite to the event, please contact: Nella Lush, The New England Experimental Art Group Chair, via email at www.experimentalartgroup.com
Fog & sweet convivial snow buntings covered a lot of ground along the Long Beach seawall. After many weeks, I was happy to return to a morning walk Feb. 27, 2024.
photo and video clip images from my phone: A small flock of snow buntings traversed from lawns to roofs to the seawall railing and back again in response to walkers on the path and beach below. It was great fun watching them venture up and down especially when navigating the roof pitch on various cottages.
video clips- short few seconds each
Join us Sunday March 3rd at 3 P.M. for another superb concert created by violinist and composer, Scott Moore!
Music Committee Annisquam Village Church
The nascent Lobster Cove String Quartet widens its wake with guest artists in a concert Sunday, March 3rd, at 3:00 PM at the Annisquam Village Church. With windows looking out on the Cove itself, the concert is designed by Artist-in-Residence, violinist and composer Scott Moore—joined here by a glittering lineup of special guests in an eclectic program of new music as inviting as it is fresh. Pianist and songwriter Elizabeth Ziman anchors the lineup with what NPR Music calls “beautiful, thoughtful, smart music largely built around her very approachable and warm voice.”
The March 3rd Wood, Wire, & Songprogram comprises music written in the last 30 years: the plaintive strains of John Tavener’s mysterious Akhmatova Songs; the elemental crispness of recent Pulitzer-winner Caroline Shaw’s Valencia (composed in Manchester-by-the-Sea); frequent Kronos Quartet collaborator Osvaldo Golijov’s visceral setting of Emily Dickinson, How Slow the Wind; and Moore’s own setting of Shakespeare’s sunny Sonnet 18, a world premiere. Classical soprano Theodora Nestorova joins Ziman, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Dietrich Strause, and quartet members Moore, Erica Pisaturo (violin), Brandon White (viola), and Alex Fowler (cello). Notoriously multi-talented Club Passim stalwart Zachariah Hickman (Josh Ritter, Ray LaMontagne) contributes string arrangements.
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Gloucester DPW rehung art throughout City Hall following the 2023 fire & smoke damage. Frames were rewired.
In Kyrouz Auditorium, the Mayors Portrait Gallery installation was shuffled and reordered to incorporate portraits past and future with more to come. Two large Howard Curtis paintings recently donated to the city’s art collection are featured in the main hall.
The Mayor Portraits Gallery is extensive, nearly complete, and a work in progress. Mayor portraits are installed following service: A portrait of Mayor Romeo Theken will be added. A poster of the Mayor Barrett portrait will come, the third in a series of poster reproductions for the trio of Mayor portraits painted by Charles Allan Winter (quick, not from life, unprimed, and flaking). I recommended the portrait of Mayor Dyer (A.H. Bicknell, 1879) be brought upstairs in sequence with the others, and that Mayor Merchant be represented (he wasn’t), so it’s great to see those two included. I also recommended that the portrait of Mayor O’Maley be brought back from O’Maley school and one future day a portrait of Mayor Foster (rather than a plaque) and perhaps a larger portrait of Mayor Beatrice Corliss be commissioned.
Images: Kyrouz Auditorium, City Hall, Jan. 2024, ©C. Ryan.
As is common with Gloucester DPW, the staff admires the architectural details and history of the building. Here, Joe and Jim take in the ‘scenic overlook’ from the balcony. Jim talks about the Kyrouz ceiling lights: the original engineering mechanism that drops the fixtures so that the bulbs can be changed remains operational.
The ceiling is sparkling because workers could reach it from atop a specialty scaffolding platform (a la Michelangelo :)). Images: Kyrouz Auditorium, City Hall, 2023. Courtesy photos, Joe Lucido, Asst. Dir. DPW
On the Dale Avenue entrance side of City Hall, above the fire & smoke incident, the stairwell walls and ceiling received attention, too. The facilities remediation project was smartly directed by DPW.
photo: 2013, C. Ryan
Cape Ann Symphony Musicians Unleashed Concert Series
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11 at 3:00PM
at Gloucester’s St. Paul Lutheran Church
Featuring SAMUEL COSTA Trumpet; KURT CHARLES, Trumpet; EARL POWERS, Horn; JOHN MITCHELL, Trombone ROB NEEDS, Tuba
Cape Ann Symphony proudly announces the Musicians Unleashed Concert, Blazing Brass!, on Sunday, February 11, 2024 at 3:00 PM at The St. Paul Lutheran Church, 1123 Washington Street, Gloucester. The ticket price for Blazing Brass! is $40 for Adults and $15 for Youth. Call CAS at 978-281-0543 or go to www.capeannsymphony.org to purchase tickets. The Cape Ann Symphony’s Musicians Unleashed programs were launched in 2019 and have become a wonderfully popular series with an overwhelmingly enthusiastic audience response.
Blazing Brass! celebrates the brass section of the orchestra and features 5 accomplished brass players including Ipswich resident and CAS principal horn, Earl Powers; Samuel Costa, trumpet; Kurt Charles, trumpet; John Mitchell, trombone; and Rob Needs, tuba. These 5 musicians have planned an exciting journey of brass music through the decades featuring the music of George M. Cohan, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Leonard Bernstein and America’s March King John Philip Sousa. The program for Blazing Brass! includes the classics: Just a Closer Walk With Thee, Amazing Grace; The Saints’ Hallelujah and America The Beautiful; Jaime Texidor Dalmau ‘s Amparito Roca; Fats Waller’s Ain’t Misbehavin’; John Philip Sousa’s Fairest of the Fair; Duke Ellington’s It Don’t Mean A Thing; and Selections from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story: Maria, Tonight, I Feel Pretty and Somewhere.
THE PLAYERS:
Earl Powers is currently the principal horn of the Cape Ann Symphony and has been a
member of the 215th Army Band since 2012. Earl received his Bachelor of Music degree from Wichita State University and his Master’s degree from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Prior to joining the 215th , he was principal horn for 10 years in the United States Navy Band in Washington, DC, and spent two years as 3rd horn in the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra. In 1989 Earl was selected as a Rotary Scholar from District 569 in Kansas and spent a year abroad studying horn at the Hochschule “Mozarteum” in Salzburg, Austria. Now a software engineer by day and a horn player by night, Earl lives in Ipswich with his amazing and talented wife, Susanne,along with their four equally talented and amazing children.
Samuel Costa is currently the Director of Bands at Ponaganset Middle School in North Scituate, Rhode Island. He has also held the position of Principal Trumpet for the 215th Army Band of the Massachusetts Army National Guard for the last 24 years. He has performed all over New England and is a founding member of the Nebula Brass Quintet.Samuel has performed frequently with the Cape Ann Symphony in addition to other orchestras, including the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Cape Cod Symphony, and Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra.
Kurt Charles was born and raised in Manchester, Connecticut, where he started playing the trumpet in grade school. He has worked as a local musician performing for church services, marching bands, dance bands, and musicals around Connecticut and Western Massachusetts. Kurt studied music education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from 2011 to 2016. He joined the 215th Army National Guard Band of Massachusetts in 2012 and is a member of the Commonwealth Brass Quintet. Kurt currently resides in Stafford Springs, Connecticut and works full time in the field of Information technology while continuing to serve as an Army Bandsman in Massachusetts and a civilian musician in his local community.
John Mitchell, a trombonist of unwavering passion, embarked on his musical journey at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he cultivated his skills and developed a profound appreciation for the art. Currently, he proudly serves in the 215th Army Band,showcasing both his musical prowess and dedication to his country. Alongside his military commitments, John finds fulfillment in shaping the next generation of musicians through private lessons. With a rich blend of training, service, and a love for teaching, John Mitchell continues to leave an indelible mark on the world of music.
Rob Needs started playing euphonium in 1972. He joined the 215th Army Band in 1980, started learning tuba in 1985, and in 1987 became the principal tuba player for the Army Band. Rob recently retired with 41 years of service! Rob has played on severa loccasions with the Cape Ann Symphony on tuba and is currently the principal French horn player in the Southeastern Philharmonic Orchestra and Our Lady of Light band. Additionally he is lead trombonist in the Swansea Community Musicians, euphonium player in the Saint Cecilia Philharmonic Band, tuba player in the Nebula Brass Quintet, French horn player in the North River Brass Quintet, and regularly switches instrumentsas needed in the Bridgewater Antiphonal Brass Society. He has performed vocally, on bass guitar, on keyboards, and has written brass quintet arrangements, several of which are being performed today.
Blazing Brass! is Sunday, February 11 at 3:00 PM at The St. Paul Lutheran Church, 1123 Washington Street, Gloucester. Ticket prices for Blazing Brass! are $40 for Adults and $15 for Youth. Call Cape Ann Symphony at 978-281-0543 or go to www.capeannsymphony.org for tickets.
Photos Attached:
February school vacation week at Cape Ann YMCA
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Images closer, closer, closer 2/3/2024: Those rocks are moving 🙂 Long Beach regulars slow float & feed, waddle, or stand when they hit a sandbar stretch.
Sun came out sometime after 10AM
Feb 2 is World Wetlands Day and National Wear Red Day
/heart disease awareness, esp. for women. Walking by wetlands does your heart good 🙂
Head over to the Saunders house lawn on Saturday to sign the steel beam –which doubles as a future sign, too! Saturday Feb. 3, 2024 10-2ish
Images: Jan. 28, 2024, 9:30 A.M. A seal that’s washed up dead on Long Beach was reported to authorities. Sick or dead marine wildlife can pose risks. Despite advice to keep a distance from beached seals, dead or alive, people and pets touched this one. Dogs sniffed, marked, chewed, dug and climbed atop the body. In its current position at this particular tide, the cause of death is undetermined and no visible wounds are apparent. High tide may cover and move the seal out or re-beach it again./
International Holocaust Remembrance Day falls on January 27th, the day of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1945.
In 2024, January 27 follows that dark day of October 7th, 2023.
Images: Global anti-semitic reported incidents on the ADL heat map in 2023 (detail across the country and detail zoomed into Mass.):
More reflection: Peruse the Art Gallery of Ontario Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross (http://agolodzghetto.com/)
Images: Installation views 2017, the MFA built an exhibit around Ross’s work which I wrote about here.
Good Morning Gloucester 