“You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” Hits the Bedford Middle School Stage Friday
After several weeks of rehearsals, local middle schoolers and other teens in the Westport Summer Teen Theatre are excited to present their final performance of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” from the Bedford Middle School stage. The show will begin at 6:30 Friday evening in the school’s auditorium, with tickets available at the door with cash or check ($15/adults, $10/children). Contributed photo.
Wanna Have Fun? Cyndi Lauper Coming to Levitt Pavilion September 30th
From the Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts:
THE LEVITT PAVILION GALA IS MADE POSSIBLE BY THE LEAD SPONSORSHIP OF THE CLAUDIA AND ARTHUR COHEN FOUNDATION
Cyndi Lauper is a groundbreaking Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning songwriter and performing artist with global record sales in excess of 50 million. Her iconic voice, influential punk glamour, and infectious live shows have catapulted her to stardom. Lauper won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist with her first album, She's So Unusual, and became the first woman in history to have four top-five singles from a debut album. Since then, Lauper has released ten additional studio albums, yielding timeless classics like “Time After Time” and “True Colors,” and the anthemic “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” She’s been nominated for 15 Grammy Awards, two American Music Awards, seven American Video Awards, and 18 MTV Awards. In 2013, Cyndi Lauper became the first solo woman to win Best Original Score (music and lyrics) for Kinky Boots. She contributed a Tony-nominated song to the score of the Broadway musical SpongeBob SquarePants and is currently writing the score for the Broadway adaptation of the 1988 feature film Working Girl.
A pillar of female success, Lauper was inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015, released a New York Times best-selling memoir, and continues to collect impressive accolades across the music industry and beyond. In 2018, Lauper designed and launched a sold-out Home Decor Collection with Grandin Road and added a guest starring role on CBS’ hit TV show Magnum PI to her acting resume. In 2018, she received the “Icon Award” from Billboard at its 13th annual Women In Music event and brought down the house with a rousing tribute to Cher at Kennedy Center Honors.
In January of 2022, Cyndi Lauper‘s smash debut 1983 girl-power anthem, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” joined the YouTube one billion views club. And in May, Sony Music Entertainment officially went into production for a Cyndi Lauper documentary titled “Let The Canary Sing,” a feature-length film that promises to explore the singer’s 30-plus year career. The film, which is being made in partnership with Lauper herself, will be directed by award-winning documentarian Alison Ellwood, who most recently directed the Emmy-nominated two-part documentary, “Laurel Canyon.”
In addition, Lauper is tireless in her advocacy work. She has been an activist since day one, always fighting for the underdog - especially women, people living with HIV/AIDS, and LGBTQ people. Her commitment runs so deep that she started her own charity, the True Colors United in 2008 to bring an end to homelessness amongst LGBTQ youth, who make up to 40% of the youth homelessness population. Over the past 10 years, the True Colors United has had an indelible impact on ending youth homelessness in America. From playing a lead role in securing $167.5 million in new annual federal funding from Congress to invest in 46 communities across the country, which Cyndi powerfully testified in support of in the U.S. Senate, to training close to 2,000 homeless youth service providers for free over the past year to inclusively work with LGBTQ youth, Cyndi and the True Colors United are fundamentally changing how the country is working to prevent and end youth homelessness for the 4.2 million youth who experience it each year.
Member pre-sale active now.
On sale to public on Saturday, July 23 at 9AM (ET)
Note: “Gala + Concert Tickets” and Sponsor Packages Include Access to the Pre-Concert Gala Cocktail Party at Don Memo and Walrus Alley.
The 2022 Gala Cocktail Party is graciously sponsored by Roz & Bud Siegel.
The Heida Piano Competition Returns to MoCA Westport
Press ReleaseMoCA Westport will once again bring four rising stars in the piano world to Westport, CT to compete over the course of three days in one of America’s most celebrated cultural events, the 2022 Heida Hermanns Piano Competition. The competition will take place from August 11-13, 2022.
The competition was originally scheduled to take place in January 2022 but was postponed due to COVID-19.
The four finalists were selected through an extensive international application process that included video submissions of individual performances. Selected candidates include Katharine Benson (U.S.), Nathan Cheung (U.S.), Aaron Kurz (U.S.), and Artem Kuznetsov (Russia).
Judges for the final in-person competition include pianist Frederic Chiu of Beechwood Arts & Innovation and a previous Heida winner (Chairman of the Jury); Sara Davis Beuchner, one of the leading concert pianists of our time; and Argentine/American celebrated pianist Mirian Conti. Video audition jurists included Sahun Hong, Zhenni Li, and the 2019 Heida winner, Priscila Navarro.
The esteemed Alexander Platt will serve as the Artistic Director for the Heida Competition. Platt has built a unique career spanning the worlds of symphony, chamber music, and opera as conductor, music director, curator and host. Based in Chicago and New York, he is Music Director of the La Crosse Symphony, the Waukegan Symphony and the Wisconsin Philharmonic, he serves as the music director of the Maverick Concerts in Woodstock, New York during the summers, and is the Curator of Concerts at MoCA Westport.
Platt said of the Competition, “After a hiatus of over two years we are so thrilled that the Heida is back, and better than ever. In addition to four illustrious finalists, we shall be hosting all their performances at our beautiful MoCA campus, with our vintage Hamburg “D” grand piano now beautifully restored by Ivan Brunner, a skilled technician in the Hamburg Steinway traditions, who actually used to take care of the instrument when it was regularly used at Carnegie Hall.”
The winner receives a cash prize of $10,000, and each of the other finalists will receive a prize of $2,500.
Prior winners include celebrated pianists who have gone on to perform in the world’s most important halls, such as Spencer Myer, Frederic Chiu, Josh Wright, Timur Mustikimov, and Yue Chu.
The 2022 Heida Hermanns International Piano Competition will also spotlight the unjustly neglected music for solo piano of the important African-American composer, Nathaniel Dett. Born in Canada, Dett studied and made his career in the United States, and is one of the great American composers of the 20th century and a trailblazing figure in the history of Black composers of classical music. Clipper Erickson, the distinguished American pianist and a recognized scholar of Nathaniel Dett and his music, will serve as Artistic Advisor to the Heida 2022, and will lead a free lecture on Dett on Friday, August 12 at the Westport Public Library.
In addition to the finalist’s performances, the three-day event also includes master classes at the Westport Public Library and performances by the jury.
Tickets can be purchased for individual events or as a three-day package. Please visit theheida.mocawestport.org to learn more and purchase tickets. Tickets for the original January 2022 date will be valid for the August events.
The competition will take place within the context of MoCA Westport’s visually stunning exhibition, Women Pulling at the Threads of Social Discourse, on view through October 2, 2022.
MoCA Westport deeply appreciates the sponsors of the competition who help to bring the event to fruition. Sponsors for the Heida include Beechwood Arts and Innovation, Kristin Foster, Lance Lundberg and Terry McGuinness, Lux Bond & Green, Laura and Dogan Perese, and Cindy and John Vaccaro. MoCA Westport also thanks WSHU for serving as a media sponsor of the Heida competition.
About the Heida Competition
Heida Hermanns, the founder of the Connecticut Alliance for Music, Inc. (CAM), was a pianist, teacher and philanthropist. She was born in Wiesbaden, Germany in 1906 and received her first piano lessons from her mother. At the age of 15, she enrolled at the Berlin Hochschule fur Musik. Her teachers included Egon Petri, Artur Schnabel, Carl Friedberg and Isabella Vengerova. She made her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic at age 18 and toured Europe as a recitalist and concerto soloist through the 1920s and early 1930s.
Heida Hermanns immigrated to the United States in 1936 and made her New York debut at Town Hall in 1942. In the late 1940s, she moved to Connecticut and helped start the Friends of Music, an organization that presented chamber music concerts. Ms. Hermanns was also a founder of Performers of Connecticut that arranged performance opportunities for young musicians and sponsored the Heida Hermanns Young Performers Competition, known today as the Heida Hermanns International Music Competition. As audiences and memberships grew, the name was changed to Connecticut Alliance for Music, Inc.
Levitt Guests enjoy Ballet under the Stars
As the sun dipped below the treeline, the lawn of the Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts became cooler while members of the Connecticut Ballet warmed up to dazzle the audience with dances spanning across time and genres into the evening. WestportLocal.com photo
Compo Calm
Compo’s shoreline was empty this afternoon as rains cleared the waterfront of visitors and humidity moved into the community. WestportLocal.com photo
Hunt Club Sunset Reflections
After a day of drenching rains, the fields of the Fairfield County Hunt Club drank all they could as the sun began to set over the equine property. WestportLocal.com photo
Clapboard Hill Colors
The bright colors of hydrangeas continue to bring brightness to the community despite rain today. WestportLocal.com photo
Bridge Street Bridge: Another Day, Another Opening
Marcelino Martinez, a member of the Connecticut Department of Transportation, stands on the edge of the William F. Cribari Memorial Bridge that carries Bridge Street over the Saugatuck River as it swings back into place this afternoon along the river’s west bank. Martinez remarked that the bridge operated perfectly, pointing out that the opening and closing was silent with an updated motor in place that allows the bridge to swing the 90 degrees with ease. Martinez and his two colleagues are specially trained to operate the unique bridge on behalf of the DoT, including how to twist the 138 year old bridge open manually should the motor fail - just as it was done over one century ago. Today’s opening, and subsequent closure of Bridge Street, lasted about five minutes. WestportLocal.com photo
Click to enlarge photos. All photos by WestportLocal.comWakeman Family Fun Day Attracts Countless Smiles
Today’s Wakeman Family Fun Day at Wakeman Farm (11:00-3:00) attracted countless families. The pizza, Saugatuck Sweets ice cream stand, face painting, butterfly and pollinator garden station, Westport Book Shop, and a variety of other activities drew in large crowds. Photos and words by Cami Vynerib.
Lucky Duck: Westporter Wins 2022 Great Duck Race, $5,000 Prize, with Duck #410
Janet Mittleman, a Westporter for 32 years, was this year’s Lucky Duck as her rubber ducky won the Westport Rotary’s Great Duck Race today on Jesup Green. Mittleman and her five year old grandson James Gladstein were all smiles as they came to claim their prize from First Selectwoman Jen Tooker and members of the Westport Rotary clubs after their duck, #410, made its way the fastest down the manmade river - with water supplied by Westport firefighters. Thousands of ducks took the plunge today from the bucket of an AJ Penna frontloader, with every duck randomly assigned a number that corresponded to a donor’s ticket. All money collected from the duck race goes back into the community as the funding supports numerous non-profit organizations and local events through the Westport Rotaries. WestportLocal.com photo
Runners (floaters?) up for this year’s race included:
Nick Battaglino
Anna Brady
Rob Graham
Alexnder Strompen
Tracey Cauley
Wen Hsu
Rady Johnson
Jason Wolgast
Silvia Durno