Carolyn Brown

Earlier this year, Villa Albertine, a cultural institution that works through the French Embassy in the United States, selected 30 American post-graduate students from 3,400 applications to take part in the inaugural class of the Lafayette Fellowship, which funds a one-year master's program in France in STEM, the humanities, social sciences and the arts.

Twelve-year-old Harlan “Harley” Fant — a guitarist, bassist and vocalist from Leeds — is already confident enough to correct his veteran musician father on guitar chords. Now, his newly formed youth rock band, Sparc, is taking to the stage to show the public exactly how far that musical mentorship has come.

AMHERST — Four Amherst-area performing arts companies that together present 45 productions a year and put more than 800 community members in the spotlight and behind the scenes each season are joining forces to search for a single, permanent home.

Over the last century, countless things have changed, but 100-year-old Betty Schaffer's love of art remains untouched — and her earliest drawing from 1939 is on display to prove it.

On 10 August US president Donald Trump issued an executive order recommending changes to children’s vaccinations in the US.1Among these were to split the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine into separate jabs, with Trump also making the unproved link between vaccines and autism in the announcement.The move triggered strong rebukes from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Medical Association (AMA), and the World Health Organization (WHO), as experts cautioned that dividing the MMR vaccine would be needless, expensive, and hazardous to children’s health.“As measles cases reach a 35 year high in the US, and with cold and flu season quickly approaching, today’s executive order on vaccines is not only disheartening but dangerous,” said AAP president Andrew Racine in a statement labelling the changes as unscientific.2AMA president Willie Underwood III supported the AAP’s childhood vaccination schedule. “Altering a proven vaccination schedule without credible evidence risks weakening public confidence and putting children’s health at risk,” he said in a statement.3“Vaccination policy should be guided by rigorous, independent, and transparent review of the best available science, not by political influence,” echoed WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement.4The political motivation for the proposed changes is US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s ideological fight against vaccines over the past two decades, said Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Centre for Health Security in Baltimore.Trump’s order, said Adalja, is “completely in defiance of the actual evidence. This can’t be understood as any kind of medical or scientific decision. This was basically …

It often takes actors years of study or theatrical experience to be in a performance of “Hamlet.” At an upcoming production in Northampton, all you need to do is walk on stage.

Musician Jon Carroll, co-founder of the Starland Vocal Band, won two Grammy Awards in 1977 for the hit song “Afternoon Delight,” but his musical accomplishments extend far beyond that breakout success. His résumé includes performing with The Chicks and Mary Chapin Carpenter and writing songs recorded by Linda Ronstadt, Tom Jones and Kenny Rogers. Now, Carroll is turning his attention to a new album with a socially conscious message.

NORTHAMPTON — When Florence resident Bryan Kaproth-Gerecht was newer to crossword construction, they made crossword puzzles as gifts for loved ones' birthdays and anniversaries. But on Tuesday, millions of people will see their crossword when it's recognized at a level only a very small percentage of puzzles ever reach: being published in the New York Times.

Overflowing trash cans and abandoned plastic water bottles are familiar sights at many large music events. One Easthampton gathering, however, wants to show that it's possible for a big concert series to be as good for the earth as it is to the ear.

Artist Alma Thomas was famous for her signature brushstrokes — or, as she called them, “Alma's stripes” — yet these marks transcend simple lines. At times, they mimic the view of nursery plants arranged in neat rows from above. In other pieces, they resemble terrace tilework, forming shapes the artist herself called “hieroglyphs.” They can look like collaged construction paper, or a basket's woven texture magnified to an epic scale. In some works, they even resemble the bold, fractured patterns of a giraffe's coat.