The Fabulous 413

We cross age gaps with a new and innovative dance production in Northampton. Across the Generations blends the pre-professional company The Hatchery of the School for Contemporary Dance and Thought with the stories being collected by the Intergenerational Storytelling Project between UMass Amherst Public Health Students and Northampton Neighbors. We meet with SCDT’s director Jen Polins, and Hatchery member Desmond Campbell to...

An innovator in jazz is coming to the Tanglewood Learning Institute on Friday, Oct. 16th. Ulysses Owens Jr. may have gone viral with his covers, but it’s his versatility on a drum kit that is truly inspirational. He and his Band Generation Y are headed to the Stockbridge Lenox line to celebrate their latest album "Kind of Grunge", and we speak with the educator and band leader about his musical origins, his ties to education,...

On Oct 14th at Amherst Cinemas, an amazing amalgam of celluloid and video documenting forgotten moments is being presented. Cinema Ephemera is an ongoing project that curates these many lost clips into a whole, centered around a theme. This Wednesday, clips fall under the heading “The Human Machine” and we speak with the two curators, Rich Remsberg and Shawn Rosenheim, about the scope of what they found, and the many un...

We’ll dive into the pages of a brand new graphic novel that deals with struggles inside and out. The Machine Is Broken deals with a number of hard topics in a technicolor landscape, and for all of its futuristic setting, is very much a story of right now, and we’ll meet with author illustrator Jared Sarnie to discuss this work, and its pictorial narrative. Plus we'll learn how you can celebrate it's long-awaited release...

Springfield College professor of journalism Martin Dobrow has released a new book that is a small departure from his previous works exploring the histories and culture surrounding sports. Original City, Original Sin: King, the Klan, and the Fight for Civil Rights in St. Augustine, Florida looks at an important year in the history of St, Augustine Florida, and how it intersects with Martin Luther King Jr, Western Mass, and the passi...

Friend of the show Kimaya Diggs has a brand new album out. Green shows a departure and a whole lotta growth for the artist and it’ll culminate with an album release show at the Academy of Music in Northampton this weekend. We’ll congratulate her in person with a live music performance in our studios and an exploration of the changes this third recording lets us hear. 

The Eric Carle Museum is exploring the work of i...

In Amherst, one location is creating a full spectrum of agricultural connections through partnerships and collaboration. Amythyst Farm is a lot of things: A working horse farm, a budding nut orchard, and a produce farm, but at the core of this complex of land-workers is a look to ecology and biodiversity unlike what we’ve seen before. 

We meet owners Bernard and Patricia Brennan, both evolutionary biologists, and hear how...

If we managed to learn more about a besmirched side character in a literary classic, how does that shifting of frame broaden our understanding of the original work? In the new book Miss Bates by local author Catherine Cliff, we explore the life of spinster Henrietta Bates from Jane Austen’s Emma, and along with NEPM reporter Elizabeth Roman, we’ll plumb the work and the perspective it gives both to women and class strug...

It's Friday and we find our studio filled with Americana legacy. Sam Grisman's notable father may have raised him on music, but he found his own way to the contrabass instead of mandolin. Over the years of his career he's rooted his sound in the innovations of his father, and the ambience of musicians that were regular guests of his upbringing. We hear from the bandleader with the current iteration of his eponymous Sam Grisman Proj...

The 2nd Stockbridge Munsee Homelands Powwow is taking place this weekend after an incredibly well received event last year. This iteration brings even more descendants of the peoples whose land we now live on to reconnect with the places of their ancestors. We’ll speak with organizers Ginger Stevens and Mysti Hammer about the start of this celebration, and what they’re doing to keep the connections between the present d...

Today is full of archaic lore, which sometimes comes in the form of movement and sound. Flamenco Boston has been keeping their centuries old tradition alive in New England. The collective of dancers and musicians are performing today at the Holyoke Library with a stop by our studios to share their incredible artistry and learn more about this art form’s origins in the people's feet and on guitars far beyond Andalusia.

Last nig...

We’re heading to Wilbraham where a turn off a main road brings wondrous vistas and copious amounts of locally grown fruit. Fern Valley Farm is nearing its tenth year of bringing bucolic views and tree fruits of all sorts to the area, and we talk with the family that brought it back from disrepair, Dan and Brooke Fernandes, and learn more about the trees and varieties they’re raising, and the community that’s sprou...

Musician, writer, film and tv producer Boots Riley is headed to Amherst for a talk at UMass and a double showing of his movie I Love Boosters at Amherst Cinema. But his latest work is just the tip of the creative iceberg that started with rallies and hip hop group The Coup, and has several forays onscreen as well. We sit with the raconteur to talk about his activist upbringing and leanings, the roots of his film style, and the visi...

Singers are coming up from Connecticut to sing for the planet. Which is an incredible over simplification of what will happen when Concora arrives in Florence to perform “A Passion for the Planet", a homegrown oratorio by Amherst composer Geoffrey Hudson that blends scientific prose, poetry, and sacred texts, advocating for change, and building a vibrant future. We’ll meet the composer as well as Soprano Alisa Pearson a...

NYT best selling author illustrators Tony DiTerlizzi and Jeff Kinney both have new books for your littler ones, each dealing with a touch of the spooky. The Wump, which sees a middle school student’s inner demons suddenly become outer ones, and Rowley Jefferson’s Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories 2 explores the imagination of a character from the Diary of a Wimpy kid series. We’ll talk with both about their work and...

This weekend on Sept 25th and 26th, the streets of Northampton will be filled with music. The Northampton Jazz Festival happens this weekend, and although they’ve been actively encouraging folx of all walks all year round, this is their big shindig, and we speak with board president Ruth Griggs and member Ricard Torres-Mateluna about what this year brings, especially with their headliner Lakeisha Benjamin at the Academy of Mu...

We're getting out in the community to see how we grow and learn more about ourselves in the process. 

Woven Roots Farm has been providing produce and more for the community for over 20 years. From its start as a garden project to their current home in Tyringham the farm has sought to not just feed our neighbors, but create more positive impact on the land and environment as well. We speak with Ex. Dir Jen Salinetti about growin...

A new local book combines the art world with language on the page and the intricacies of establishing a voice for oneself, even when that voice is subsumed in someone else’s story. Bird Girl is a new novel from author Duston Spear, centering an artist who is forced to confront a pivotal moment of her youth as it’s revisited in a podcast, and we’ll speak with her about the impetus for the work, the many mediums it ...

We head to the river where the community is coming together this weekend and next to improve the health of our local waterway. The Source to Sea Cleanup is happening at locations all along the Connecticut River, and we’ll speak with a matroyshka set of activists helping to make this happen, individually and through their respective organizations: David Bowles of Greenfield’s clean up, Nina Gordon-Kirsch from the Ct Rive...