Symposium to discuss musical culture before and after Braille

SOUTH HADLEY — The Mount Holyoke College Music Department will host a bicentenary symposium, “Reframing the Gaze: Maria Theresia Paradis, Blind Musicians and Musical Culture Before and After Braille,” on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 22-23. The symposium will be held both in-person and online and is free and open to the public.

Paradis (1759-1824) was a celebrated Viennese prodigy and piano virtuosa whose story of blindness, quack treatments under Franz Mesmer and fame as a touring musician has been retold in novels, films and plays. She was also a well-known composer, a piano teacher and an influential figure in the development of educational systems and adaptive technologies for the blind in Europe.

In honor of Paradis’ bicentenary, the interdisciplinary symposium features two keynote speakers, Selina Mills and Stefan Sunandan Honisch, and a dozen international scholars discussing various aspects of Paradis’ life, works, worlds and impact.

Musical events include two recitals of music by and about Paradis and a reconstruction of one of Paradis’ Vienna school concerts from the 1810s, featuring the modern-day world premiere of a recently rediscovered Paradis cantata.

For a full listing of events, as well as information about streaming the symposium, visit events.mtholyoke.edu/paradis-symposium.

 

Northampton Artisan Fair on horizon

NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton Center for the Arts will hold its fourth annual building-wide Artisan Fair on Saturday, Nov. 30, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at 33 Hawley St.

Visitors can meet 60 local artists and artisans selling their work, enjoy refreshments and coffee throughout the day and listen to live music by Carrie Ferguson at 11 a.m., Kim Chin-Gibbons at 12:30 p.m. and Lily Sexton at 2 p.m.

 

Holyoke to hold final listening session on comprehensive plan

HOLYOKE — The city of Holyoke invites residents to the third and final community listening session on the ongoing update to Holyoke’s Comprehensive Plan. This session will take place Thursday, Nov. 21, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Holyoke YMCA.

This session is the last in a series designed to engage residents in shaping the future of Holyoke. The Comprehensive Plan will serve as a blueprint for the city’s growth and development, focusing on key areas such as housing, transportation, economic development and sustainability.

The city encourages residents of all backgrounds to participate in this final opportunity to provide their insights, which are crucial for crafting a plan that reflects the community’s needs and aspirations.

Holyoke is charting a path for the next chapter in its history. For the first time since 1999, it is updating its Comprehensive Plan, a commonwealth-mandated document that requires Massachusetts cities and towns to maintain a plan for their long-term physical development. Through comprehensive plans, cities and towns envision aspirational futures for themselves and identify implementation pathways for achieving those aspirations. These plans span all aspects of physical development, from the types of housing available in the community, to how people get around, to the community’s resilience to climate change, and more.

Holyoke’s Office of Planning and Economic Development is leading the Comprehensive Plan update in collaboration with the Holyoke Planning Board. To support them, a team of consultant urban planners has been retained, led by Cambridge-based Agency Landscape + Planning with support from Northampton-based Cambridge Econometrics, Boston-based Nitsch Engineering, and NYC-based Hive Public Space. Several of the consulting planners are native Spanish speakers and several live in the Pioneer Valley.

The city aims to completethe project next summer.