Clark Art Presents Constant Smiles and Ava Mirzadegan

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Clark Art Institute's Music at the Manton Concert spring series concludes with a performance by Constant Smiles and Ava Mirzadegan on Sunday, May 5 at 5 pm.
 
The performance takes place in the Clark's auditorium, located in the Manton Research Center.
 
According to a press release:
 
Constant Smiles began in 2009 in leader Ben Jones' home of Martha's Vineyard. Inspired by the island's now-defunct community record store Aboveground Records, the group made their live debut as a noise duo opening for Ralph White (Bad Livers). Fourteen indie-folk albums later, Constant Smiles returns to their electronic roots with their latest release Kenneth Anger, evoking the eponymous filmmaker with hypnotic, '80s-inspired synth classics that examine how rituals and community can heal feelings of isolation.
 
Ava Mirzadegan opens for Constant Smiles. Mirzadegan writes quiet songs about heartbreak, longing, letting go, and befriending the night sky. Accompanied most often by fingerpicked nylon string guitar, her work rings of unembellished honesty.
 
Tickets $10 ($8 members, $7 students, $5 children 15 and under). Accessible seats available; for information, call 413 458 0524. Advance registration encouraged. For more information and to register, visit clarkart.edu/events.
 
Presented in collaboration with Belltower Records, North Adams.

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Williamstown Community Preservation Act Applicants Make Cases to Committee

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Community Preservation Committee on Tuesday heard from six applicants seeking CPA funds from May's annual town meeting, including one grant seeker that was not included in the applications posted on the town's website prior to the meeting.
 
That website included nine applications as of Tuesday evening, with requests totaling just more than $1 million — well over the $624,000 in available Community Preservation Act funds that the committee anticipates being available for fiscal year 2027.
 
A 10th request came from the town's Agricultural Commission, whose proponents made their cases in person to the CPC on Tuesday. The other four are scheduled to give presentations to the committee at its Jan. 27 meeting.
 
Between now and March, the committee will need to decide what, if any, grant requests it will recommend to May's town meeting, where members will have the final say on allocations.
 
Ag Commissioners Sarah Gardner and Brian Cole appeared before the committee to talk about the body's request for $25,000 to create a farmland protection fund.
 
"It would be a fund the commission could use to participate in the exercise of a right of first refusal when Chapter [61] land comes out of chapter status," Gardner explained, alluding to a process that came up most recently when the Select Board assigned the town's right of first refusal to the Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation, which ultimately acquired a parcel on Oblong Road that otherwise would have been sold off for residential development.
 
"The town has a right of first refusal, but that has to be acted on in 120 days. It's not something we can fund raise for. We have to have money in the bank. And we'd have to partner with a land trust or some other interested party like Rural Lands or the Berkshire Natural Resources Council. Agricultural commissions in the state are empowered to create these funds."
 
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