Clark Art Presents Constant Smiles and Ava Mirzadegan

08:37AM / Thursday, May 02, 2024Print Story | Email Story

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.

Tags: Clark Art,

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9/11 Now Part of Broader Conversation in Classrooms

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:26AM / Thursday, September 10, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — When talking about teaching the greatest American tragedy of the 21st century in today's classrooms, teachers draw a parallel to how they were taught about one of the defining moments of the 21st century.

"Oddly now, it is kind of like when my World War II relatives and teachers talked about the Depression or Pearl Harbor," Mount Greylock Regional School history teacher Jeffrey Welch said recently. "The kids [today] are generally interested in personal and social history, and so, for that reason alone, they are curious.

"But 9/11 is also a 21st century icon. Local families lost loved ones, some of whom are still connected to the school community. Also, so many have connections to NYC and have been to Ground Zero and the museum. It is poignant, I think, but far less visceral for the students to study with the passage of time."

As the nation prepares to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on Friday, the nation's classrooms are the place where the events of 9/11 and its repercussions are being taught to a generation that lacks the emotional grounding in the events at Ground Zero that high school students may have had as recently as a dozen years ago.

At Wahconah Regional High School, Bryan Patton, who was reached separately for this story, made the same historical reference when asked about teaching 9/11 25 years after the fact.

"It's interesting because the way we have covered 9/11 has evolved over the years," Patton said. "It definitely used to get students' attention as a current or recent event years ago. For many students now, it's the way Pearl Harbor or Vietnam was when I was a student in the '90s.

"It was actually a difficult thing for my colleagues and I to grasp as they didn't live through it. It was before they were born so to them it's just an historical event. They ask questions. They care. But it's not the visceral response it used to be."

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