Home is where the heart is

Jon Suters, Dinuk Wijeratne, and Nick Halley. Photo by Jennifer Almquist
Every seat in the Great Hall of the Norfolk Library was full. The audience ranged from toddlers held in their parents’ arms to gray-haired couples eagerly waiting to experience the music of the Dinuk Wijeratne Trio. Percussionist Nick Halley, bassist Jon Suters and Dinuk Wijeratne on piano, spent the next hour dazzling the grateful crowd with original compositions, superb musicianship and stories that wove a theme of “home” throughout the evening.
To award-winning composer, conductor and pianist Wijeratne — who was born in Sri Lanka, raised in Dubai, educated in the UK and at Juilliard, and now lives in Ottawa — home is many places: “Dubai was a melting pot of South Asian and Middle Eastern culture. Simultaneously I was being trained as a Western musician. I heard Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 randomly when I was 12, and then I was hooked. It was my first spiritual experience.”
Wijeratne began the performance by saying: “Home is an ephemeral window in time, and perhaps the bittersweet quality of home is when we suspect that window in time has passed. I wrote this piece, “Homecoming,” in 2015 as a commission for piano and oud for the opening of the Museum of Immigration in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was also the year I gained my Canadian citizenship.”
Recalling the origins of his composition “Damascene,” which was performed by the trio in the library Nov. 13, Wijeratne smiled: “I had traveled with the great Syrian clarinetist, Kinan Azme. We spent a few magical days in his home city of Damascus. It was a very precious time; it seemed like time had stopped. We have all had that feeling when you are perfectly at home in a new, strange place. Is home a state of mind? Is it the people we love? Or is it purely geography?”
A world-renowned musician, Wijeratne made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2004 playing with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. He has been described by The New York Times as “exuberantly creative”; the Toronto Star called him “an artist who reflects a positive vision of our cultural future”; and the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra referred to him as “a modern polymath.”
Wijeratne has conducted the Calgary Philharmonic and the Qatar Philharmonic in Doha. His work “Two Pop Songs on Antique Poems” won both the 2016 Canadian Juno award for Classical Composition of the Year and the 2016 East Coast Music Award for Classical Composition of the Year.
For percussionist Halley, the performance was a return home. When Norfolk Library director Ann Havemeyer introduced the threesome, she noted that the first time she heard Halley perform in the library, he was 10, singing Beatles songs with Chorus Angelicus, a children’s choir started in 1991 by his Grammy-award winning father, Paul Halley.
Halley smiled and said: “It is meaningful to be back in Norfolk, and to feel the warm embrace of this special community. It is heartening to see so many familiar, gorgeous faces, everyone aging so gracefully. And the fact that they took the time to come and hear us, to support the amazing work that Eileen [Fitzgibbons] and Ann [Havemeyer]and the others at the library are doing makes this sort of homecoming that much more encouraging.”
Fitzgibbons is the events coordinator and children’s librarian for the Norfolk Library, all of whose music and arts programs are funded by The Norfolk Library Associates, which started in 1974.
Halley and his young family now live in Halifax, Nova Scotia: “By the time I got to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2008, Dinuk was already ‘Halifamous’ and well on his way nationwide. So I heard a lot about him long before he showed up to a gig of mine. Of course, I was terrified of him at first, but soon discovered what a gentle, magnificent soul he is. Playing-wise, it was love at first sight: of course, being so rhythmically compelling along with everything else, his music is any drummer’s dream, but I think he even liked me right off the bat, too.”
In 2010 the young Halley founded Capella Regalis, a Canadian charity dedicated to training singers, which includes a boys choir, a girls choir, and a professional men’s choir, offering a free music education and performance program for children and young adults in Nova Scotia. In 2012, Halley was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in recognition of his contribution to Canada and Nova Scotia through the arts. For the 2013-14 season, Halley was the host of CBC’s national radio program, “Choral Concert.”
When asked about his dreams, Halley mused: “In one sense, I’m living my dream with Capella Regalis. I just want to keep building it. We’ve started an endowment, for instance. I would like to take them to England. Bring some coals to Newcastle and such. There is so much music I love within that genre; we will never get through it in my lifetime. I want future generations of kids to continue encountering that world of beauty.”
Suters is as tall as his standing bass. He lives in New Marlborough, Massachusetts, with wife Samantha Halley (Nick Halley’s sister) and their children: “Each of my five children has been encouraged to play music and all of them have some facility with at least a couple of different instruments as well as vocalizing. We have homeschooled them all and music is a big part of our approach.”
Suters plays piano, guitar, string bass, cello, didgeridoo, banjo, mandolin, lute, violin, trombone, saxophone, drum set and percussion, and steel drums.
Suters has taught at Berkshire Country Day School, Indian Mountain School, Salisbury School, and Simon’s Rock of Bard College: “Teaching has enabled me to constantly go back to the fundamentals of music making and demonstrate and talk about them with students. I teach bass guitar, drums/percussion, keyboards, fiddle, brass instruments, and this has helped me to understand the relationships between the different instruments in an ensemble.”
When asked about his musical influences, Suters replied: “I am also a classical guitarist and grew up listening to my virtuoso piano prodigy brother play all the greats, so basically everyone from Bach to Scott Joplin, plus the usual rock influences: Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, classic jazz greats like Miles and Coltrane and more modern ones like Pat Metheny and Herbie Hancock. Brazilian composers and musicians like Villa Lobos, Garoto, Paulo Bellinati, African artists such as Youssou N’dour, Ali Farka Toure, and Indian musicians such as L Shankar, Talvin Singh, and Shakti.”
Suters has appeared on stage with James Taylor, Taj Mahal, Doctor John, Rickie Lee Jones, Martin Sexton, Madeleine Peyroux, Eugene Friesen, Paul Halley, Ed Mann (Frank Zappa) and Charles Neville of the Neville Brothers.
One evocative composition, “Chloe” by Wijeratne, is based on Italo Calvino’s book “Invisible Cities.” The composer illuminated the ideas behind the music: “Chloe reads like some bustling street scene, full of shady characters. There are twins wearing coral jewelry, a blind man with a cheetah on a leash — all very odd scenes. They don’t speak. When I read that the city of Chloe ‘has a voluptuous vibration to it,’ I knew I had to write this piece. Calvino wrote, “‘f everyone acted on their impulses, the carousel that is Chloe would come to a stop.’”
In each piece, the music flowed into the room like ocean waves, rhythmic and soothing, Wijeratne played piano with crystalline precision and emotion, the bass of Suters poured through the notes like honey. Halley’s wild percussions, played mostly with his fingers on drum kit, frame drums bendhir and riq specifically — “and the odd bells and whistles, doctoring up the kit with old shirts and weird stuff like that,” laughed Halley — provided the structure beneath the music. Playing together, the three musicians created an instinctual harmony in a language unspoken.
Composer and philosopher Wijeratne explained the spiritual origin of each of his compositions. “Lebanese/American Poet Kahlil Gibran, in a poem called ‘Upon Houses’ from his book ‘The Prophet’ describes the home not as an anchor, but as the mast of a ship. At first the home is a place for consolation, safety and comfort. Thereafter, home becomes the beginning of a journey of curious exploration. I find that to be a beautiful sentiment, so I wrote this piece I call, ‘Whose Windows are Songs and Silences.’”
The trio’s final piece ended with an immediate standing ovation. Half-asleep children and their parents and grandparents were clapping; the players held hands and bowed deeply. Fitzgibbons, who organized the event, felt the concert “was an exciting evening full of complex chords and improvisations... wrapped around with old friends and new.”
The combination of global musical traditions, jazz improvisation, poetry and literary influences, musicians at the top of their game, and the warm “welcome home” from the Norfolk community created an evening no one will easily forget.
Two uprooted locust trees still lie in the yard in front of Animal Farm Foundation’s original kennels where they fell on a fence during a storm on Thursday, June 19.
AMENIA — Fallen trees, uprooted and splintered during a thunderstorm, injured a man, destroyed fences and damaged a dog kennel at the Animal Farm Foundation facilities in Bangall.
Isaias Nunez was cleaning along a road on the property with Marco Ortiz, another employee of the dog shelter, when the storm rolled in on the afternoon of Thursday, June 19.
“We saw the storm getting stronger,” Ortiz said. “We started talking, ‘we should check for trees.’ That’s when I looked outside the Kubota and I just started screaming ‘run!’”
A branch from a tree just above their utility vehicle had split. The two men ran from the vehicle, but the falling branch caught Nunez and struck his back.
The fallen branch caused some soreness and bruising, Nunez said, but no broken bones. After a short hospital visit, doctors sent Nunez home to rest and heal. He has since returned to work, helping to repair the broken fences and clean up the storm damage that still lingers.
Uprooted locust trees mangled fences, damaged roofs and knocked down power lines all over the 400 acre farm that houses the Animal Farm Foundation’s shelter.Nathan Miller
The powerful storm uprooted and knocked down branches of dozens of black locust trees on the Animal Farm Foundation’s property and on neighboring properties along Pugsley Hill Road and Shaefer Road. Nikki Juchem, Director of Operations and Public Policy for the shelter, was in a meeting with Executive Director Bernice Clifford and founder Jane Berkey when a tree outside the main office building was struck by lightning and fell on the farm’s donkey enclosure.
“It’s really a miracle that everyone was unscathed, as well as the animals,” Juchem said.
In addition to Nunez’s injuries and the damaged donkey enclosure, fallen trees destroyed the fencing that secured the Animal Farm Foundation’s original kennel yard, fencing for a horse paddock, and poked a hole through the roof and into the ceiling of one of the facility’s dog play rooms.
And more was at risk than just the employees, volunteers, dogs, and other animals already sheltered at the farm. The shelter was expecting about 15 more dogs to arrive shortly after the storm.
“We were fixing up the horse barn to be dog kennels,” Juchem said. “Luckily we had all the extra space, because we would have been in a real pickle.”
All the dogs that were being kept in the original kennel building had to be moved to the newly renovated kennels so the noisy repairs wouldn’t bother them, Juchem said. Fosters stepped up to house dogs that couldn’t fit while necessary repairs were being completed, too.
A log stuck on a fence post outside the shelter’s kennel building.Nathan Miller
“Lots of damage but we had a lot of support from the community,” Juchem said. “We had contractors come out immediately to start cutting down trees and helping us out with the cleanup, so we’re doing OK now.”
The cleanup and repair process is ongoing, but Juchem said the total cost is still unclear.
Animal Farm Foundation is a nonprofit dog shelter with a focus on “pit bulls,” Juchem said. “Breed is not behavior,” she said, emphasizing the organization’s guiding philosophy. More information on volunteering, donating to the shelter, or adopting a dog is available online at www.animalfarmfoundation.org
The Animal Farm Foundation will be collaborating with the North East Community Center Farmers Market to bring adoptable dogs to the market every Saturday during the month of August.
Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.
Siglio Press is a small, independent publishing house based in Egremont, Massachusetts, known for producing “uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.” Founded and run by editor and publisher Lisa Pearson, Siglio has, since 2008, designed books that challenge conventions of both form and content.
A visit to Pearson’s airy studio suggests uncommon work, to be sure. Each of four very large tables were covered with what looked to be thousands of miniature squares of inkjet-printed, kaleidoscopically colored pieces of paper. Another table was covered with dozens of book/illustration-size, abstracted images of deer, made up of colored dots. For the enchanted and the mystified, Pearson kindly explained that these pieces were to be collaged together as artworks by the artist Richard Kraft (a frequent contributor to the Siglio Press and Pearson’s husband). The works would be accompanied by writings by two poets, Elizabeth Zuba and Monica Torre, in an as-yet-to-be-named book, inspired by a found copy of a worn French children’s book from the 1930s called “Robin de Bois” (Robin Hood).
Pearson first encountered the world of alternative publications — magazines filled with experimental writing, artworks in the form of a book, and samizdat literature — as a young writer living in Berlin just before The Wall came down in 1989. Later, in New York City, she spent a great deal of time with artists “who were always making and assembling, whose continuous art-making made the thin membrane between art and life even more porous,” she explained.
Pearson traces the idea of publishing to a 2001 exhibition of artist-poet Joe Brainard. That show led to “The Nancy Book,” Siglio’s debut title in 2008, and she’s never looked back. The book contains over fifty full-page reproductions of Brainard’s dazzlingly accomplished and witty drawings of the cartoon strip character, Nancy. It includes essays and contributions by Robert Creeley, Ann Lauterbach, Frank O’Hara, Ron Padgett, and other poets of great renown, all thrilled to celebrate and remember Brainard (sometimes called “a poet’s artist”) who died of AIDS in 1994. Pearson said, ‘My first project with Brainard was such a good experience, I kept going. “
Since then, Pearson, the sole proprietor of Siglio, has designed, edited, and published over 40 books and other printed editions. Her books are characterized by unexpected juxtapositions of texts and images and collage-like assemblages, as well as for carefully designed and gorgeously printed volumes. Her list includes many “rediscoveries” of unpublished manuscripts and little-known publications. At the same time, she has commissioned new work from an impressive array of artists and writers such as Christian Marclay, Sophie Calle and Cecilia Vicinua among others.
Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.Richard Kraft
Though most Siglio books feature work by artists and writers from the 1960s to today, one standout— “Tantra Song” (2011) — showcases vibrant 17th-century Indian tantric paintings collected by poet-ethnographer Franck André Jammes, their modernist feel echoing Hilma af Klint or Brice Marden. Siglio also frequently draws on the spirit of the Fluxus movement, reissuing works by figures like John Cage and Ray Johnson with editions that honor their playful, ephemeral, and poetic origins.
Siglio also excels at photo-narratives rooted in highly specific, often eccentric concepts. “Memory” (2020), by avant-garde writer Bernadette Mayer, reproduces her journal and daily rolls of 35mm film from a month in the Berkshires in 1971, capturing the texture of each day. “Call and Response” (2022), created during COVID lockdown by composer and visual artist Christian Marclay, pairs his photographs of London’s quieted streets with musical scores composed in reply by his friend Bruce Beresford—each image in dialogue with sound.
Siglio books are sold through it’s website (sigliopress.com), as well as museum or specialty bookshops. (The Lenox Bookstore represents a number of Siglio books; the newly opened Lakeville Books & Stationery has copies of “Tantra Song.”) In all cases, Pearson strives to make “two or three degrees of connection” with each book buyer, including a “special gift” — often a piece of printed ephemera — with each purchase.
Cyclists head south on the rail trail from Copake Falls.
After a shaky start, summer has well and truly descended upon the Litchfield, Berkshire and Taconic hills, and there is no better way to get out and enjoy long-awaited good weather than on two wheels. Below, find a brief guide for those who feel the pull of the rail trail, but have yet to purchase their own ten-speed. Temporary rides are available in the tri-corner region, and their purveyors are eager to get residents of all ages, abilities and inclinations out into the open road (or bike path).
For those lucky enough to already possess their own bike, perhaps the routes described will inspire a new way to spend a Sunday afternoon. For more, visit millertonnews.com/tag/bike-route to check out two ride-guides from local cyclists that will appeal to enthusiasts of many levels looking for a varied trip through the region’s stunning summer scenery.
Covered Bridge Electric Bike
Instagram @coveredbridgeebike
West Cornwall:
421 Sharon Goshen Turnpike
West Cornwall, Connecticut 06796
(860) 248-3010
Closed Tuesday, open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. all other days
Kent:
25 N Main Street
Kent, Connecticut 06757
(860) 248-3010
Open Wednesday to Sunday,
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
North Canaan:
1 Railroad Street
North Canaan, Connecticut 06018
(860) 248-3010
Open Wednesday to Sunday,
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
With three locations in the Northwest Corner, this outfit offers a speedier way to zoom on two wheels through the hills with electric-powered offerings for sale or rent. Rentals are available for two hour trips, half days or full days, with several sizes and models in both throttle and pedal assist e-bikes of various styles. Route maps and e-bike trainings are on offer for renters, and guided tours are available on select weekdays. Visit the website, call or email at info@coveredbridgebike.com for pricing and more information.
Each location has its own suggested routes of varying difficulty. Ethan at the Kent location says, “The first place we send people is Macedonia Brook,” the shady and bucolic state park just northwest of downtown. For a more involved ride, Ethan also recommended the quiet country roads that wind through the picturesque hill valleys to the east of town, especially off of Kent Hollow Road and toward Lake Waramaug.
Spencer, who works at the newest location in North Canaan, said that a dual-state two hour ride that takes cyclists into Massachusetts in Ashley Falls, then down into Taconic on Barnum Street and back to North Canaan via Twin Lakes Road and Cooper Hill Road, is his favorite. At the company’s West Cornwall location next to the its namesake bridge, Spencer said a classic ride is up River Road all the way to Falls Village, where riders may visit Great Falls or find some refreshment at the soon-to-open Off the Trail Café. For a longer journey, Spencer suggested continuing up Housatonic River Road north from Falls Village, where it turns into dirt and passes through gorgeous riverside farm country.
The Music Cellar
Instagram @the_music_cellar
14 Main Street
Millerton, New York 12546
(860) 806-1442
Scheduling is available via call or text 24/7
The Music Cellar is an all-instrument music school for aspiring instrumentalists, but it also rents beach cruiser bikes during the warmer months. “They’re perfect for the rail trail,” says owner and music instructor Johnny, referring to the currently 26-mile (and expanding) bike and footpath that passes just outside the storefront. “You don’t have to worry about hitting little bumps or potholes or curbs or whatever – they’re good all-purpose bikes,” he said.
Unique among area bike rentals, the Cellar offers rates starting at $20 for those looking for a shorter ride up to $50 for the day and Johnny said that he’s happy to accommodate sliding scale pricing for locals might have trouble affording the full rate. “It does help keep the lights on, though,” he said, “so if you’re renting bikes, you’re helping kids learn music!”
Johnny said that with the Harlem Valley Rail Trail at his front doorstep, he usually sends riders for a journey on the reclaimed abandoned railbed. The path currently stretches from Wassaic to the hinterlands of Hillsdale, with another 20 miles to Chatham planned to be built in the next five years pending funding. Johnny said riders can choose to head north for sweeping valley vistas below the Taconic mountains, or, “for a more shady ride, you could go south – also equally scenic, lots of wildlife. You can go all the way to Wassaic Station and jump on a train to New York.”
Bash Bish Bicycle & Tour Co.
Instagram @bashbishbicycles
247 NY-344
Copake Falls, New York 12517
(518) 329-4962
Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Located a dozen or so miles up the rail trail is the “ye olde bike shop of the Hudson Valley,” as described by its owner Sam. The shop is just two years from its 30th birthday, and appropriately exudes small-town charm without skimping on modern equipment and service. “It’s the best little bike store in the Hudson Valley,” said Northeast resident Dan Sternberg, who was clad in a cycling kit outside the store on a sunny Friday afternoon in June.
The shop is situated steps from the rail trail, just below the deep, clear and refreshing water of Ore Pit Pond in Taconic State Park, a short jaunt from the old Copake Iron Works site and a mere half mile from the parking lot for one of the Taconic’s region’s treasures and the store’s namesake – Bash Bish Falls. Sam offers day tours to highlight the richness of the region – not only in its natural resources but also the pastoral, cultivated splendor of the farm roads that cut through the hills to the west of Route 22.
Sam says he plans to start running multi-day tours, drawing on experience he had guiding extending bike excursions while operating a lodge in Colorado. Also upcoming is a pop-up shop in Millerton for the summer, which he anticipates opening shortly once the permitting is in order.
In addition to tours, the shop offers sales, repairs and rentals, starting at $35 for a two-hour hybrid bike session ($15 for kids) and $45 for two hours on an e-bike. Visit the website for full pricing details on four hour, full day, multi-day, and weekly rates. Bookings can be made online or via phone.
Sam says he likes to direct guests towards the scattered gems of restaurants, bars and shops that pepper the rail trail corridor and into the hills and dales beyond. The Copake General Store, dishing coffee and café fare alongside locally-produced provisions is just down the road, while market and cultural center Random Harvest and beloved seafood peddler Zinnia’s Dinette sit a close ride away in Craryville. For a summer afternoon tipple, Roe Jan Brewing Company is up the rail trail in Hillsdale, and the creek-side beer garden atmosphere of the Lantern Inn is a somewhat stouter 25 miles down the path in the other direction.
Berkshire Bike & Board
Instagram @berkshirebikeandboard
29 State Road
Great Barrington, Massachusetts 01230
(413) 528-5555
Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday closing at 5 p.m.
and Sunday at 4 p.m.
With Berkshire locations in Great Barrington and Pittsfield, and two other satellites in Hudson, New York and Bloomfield, Connecticut, Berkshire Bike & Board offers the gamut of cycling needs – a wide variety of gear, expert sales assistance, service and repairs, and of course, rentals.
All four locations carry an e-bike, which costs $69.99 for a single-day rate or a discounted price of 49.99 for longer rentals. The Great Barrington store also offers a non-electrified gravel bike for a single day rate of $99.99 or $79.99 for multiple days. All bookings for rentals are made online on the company’s website.
Great Barrington employee Wyatt described the gravel bike as “a little more aggressive” than a standard hybrid, and “able to handle packed dirt, a little bit of loose gravel, back roads, but not be super slow like a mountain bike” on pavement.
He said both the e-bikes and gravel bikes are well suited to handle one of his favorite routes, the Alford Loop. An approximately 20 mile ride, cyclists take Alford Road northwest out of Great Barrington, and then upon reaching Alford, may choose to take East Road to West Road or vice versa for a scenic and easy circle through the Berkshire forest and fields. In Wyatt’s words: “Great loop, super quiet, not a lot of cars.”