Category: Connecticut Travel

The Sherman Chamber Ensemble is ringing in the new year with its annual “Best of Baroque” concerts on Saturday, January 6 at 4 p.m. at Christ Church on Quaker Hill in Pawling, NY and on Sunday, January 7 at 4 p,m. at St. Andrew’s Church in Kent, CT. Audiences will be treated to works by masters of the Baroque era played by the best of today’s chamber music artists.

The program will include music for harpsichord, flute and strings by Bach, Telemann and Vivaldi. Special Guest Dylan Sauerwald, international prize winning harpsichordist will be joined by SCE Artistic Director and cellist Eliot Bailen, Susan Rotholz (flute), Michael Roth (violin), Sarah Adams (viola), and Peter Weitzner (bass).

The Ensemble’s “Best of Baroque” concerts have been praised by The Millbrook Independent as “stunning performances…inspiring and uplifting.”

Harpsichordist Sauerwald is a distinctive continuo player, soloist and music director, and is active across the US and Canada. He won the first place title in chamber music at the Concours de Musique du Canada 2009 and was a finalist at the Montréal Baroque CBC / Galaxie chamber music competition 2007, both with Ensemble la Félicité. He has performed in halls from Montréal’s Musée de Beaux Arts to Taipei’s National Recital Hall to Boston’s Goodlife bar.

He has music directed staged productions for Ensemble la Félicité and Ensemble Musica Humana, and is a regular repetiteur for the Amherst Early Music Festival, Venice Opera Project, Tafelmusik Summer Baroque Institute, and others.

Sauerwald has performed with the Handel & Haydn Society, TENET, Emmanuel Music, the Cambridge Concentus, Lorelei Ensemble, Sonnambula, Tramontana, The Weckmann Project, Ensemble Musica Humana, Ensemble ad Libitum and many others.

General Admission tickets are $30; Senior and Student tickets are $25, and children ages 15 and under are admitted free with the purchase of a paid ticket. Tickets may be purchased online at www.ShermanChamberEnsemble.org or at the door on the afternoon of the performance. For information or reservations call 860-355-5930.

End the year, including a countdown to 12 o’clock – 12 o’clock noon – with special family fun on Dec. 31 at The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk.

The Aquarium’s “Noon Year’s Eve” celebration offers bonus activities for families with younger children who want to celebrate the end of 2017 together, but not at the stroke of midnight.

From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., a disc jockey will provide the beat, as well as the countdown to 12 o’clock; 12 o’clock noon, that is.

Also on hand will be three strolling entertainers: “bubble-ologist” Kim Winslow, magician Greg Dubin, and family comedy and juggling by Peter Straus.

Dec. 31 also is the final day to experience “Flurry Zone! An Indoor Snow Experience.” No matter the weather outside, The Maritime Aquarium is guaranteeing a snowy forecast inside the popular family attraction, thanks to a special snow machine that is producing an hourly flurry each day in December.

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., every hour, on the hour, snow falls from the ceiling of Newman’s Own Hall (where the seals are). Each squall lasts for about 5 minutes, but – magically – shoveling is not required.

The “Noon Year’s Eve” entertainment, and “Flurry Zone! An Indoor Snow Experience,” are free with Aquarium admission.

Get details about all of The Maritime Aquarium’s events, exhibits and IMAX® movies, including “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” at www.maritimeaquarium.org.

A long awaited tradition in Fairfield County, the Holiday Express is opening on December 1, 2017 and running through January 7, 2018 at the Fairfield Museum and History Center located on 370 Beach Road in Fairfield. This year features even more tracks and set-ups where the trains can zip around and weave their magical spell. Kids and adults alike will delight in the magic of the train show.

A Fairfield Museum holiday tradition! Kids and adults alike will delight in the magic of this wondrous display of model trains winding around a spectacularly decorated tree and through beautiful holiday scenery. Holiday Express Schedule is Weekends: December 1 – January 7: 10am – 4pm and Weekdays: Monday – Thurs. 10 am – 1 pm., NEW! Open late on Fridays, 10am – 7pm, Monday, December 26 – 28, 10am – 4pm. December 29 10am – 7pm Closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

Check the website for special family fun events held throughout the month of December.

The Stamford Nature Center and Museum located at 39 Scofieldtown Road has a new winter display that runs through February 3 that highlights Gerberich Gadgets: the Best of Springs, Sprockets, and Pulleys!

Remember those crazy contraptions that would spin, rock, and play music – and they were made from tag sale treasures and overlooked common objects?

Yes, the ingenious inventions of sculptor – and SM&NC favorite – Steve Gerberich will return to the Stamford Museum Galleries for a totally re-imagined Holiday Exhibition. Gerberich has gathered his most outstanding and outlandish large-scale kinetic sculptures and installations for a showing of the “Best of Springs, Sprockets & Pulleys.”

Working with old machine parts, kitchen utensils, furniture scraps, lighting fixtures, medical supplies, toys, and carnival figurines, Gerberich mixes the aesthetics of contemporary sculpture with the scientific principles of simple mechanical motion. It’s crazy fun!

Museum galleries are open Monday-Saturday, 9am – 5pm; Sunday 11am – 5pm.

Visit the Railroad Station in New Milford Thursdays through Sundays, December 21st – 31st, for a special annual event: electric model trains running through model villages . . . and you may take a turn running them!

In addition to the trains, there is a holiday art exhibit on display. Artwork includes original oil, acrylic, watercolor, and pastel paintings, as well as fine art photography, woodturning, sculpture, art glass, and jewelry. Give the gift of art. Prices range widely for a beautiful selection of unique one-of-a-kind hand crafted gifts.

Gallery 25 at New Milford Art Depot is a co-op style gallery exhibiting some of the best local fine art and artisan creations. The gallery is staffed by member artists and is affiliated with the New Milford Commission on the Arts.

This new, spacious center of creativity is located at the historic Railroad Station, 11 Railroad St. New Milford CT. Hours are Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, noon to 5 PM* and by appointment. (*please note Friday and Saturday noon – 8PM holiday hours through Dec. 31). Admission is free. Ample parking is available. For more information please call 860-355-6009 or http://newmilfordgallery25.blogspot.com.

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum located on 258 Main Street in Ridgefield is hosting a new show through April 22, 2018 by Alex Schweder and Ward Shelley titled Your Turn, an architectural environment for two that shapes the occupants’ behavior.

In a series of performances Schweder and Shelley will physically occupy the structure for extended periods during which they will negotiate the sharing of nine basic amenities while engaging the public with their daily routines and conversations. Schweder and Shelley’s collaboration is primarily based on balance: not only the balance needed to successfully work in a partnership, but also the social balance needed to share resources limited by the confines of their construction. Their practice conflates architectural form and function with performance art, coaxing meaning out of both the practical and the absurd.

Schweder and Shelley’s unique collaboration of over a decade has coalesced into what they call “performance architecture,” a new genre in which the two artists design, construct, and then physically occupy structures, blurring the boundaries between architecture, sculpture, design, and performance, exploring both the nature of social space and the way architecture influences human behavior.
For their exhibition at The Aldrich, they will construct a twenty-four-foot-high living environment, which they will inhabit as both the authors and living subjects of the work. An adjacent gallery will present the first survey of their reverse paintings on Mylar, which not only act as preliminary renderings for their projects, but also as autonomous works that reinforce the formal aspects of their practice.

The artists will occupy opposing sides of the monolith with nine amenities (including a bed, a desk, an easy chair, a kitchen, a sink, and an enclosed composting toilet), each of which will slide on steel tracks from one side of the structure to the other. So, when Shelley is sleeping in the bed, Schweder cannot sleep; when Schweder is writing at the desk, Shelley cannot use it. The sharing of the amenities is based on both a pre-planned schedule and spontaneous negotiation. For the performance periods the artists will wear identical jumpsuits, bring all necessary supplies with them, and occupy the structure twenty-four hours a day. The artists’ lives, while within the structure, will be on public view when the Museum is open, and visitors are free—in fact, are encouraged by the artists—to engage them in conversation. When awake, Schweder and Shelley will each read, work, prepare meals, and complete acts of simple daily hygiene.