INSIDE THIS EDITION:
- LLC IN THE FALL
- REMEMBER GASPEE DAYS AT PAWTUXET VILLAGE
- JOIN US FOR JANE'S WALKS
- 101 FAMOUS POEMS by Ruth Mills
- EXCERPT FROM A PSALM OF LIFE by William Wordsworth
- ART IN THE ATRIUM'S EPHEMERA: A JOINT EXHIBIT FEATURING LLC MEMBER SALLY BARKER
- MUSIC ON THE HILL OFFERS 17th CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL
Click on the links to jump to the article.
LLC in the Fall
Starting in the Fall Semester, most LLC classes will be held at the Shriners Center, One Rhodes Place, Cranston. Others will continue to be held on Zoom or at special locations as noted in the catalog. The Shriners Center offers lots of free parking. In future issues The Lark will highlight some of the many amenities offered in the lovely Edgewood neighborhood and nearby Pawtuxet Village.
For driving directions from all parts of the area, visit https://www.lifelonglearningcollaborative.org/new-location/.
Remember Gaspee Days
Pawtuxet Village
Make history with us!
For the Events Calendar, go to Events | Gaspee Days
Join Us for Jane's Walks
May 2-4, 2025
by Barbara Barnes, Gayle Gifford, and Beverly Pettine
Many cities worldwide celebrate the tireless work of journalist, writer, and urban activist Jane Jacobs (1916 – 2006) each year during the first weekend in May. Jacobs believed in the value of cities and celebrated the people who lived in them. She fought to protect neighborhoods from unchecked urban renewal and development decisions that might tear neighborhoods apart and make it more difficult for people to thrive there. She is best known for her study of cities titled The Death and Life of Great American Cities, first published in 1961.
This spring two Lifelong Learning Collaborative committees (Strategic Alliances and Diversity) joined forces to offer a class about the amazing Providence neighborhood, Fox Point. After six weeks of study, members of the class are prepared to participate in an annual program sponsored by Jane’s Walk Providence. Each May, Jane’s Walk Providence offers the public an opportunity to explore many corners of Providence during a walking conversation. And this year, for the first time, LLC has become part of the walking conversation festival.
Photo by Susan Baugh
You are invited to share a Jane’s Walk with us! There is no charge for any walking conversation program.
A link to the LLC tours and eleven other Providence tours offered this year can be found at https://ppsri.org/events/Janes-walk-pvd-2/.
In a class titled, Explore Fox Point, Meet Jane Jacobs, Lead a Walking Conversation, sixteen LLC members – Susan Baugh, Cheryl Campbell, Hugh Campbell, Cathy Cochran, David Evans, Joe Fisler, Bobbi Fisler, Sarah Gleason, Bonnie Gorman, Hugh Gorman, Mark Guyer, Ruth Guyer, Betty Havrylik, Nancy Maddocks, Amy Parelman, Holly Trahan – and three Coordinators, Gayle Gifford, Beverly Pettine, Barbara Barnes, embraced a unique opportunity. They studied, benefited from the experiences of activists in Fox Point, walked and talked with classmates, and accepted the challenge to lead five different walking conversations in Providence on May 2-4, 2025. In teams of 3-4 people, the class proposed walks and wrote descriptions about their plans to explore different parts of Fox Point. Jane’s Walk Providence accepted all five tours LLC submitted to be part of the celebration this year.
Photo by Gayle Gifford
The class extends thanks to Kathy and Mike Webster, Jane’s Walks Providence Committee, Providence Preservation Society, Lily Bogosian, President of the Fox Point Neighborhood Association, Marjorie Powning, Chair of The Friends of India Point Park, and Matthew Bird for their encouragement and support.
101 Famous Poems
A memoir by Ruth Mills
My Uncle Bill’s belongings were shipped to my grandparents’ home in Philadelphia months after they received that fateful telegram. An army-green trunk with a few clothing items and a leather-bound poetry book were among the few personal items they received. When you are a pilot living on an aircraft carrier during World War II, space is limited.
“This might fit you. Try it on,” my grandmother urged her younger son Walt.
Uncle Walt, recently home from the war himself, slipped into the jacket and found that it fit quite well. His hands instinctively found their way into the pockets. He turned pale as his fingers encountered change, obviously left there by his older brother Bill. Reality hit. He quickly removed the jacket and wanted nothing more to do with it.
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My mother ended up with the trunk and the poetry book. I now have the trunk at the foot of my bed. My older brother, Uncle Bill’s namesake, has what is left of the poetry book, 101 Famous Poems.
My sisters and I have sometimes expressed disappointment at what happened to that book. My mother shared it with us and we cherished it. We loved to read its poems aloud. We loved to finger the embossed letters on the cover. We loved that it had belonged to a heroic uncle we would never meet. Even when we were quite young, we had unlimited access to it. The cover cracked, and then fell off. Pages got ripped.
Sometime during the 1980’s I found that a revised edition of the book was still in print. I grabbed it. I am not sure what was revised about it. Everything looked the same except it had a conventional hardcover, no leather.
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During my mother’s last years, as she slipped into the haze of dementia, I found poetry was a way of connecting with her. She lived about eight hours to the north, so my main contact was by phone. She repeated herself constantly throughout our conversations. Dad had died in January 2005, and during the following months it became obvious how much he had covered for her. She was more confused than we had thought.
My father’s burial had been scheduled for the end of May once the Canadian soil, where he was to be buried, had thawed. During the preceding months, Mom was trying to think of what she wanted said at the graveside. She kept saying something about footsteps and sands of time. It was ringing a dim bell somewhere deep in my memory banks. I pulled out my copy of 101 Famous Poems and found it quickly: Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life.” I read it to her and she quoted parts of it from memory with me as I read. A few months later it was read at Dad’s gravesite.
Phone calls to Mom became more and more difficult. Again I turned to poetry for help and found that the book was still in print in 2006. Amazon had inexpensive copies that were made to look like leather, and even had place-marking ribbons. I bought several copies, sent one to Mom, and several to various siblings who might enjoy reading poems with her. Our phone conversations became enjoyable as we read favorites aloud to each other. How she loved Longfellow! Eventually Mom become less verbal but she would listen intently when we read to her.
I still pull that book out every so often and have dramatic readings for my cats. Most of them have ignored me, but one would get quite emotional regardless of the sentiment expressed in the poem.
I have begun to reevaluate our treatment of that leather-bound book. True, as an artifact of its time, I would love to see it intact, as beautiful as it once was. But perhaps, a generation of poetry lovers left in its wake is a living legacy. Uncle Bill might be proud!
Excerpt from A Psalm of Life
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A joint exhibit featuring LLC Member Sally Barker
MUSIC ON THE HILL OFFERS 17th CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL
Performances at Crafted Hope Brewing, Clouds Hill, and churches
Seven concerts May 28 – June 10 in Warwick, East Greenwich, Cranston
Scholarship winners perform June 4 and June 8
Music on the Hill will offer its seventeenth chamber music festival with seven concerts in the West Bay as summer begins. Concerts pair familiar works by Bach, Brahms, and Copland with new favorites. The ensemble of 25 artists includes musicians born and raised in Rhode Island. Tickets are just $30 in advance or at the door, and free for students with I.D. Ticket sales begin April 11 through Eventbrite. For information, visit www.musiconthehillri.org.
The festival begins Wednesday, May 28 with “Silent Movies,” a unique film-and-music event at East Greenwich’s Crafted Hope Brewing. Two showings are offered -- a 2:00 matinee and 7:00 “double-feature” of live music with classic shorts starring Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Mary Pickford. In the taproom, a popular music venue with seating, craft beers and seltzers are available for purchase, and food trucks offer made-to-order treats.
Other highlights:
- Sunday afternoon June 1 at 4:00, Narragansett Brass Quintet will perform on the lawn at Clouds Hill Victorian House Museum, 4157 Post Road in Warwick, RI. Audience members should bring lawn chairs or blankets. The casual one-hour program includes classical, ragtime, jazz, J.S. Bach, P.D.Q. Bach, and favorites from Carmen. It’s Sensory-Friendly, perfect for all ages and experiences. In the event of inclement weather, the concert will move indoors to nearby First Baptist Church, 30 Peirce Street, East Greenwich.
- Sunday June 8 at 7:00, an all-star chamber orchestra will perform Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring at Cranston’s Immaculate Conception Church, under the baton of Edward Markward. The program includes John Williams’ Air and Simple Gifts, which was performed by Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and friends for the 2009 presidential inauguration.
- Virtuoso percussionist Peter Ferry will perform Bach and Vivaldi on the marimba, May 29, June 4, June 10.
- The winners of 2025’s scholarship competition will perform: June 4, pianist Israel Alvarez, 16, of Providence, second place. June 8, pianist Jack Paiva, 17, of Wakefield, first place.
- The annual free education concert for elementary students will take place on June 6.
About Music on the Hill: Since 2008, Music on the Hill has welcomed thousands of chamber music lovers to concerts across Rhode Island, from our hometown of East Greenwich to Providence, Warwick, Cranston, Jamestown, Wickford, Westerly and more. Our ensemble includes professional musicians native to Rhode Island with international careers, as well as their friends and colleagues who have come to see Rhode Island as their home away from home, with many returning to the Ocean State each summer. Music on the Hill’s adventurous programs combine highlights of chamber music repertoire with less familiar gems. Concerts are offered in intimate venues where the audience sits up close to the action. Musicians play in a variety of ensembles in multiple concerts through the festival. Music on the Hill’s festival is made possible by support from The Carter Family Charitable Trust, the Roitman Fund at the Rhode Island Foundation, and Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
MUSIC ON THE HILL: 2025 Chamber Music Festival
Silent Movies
Wednesday, May 28, 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm
Crafted Hope Brewing, 1485 South County Trail, East Greenwich
Craft beer and food truck fare available for purchase
The Great Train Robbery, Tango Tangles, and other classic shorts starring Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Buster Keaton Music of Copland, Berlin, Chopin, and more
Anton Miller, violin and Rita Porfiris, viola
Bach & Beethoven
Thursday, May 29, 7:00 pm
First Baptist Church, 30 Peirce St, East Greenwich
J.S. Bach, Suite No. 6 in D Major J.S. Bach, Suite No. 3 in C Major Beethoven, Serenade for flute, violin and viola
Peter Ferry, marimba; Anthony Trionfo, flute; Anton Miller, violin; Rita Porfiris, viola
Narragansett Brass Quintet
Sunday, June 1, 4:00 pm
Ragtime Suite on the lawn at Clouds Hill Museum, 4157 Post Rd, Warwick -- Please bring a chair or blanket.
Rain location: First Baptist Church
Dukas, Fanfare from La Peri Pezel, Sonata No. 22 JS Bach, Selections from The Art of Fugue Bellon, Quintette Vaughan Williams, English Folk Songs Schickele, Brass Summer Bizet, Selections from Carmen Owen, 1954 Suite Blake, Roberts,
Richard Kelley, trumpets; Kevin Owen, French horn; Alexei Doohovskoy, trombone; Thomas Gregory, tuba
We've Gone Baroque
Wednesday, June 4, 7:00 pm
St Luke's Episcopal Church, 99 Peirce St, East Greenwich
J.S. Bach, Suite No. 2 for Solo Cello in D minor Vivaldi, Concerto in C Major C.P.E. Bach, Flute Concerto in G Major Dall'Abaco, Sonata da Camera Torelli, Trumpet Concerto in D Major
Peter Ferry, marimba; Anthony Trionfo, flute; Roderick MacDonald, trumpet; Victoria Moreira and Naomi Culp, violins; Gillian Gallagher, viola; Elisa Kohanski, cello; John Pellegrino, bass. Scholarship spotlight: Israel Alvarez, piano
All Brahms
Saturday, June 7, 7:00 pm
St Luke's Episcopal Church, 99 Peirce St, East Greenwich
Cello Sonata No. 1 in E Minor Three Songs Clarinet Sonata No 2. in Eb Major
Kate Norigian, soprano; Elisa Kohanski, cello; Daniel Gilbert, clarinet; Donna Lee, Jack Kurutz, and John Norigian, piano
Appalachian Spring
Sunday, June 8, 7:00 pm
Immaculate Conception Church, 237 Garden Hills Dr, Cranston
Williams, Air and Simple Gifts O'Connor, Appalachian Waltz American/Appalachian Loop Pedal Violin Set Copland,
Kimberly Fang, Anton Miller, Sarah Whitney, Liana Zaretsky, violins; Rita Porfiris and Sebastian Ruth, viola; Elisa Kohanski, Trevor Handy, cello; John Pellegrino, bass; Anthony Trionfo, flute; Daniel Gilbert, clarinet; Ellen Connors, bassoon; Donna Lee, piano; Edward Markward, conductor Scholarship spotlight, Jack Paiva, piano
Festival Finale
Tuesday, June 10, 7:00 pm
St Luke's Episcopal Church, 99 Peirce St, East Greenwich
Poulenc, Sonata for Trumpet, French Horn and Trombone Albinoni, Concerto for Oboe in D minor Vivaldi, Concerto in C Major
Hertel, Concerto for Trumpet and Oboe in Eb Major Brahms, Vocal Duets arr. for French Horn and Trombone
Peter Ferry, marimba; Roderick MacDonald, trumpet; Michelle Baker, French horn; Charles Baker, trombone; Anne Marie Gabriele, oboe; Victoria Moreira and Kristen Pellegrino, violins; Gillian Gallagher, viola; Trevor Handy, cello; John Pellegrino, bass; Bonnie Anderson, piano
Subject to change – www.musiconthehillRI.org.