UPCOMING EVENTS

Thursday, October 16  -  Film: LOVE & WAR
Sponsored by newportFILM
Jamestown Arts Center, 18 Valley St, Jamestown, RI 02835
Tickets: $25, available HERE

• 6:00 PM: Pre-film conversation:  Thorsten Thielow (Director of Photography) and Andrea van Beuren (newportFILM Co-Founder and Artistic Director)

• 7:00 PM: Film Begins

ABOUT THE FILM: Pulitzer Prize-winning Lynsey Addario has risked her life to capture the stark realities of war — from the Middle East and Afghanistan to Ukraine. From National Geographic Documentary Films and Academy Award®-winning filmmakers Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin,  Love+War  chronicles Addario’s ascent in the male-dominated world of conflict photography. But her work is dangerous. She’s been kidnapped twice while on assignment in war zones — a cost she must wrestle with each time she leaves her husband and two sons to go on assignment. Behind the camera, Addario is torn between her unwavering commitment to the essential work of journalism and the powerful, competing demands of motherhood, grappling with what it truly means to follow your calling when it threatens everything you love.

Wednesday, November 12, 6PM - Carols of Birds, Bells, and Sacred Hymns from Ukraine, with author Marika Kuzma, PhD
Redwood Library, 50 Bellevue Ave., Newport, 6 PM. Admission is free, but reservations are suggested - available HERE.

Ukraine’s abundant heritage of singing includes thousands of carols that stem from ancient culture that is nevertheless new to world audiences. In this evening gathering, Ukrainian-American conductor and scholar  Marika Kuzma will offer the audience six varied and vibrant carols. She will include the internationally celebrated “Carol of the Bells,” which in its original version is not about bells but about a bird that calls out a song of gratitude, and she will include the song that Ukrainians call their bell carol along with several meditative carols.  The audience will hear the carols as sung by Marika Kuzma’s chamber chorus in their new recording. Kuzma will also share the stories behind each carol: historical context, biographies of composers, explanations of winter rituals. These carols often carry gripping narratives of a unique choral activism that has helped Ukraine, its language, and its people to survive. Their messages can inspire all of us today as we grapple with our changing world.

Marika Kuzma has enjoyed a multi-faceted career as a conductor, choral music historian, and actor. A Professor Emerita of Music at the University of California Berkeley, she led its choirs from 1990 to 2016 in music from ancient chant to works like the Bach B minor Mass, Britten War Requiem, and premieres of new works.  As a chorus master, she has collaborated with artists including Gustavo Dudamel, Nicholas McGegan, Kent Nagano, and Paul Winter. In 2024, she prepared choirs for Maestra Keri-Lynn Wilson in concerts at Zankel Hall/Carnegie Hall, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and at the Kennedy Center with the Kyiv Camerata and with the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra. As a scholar, she has published articles in the Journal of Musicology, Choral Journal, Musik und Kirche, among others. Her critical edition of Bortniansky’s choral concertos, recording of his concertos with Ensemble Cherubim, and her new book Carols of Birds, Bells, and Sacred Hymns from Ukraine have become key resources for choral musicians internationally.