AMHERST — Tim DeBlois, a 2021 graduate of Hampshire College, has won the $1,000 first prize at the postgraduate level in the annual One Earth Young Filmmakers Contest. DeBlois’ stop-action film, “Endangered,” examines the threats to bees, sometimes known as Colony Collapse Disorder, posed by pesticides and other pollutants.
In DeBlois’ four-minute film, a queen lays eggs in a beehive while worker bees care for her young. In a nearby field, a farmer sprays pesticide on his garden, which falls like white cotton onto some of the foraging bees; they in turn bring the poison back to the hive. Afterward, the farmer sits in a rocking chair, reading a news story about the extinction of bees.
For the Young Filmmakers Contest, young people from grade 3 through age 25 are tasked with creating short environmental films that inspire change or action. Prizes are awarded at the elementary, middle school, high school, college and postgrad levels, with additional prizes for animation and creativity.
Winners receive a matching grant to donate to a nonprofit that supports the theme of their film. DeBlois is donating his $1,000 match to the Arbor Day Foundation.
TURNERS FALLS — With a new booking and programming team on board, the Shea Theater in Turners Falls is expanding its concert offerings this spring, beginning March 24 with the Boston roots rock band Adam Ezra Group and continuing in April and May with Grammy nominees Professor Louie and the Crowmatix, April Cushman and other artists.
The Shea Presents series is a outgrowth of a new partnership between the theater and Simon Says Booking & Publicity, a Warwick-based agency that works with artists from around the country, including tribute bands. Two of those groups, the Talking Heads tribute band Start Making Sense and Echoes of Floyd, which plays the music of Pink Floyd, play the Shea April 9 and 22, respectively.
Monte Belmonte, president of the board of the Shea, said in statement that the theater is thrilled to be working with the new agency, which will add “many more Shea-produced events to what our other community partners will be bringing to our theater, in what we hope will be a vibrant return to live, in-person performances at The Shea.”
SPRINGFIELD — Musicians of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra (MOSSO), who staged their own concert in Springfield in October, will return to the city’s Symphony Hall March 26 at 7:30 p.m. to perform “MOSSO’s Virtuosos,” a program that includes music by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and more. The soloists are all principal players of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra.
Although the musicians in MOSSO are members of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra (SSO), the group is not affiliated with SSO. MOSSO formed last year as a result of a prolonged contract dispute with SSO management, which has not yet staged any concerts during the 2021-2022 season, though it has now scheduled two performances at Symphony Hall, April 22 and May 13.
Trumpeter Thomas Bergeron and timpanist Martin Kluger will share conducting duties for MOSSO’s March 26 performance, which will be introduced by Patrick Berry, co-host of “Mass Appeal” on Springfield’s Channel 22 News.
Members of MOSSO say they’ll use proceeds from the concert for additional programming, including an ongoing chamber music series at the Westfield Athenaeum and a June concert at Symphony Hall to celebrate the music of Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim.
The work of six visual artists who trace their roots from seven countries, including Cuba, Iran, India and Mexico, is part of a new exhibit at Northampton’s A.P.E. Gallery that uses varied means to explore family, memory, displacement and identity.
“Crossing Cultures,” which runs through April 1, combines vintage family photographs with a number of different mediums — painting, mixed media, photography and video — to create “complex, multidimensional narratives,” as an exhibit note puts it, that the artists use to reflect on what they’ve left behind while also “honoring and remembering family traditions and vanishing ways of life.”
The exhibit is curated by one of the participating artists, Claudia Ruiz Gustafson, who is originally from Peru and now lives in western Massachusetts.
“Abstract Black,” an exhibit at sites in Easthampton, Holyoke and Springfield, features work from eight African Diaspora artists who work in a variety of mediums, including painting, metalworking, mixed media, comics and murals.
Work that’s part of the exhibit can be seen through April 18 at 50 Arrow Gallery at Eastworks in Easthampton, the Paper City Clothing Company in Holyoke, and the The Ethnic Study Cowork Cafe and Bookstore in Springfield.
Among the featured artists are painter Imo Nse Imeh, a professor of art at Westfield State University; metal artist (and Amherst resident and Hampshire College graduate) Kamil Peters, who works in Ludlow; and Hadley painter Justin Beatty.
— Compiled by Steve Pfarrer