From the Pamet River to East 10th Street
Many of Andrew W. Young’s minimal compositions are inspired by the Outer Cape landscape and by the artist William Holst (1912-1995), who studied in Provincetown with Hans Hofmann. An exhibition of Young’s abstract paintings is currently on view at Eerdmans New York (14 East 10th St.) through May 19.
While the paintings in the show reflect Young’s interest in nonobjective formal abstraction, they also include references to landscapes in Truro and Maine. Young, who grew up in Lexington, spent summers in Truro and counts 18th-century Truro sea captain Matthias Rich among his ancestors. The Pamet River inspired his series of black-and-white compositions featuring a distinctive arched shape. Young is fascinated with scale, and the exhibition shows him trying out ideas at different sizes, from 9-by-12-inch collages to a massive seven-foot painting, Harbor.
Although Young’s work is geometric, there’s a softness to his touch and the edges of his forms. This is especially evident in Inlet, a small painting composed of blue, red, black, and white shapes. Its perspective is aerial, as in much of the work in the show. The blue at the center reads as water with shapes jutting into it like land.
Young lives in New York, where he pursued a career in financial services and painted figuratively for decades before encountering the work of Holst. His fascination with the artist began in 2004 after he bought two of Holst’s paintings in Maine. Young spent more than a decade researching the artist before integrating Holst’s visual language into his own art practice.
The show reveals a rich conversation between two artists of different generations, linked by the Outer Cape and an interest in formal abstraction. See eerdmansnewyork.com for information. —Abraham Storer
Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra Heads ‘Toward the Sea’
The Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra concludes its fifth season with a multifaceted performance titled “Toward the Sea” at Pilgrim Congregational Church (533 Main St., Harwich Port) on Sunday, April 30, 3 p.m. The concert follows the Pilgrims’ journey to Cape Cod and celebrates the culture of the indigenous people who were living here when they arrived.
“The more I looked into the history of the Pilgrims and Native people, the more I felt compelled to acknowledge the whole story,” says CCCO founder, music director, and conductor Matthew Scinto in a statement accompanying the event. “The goal of our program is to provide a valuable, deep reflection on these historic events.”
The concert will be introduced by a talk by Waban Webquish about Cape Cod’s indigenous history. Webquish will be joined by musician, poet, and Wampanoag artist MaDarrius Maximus.
Artist, educator, and Mashpee Wampanoag Ej Mills Brennan will open the concert with an original composition for Native flute and vocals titled “Breath of Prayers.” The program also includes work by CCCO’s composer in residence Cody Forrest, whose piece “Spirit Of” is a musical depiction of the Mayflower voyage. Zach Sheets on flute and Charles Overton on harp will play Toru Takemitsu’s “Toward the Sea,” which was commissioned by Greenpeace for a “Save the Whales” campaign. The orchestra will also perform Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence.
General admission tickets are $35; the concert is free for students and children. See capecodchamberorchestra.org for information. —Eve Samaha
A Hoedown in P’town
For more than 30 years, Gays for Patsy has been hosting queer country socials and other events for queer line dancing and country music fans in the greater Boston area. Spring Stomp, its annual spring dance gathering, will take place at Provincetown Town Hall from Friday to Sunday, April 28 to 30.
The weekend will feature a program of instructional and dance events in addition to plenty of socializing. Instructors Alan Gaskell, Jen Collins, Conrad Farnham, Beth Aufiero, and Art Sullivan will lead dance workshops on East and West Coast swing, cha-cha, two-step, and line dancing. DJs Bucky Chappell and Bob Sweeney will soundtrack the social dance events on Friday and Saturday, and the Boston ReneGAYdes performance group will headline the evening on Saturday. The weekend will wind up with the Sweet Tea Social Dance on Sunday afternoon.
According to the group’s website, the spring hoedown started over 25 years ago as a social event and fundraiser at Arlington Street Church in Boston. Gays for Patsy have been producing it for the past two decades.
The group says that no experience is necessary to participate in the weekend — just a willingness to have fun and a spirit for dancing. Registration costs range from $20 for individual events and workshops to $100 for a weekend pass. See gfpinc.org/stomp for more information. —Dorothea Samaha
Celebrating Award-Winning Poetry
Among his many roles and accolades, the late Joe Gouveia hosted the weekly Poets Corner radio show on WOMR and is fondly remembered as a poet and pioneer of the Cape Cod poetry community. In 2012, he established the Outermost Poetry Contest, which was renamed in his honor after his death in 2014.
This year marks the contest’s 10th anniversary, and local contest winners will be celebrated at a celebratory reading at Wellfleet Preservation Hall (335 Main St.) on Wednesday, May 3, 7 p.m.
Both sections of the contest — one open to all poets and one limited to poets based on Cape Cod — were judged by poet Marge Piercy of Wellfleet. The winning Cape Cod-based poets this year are M. Bleichman, Lucile Burt, Gregory Hischak, Anne Hoffman, Jim Kubat, Betty-Ann Lauria, Wayne Miller, Jennifer M. Phillips, Mary Ellen Redmond, and Jen Sexton-Riley. Piercy, the author of 18 volumes of poems, will also read a selection of her own new poems at the event.
WOMR also announced that the winning poems will be included in the Outermost Poetry Literary Journal, which will be launched later this year.
The event is free; a cash bar will be available. See womr.org for information.
