The Bookplate is happily continuing their popular Authors & Oysters event series at The Retriever Bar in 2023. Author Michael Stang was featured in the most recent Authors & Oysters event on May 31st. Next up on Wednesday, June 7th at 6pm, all are invited to The Retriever to welcome local favorite Jamie Kirkpatrick as he discusses his historical novel, “This Salted Soil: The Battle for Tunisia, 1942-1943”.
“This Salted Soil” tells the story of the North African Campaign in World War II; America’s first, but often-overlooked, involvement in the war against Nazi Germany that helped to shape and ultimately secure the Allied victory in that bloody conflict. Using both historical and fictional characters, this is the story of the battle for Tunisia that took place between November, 1942 and May, 1943. The novel also explores two other related themes: Tunisia’s struggle for independence from France and the role of Third World countries in the ideological struggle between East and West in the post-war era.
Jamie Kirkpatrick is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Tunisia from 1970 to 1972. He was also the Associated Peace Corps Director in Tunisia from 1974 to 1976. Now retired after careers in international service organizations and education, Jamie is a writer and photographer whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. For the past seven years, Jamie has written a weekly column for The Chestertown Spy and The Talbot Spy. Two collections of these essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available at The Bookplate. Jamie and his wife Kat Conley have homes in Bethesda and Chestertown.
For more event details contact The Bookplate at 410-778-4167 or [email protected]. This event is free and open to the public and reservations are not required, however the event on 6/14 with Smithsonian curator, Eleanor Harvey, will require reservations to guarantee a seat. Reserve your space by calling the shop at 410-778-4167. All events are held in the back room of The Retriever, located at 337 ½ High Street in Chestertown, Maryland.
Just down the street is a new gallery space, “Gallery on High” at 200B High Street, located in the RiverArts Education Center, right next to the Clay Studio. This show will feature the wall hangings and fanciful copper sculptures of Cindy Bowers-Fulton. In addition to the works on view, Cindy also takes commissions to create sculptures for that special place in your yard or home.
The director will have Addams Family show tracks on hand at the auditions. There will not be a pianist available. Singing a cappella does not provide enough information for the director, so she needs to hear singing with an accompaniment to determine two things: your ability to sing with sufficient volume and to tune your voice to the accompaniment. It is permissible to have sheet music and/or lyrics on stage to audition.
Harpists coming from California, to Canada, to Costa Rica, and everywhere in between, will embark on a two-week course of study with renowned YAHS faculty. A training ground for elite artists, many YAHS alumni have subsequently attended top schools and conservatories, such as The Juilliard School, the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Curtis Institute of Music, the Paris Conservatory, and many others. YAHS alumni have also claimed top prizes at major international competitions, including France’s prestigious Concours de Harpe Lily Laskine and Japan’s Nippon Harp Competition.
Concert-goers will have many opportunities to hear the young harpists—along with faculty and special guests—in action this summer at a series of concert events open to the public.