FOR IMMEDIATE RELASE 6.18.2017 Contact: David Perkins, 413-634-5716

THE HILLTOWN CHAUTAUQUA RETURNS TO CUMMINGTON, SEPT. 15–16, WITH FRANCES MOORE LAPPÉ, FOR SECOND EARTHCARE FESTIVAL Frances Moore Lappé, the pioneer writer and thinker about food and social justice, and author of Diet

for a Small Planet, will be the keynote speaker at the Hilltown Chautauqua’s second Earthcare festival

on Sept. 15–16, 2017, at the historic William Cullen Bryant Homestead in Cummington, Massachusetts.

The program will explore a theme of “Food, Farms, and the Future,” with a combination of talks, film,

panel discussions, poetry, music, food, and fellowship.

Among the other speakers scheduled are Brian Donahue, a professor of environmental studies at

Brandeis University, who will speak on the future of agriculture in New England, and Sarah Gardner of

Williams College, producer of “Forgotten Farms,” a documentary on Berkshire County’s dairy farmers.

The beloved American Roots musicians Jay Ungar and Molly Mason will kick off the festival on Friday,

Sept. 15, with an evening concert and contra-dance.

Other events, on the festival’s main day, Saturday, Sept. 16, include:

A tribute to Richard Wilbur, former U.S. poet laureate and a longtime Cummington dweller,

including readings of new poems by Hilltown poets, a segment of a new documentary, and an

interview with Robert and Mary Bagg, authors of a new biography;

A screening and discussion of “Forgotten Farms,” a film on New England’s dairy farmers,

directed by David Simonds and produced by Sarah Gardner of Williams College;

Performances by violinist Sarah Briggs, fiddler Zoë Darrow, and the Wistaria String Quartet;

A community dance led by members of Earthdance, the workshop, residency, and retreat

center in Plainfield;

Guided tours of the Bryant Homestead.

David Perkins, director of the Chautauqua, said the festival “will be, like our other programs, a moveable feast of ideas and the arts, with a focus on the future of food and local farming. The Hilltowns have many small farmers, including intrepid young ones, who think about the bigger picture—the health and sustainability of our planet and our system of food production, on which so much depends.”

“Earthcare 2017” will address these issues from multiple angles, drawing on several disciplines and art forms. “This program is designed to be inspiring, entertaining, informative, and thought-provoking,” Perkins said. “And Francis Moore Lappé, who has been thinking about food, health, and social justice for more than 40 years, is the perfect guide for a conversation on those issues.”

Among the questions that are likely to surface, formally and informally:

How is the food economy evolving in New England, and how can it be improved for

sustainability, health, and reduced carbon output?

How are we to manage and balance the competing priorities of forest conservation,

residential growth, and the survival of small farms?

How are Hilltown farmers coping with the challenges of climate change, corporate farming,

globalized trade, and new federal policies and priorities?

What role can the citizen-consumer play in assuring the accessibility, variety, safety, and

affordability of local food?

Francis Lappé gained a worldwide reputation in 1971, at age 27, with publication of Diet for a Small Planet. She was the first writer to draw attention to the role of meat production in global food scarcity and to argue for an environmentally conscious vegetarian diet. Diet has now sold more than 3 million copies worldwide. Since then, Lappé has written 18 other books, including EcoMind: Changing the Way We Think to Create the World We Want and World Hunger: 10 Myths. She has also formed several organizations devoted to food, hunger and environmental crises. Most recently, in 2002, she founded, with her daughter Anna Lappé , the Small Planet Institute, a collaborative network for research and popular education on democracy, based in Cambridge, MA.

In her keynote talk, Lappé will concentrate on the links between food resources and localized decision-making. There will be an extended Q and A session, and Lappé and other speakers will mingle with attendees during the day. She will also sign copies of her books.

Full program details for the festival, with updates and readings, are posted at the Hilltown

Chautauqua’s website www.hilltownchautauqua.org. The box office is open at the website. Tickets are

$20 for the opening concert on Friday, Sept. 15, and $25 for a day-pass on Saturday, Sept. 16. Optional

food tickets are sold with admission tickets. Food will be prepared by Alice’s Kitchen of Cummington

and Mountaintop Meats of Savoy. Menus are posted on the website.

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The Hilltown Chautauqua was founded in 2016 by David Perkins and several Hilltown friends and

supporters, under the fiscal management of the Hilltown Community Development Corporation of

Chesterfield. Under Perkins’s direction, it produces thoughtfully curated programs with a varied format

(talks, panels, workshops, music and theater, and original art), presented at different historic

properties in different hilltowns.

“We live in an over-technologized, consumer-oriented, and child-focused culture,” Perkins said. “Its too

much, and too little. We long for connection and a sense of purpose, and many of us are tired of digital

living. For all its wonders, there’s something missing.

“The chautauqua is an old-fashioned, uniquely American format—Teddy Roosevelt called it the ‘most

American thing in America’-- and I think its time has come again.”

While each chautauqua program “packs a lot into a day,” Perkins said, it is not pressured, and

attendees have time to relax and reflect, to meet old friends or make new ones.

A former newspaper reporter and magazine editor, Perkins, 62, is a Plainfield resident who taught

journalism at UMASS-Amherst for 12 years. He is also a writer, singer, and concert impresario (he

directs the Concerts at 7 series in Plainfield). He said he conceived of the chautauqua as a way to

contribute to intellectual and cultural life in the region, to showcase local and regional talent, to

encourage civil discourse, and to support tourism and economic development.

“My inspiration came, loosely, from the ‘circuit chautauquas’ of the early decades of the last century.

These private organizations brought their tents to rural communities and put on programs that

combined entertainment, education, and spirituality. This was the Progressive Era, of course, and the

message was one of ‘social uplift.’ I think we need some of that right now. I would go even further. I

believe we are faced with the task of reviving democratic civilization. That is a task we can begin

wherever we find a handle.”

The Hilltown Chautauqua gave its first program, “Earthcare 2016,” in September 2016 at the Bryant

Homestead, and included speakers Alan Weisman, Laureate Savoy, and Joan Maloof, and

performances by Kaiulani Lee of her one-woman play on environmentalist Rachel Carson. A second

program, “Civitas: A Celebration of Early American Democracy,” was presented in Ashfield in April.

The Hilltown Chautauqua is a non-profit organization, under the fiscal sponsorship of the Hilltown

Community Development Corporation, supported by grants, individual donors, and ticket sales.

Major supporters of the Earthcare 2017 festival include Rural LISC grants, the HCDC’s Keep Farming in

the Hilltowns project, and the Cultural Councils of Ashfield, Plainfield, Charlemont-Hawley,

Cummington, Windsor, and Worthington.

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KEYNOTE SPEAKER: FRANCIS MOORE LAPPÉ

Frances Moore Lappé is the author of 19 books, including the three-million copy Diet for a Small Planet. Her latest work, World Hunger: 10 Myths, coauthored with Joseph Collins, offers evidence that democratizing power, from the village level up, is the key to ending hunger. With a focus on the roots of the U.S. democracy crisis and how Americans are creatively responding to the challenge, her current work includes the online Field Guide to the Democracy Movement and the forthcoming Daring Democracy: Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want, coauthored with Adam Eichen (Beacon Press, Sept. 2017).

Frances is co-founder of Oakland-based Food First and the Cambridge-based Small Planet Institute, which she leads with her daughter Anna Lappé. The recipient of 18 honorary degrees, Frances has been a visiting scholar at MIT and U.C. Berkeley and in 1987 received the Right Livelihood Award, often called the “Alternative Nobel.” The historian Howard Zinn described Lappé as one of “a small number of people in every generation [who] are forerunners, in thought, action, spirit, who swerve past the barriers of greed and power to hold a torch high for the rest of us.”

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OPENING NIGHT PERFORMERS: JAY UNGAR AND MOLLY MASON

Jay Ungar and Molly Mason achieved international acclaim when their performance of Jay's composition, “Ashokan Farewell,” became the musical hallmark of Ken Burns' “The Civil War” documentary on PBS. The soundtrack won a Grammy and “Ashokan Farewell” was nominated for an Emmy. The piece was originally inspired by Jay & Molly's Ashokan Fiddle & Dance Camps in New York's Catskill Mountains, which are still going strong.

Jay and Molly draw their repertoire and inspiration from a wide range of American musical styles: 19th-century classics, lively Appalachian, Cajun, and Celtic fiddle tunes and favorites from the golden age of country and swing, along with their own songs, fiddle tunes, and orchestral compositions.

In recent years, Jay and Molly have reached an ever widening audience through their appearances on Great Performances, “A Prairie Home Companion,” their own public radio specials, and through their work on film soundtracks such as “Brother's Keeper,” “Legends of the Fall,” and several Ken Burns PBS documentaries. They've performed at the White House twice and continue to tour extensively.

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THE W.C. BRYANT HOMESTEAD AND THE TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS

The William Cullen Bryant Homestead is one of the architectural and historic gems of western

Massachusetts. The house was the boyhood and later summer residence of William Cullen Bryant, the

19th-century poet, abolitionist, early environmentalist, and newspaper editor. It consists of a two-story

mansion and a large barn, set in a 195-acre hilltop estate overlooking the Westfield River valley. The

estate includes the 80-acre Bryant Woods where Bryant was inspired to write some of his most famous

poetry. “The Rivulet,” for example, was inspired by a stream that flows in the woods, now

memorialized in the Rivulet Trail, which is open to the public during the day. The Homestead property

was donated to the Trustees of Reservations in 1929 by Bryant’s granddaughter. The Trustees manage

the property, and offer guided tours of the house.

Founded in 1891, The Trustees of Reservations is the nation’s oldest statewide land conservation trust

and nonprofit conservation organization, with 116 properties, including historic houses, gardens, and

beautiful or ecologically important natural sites. Guided tours of the Homestead will be offered during

the festival.

William Cullen Bryant Homestead, Cummington, MA. Photo credit: Trustees of Reservations.