It happened Sunday, March 17 in the Adler Theater of the Wells School of Music at West Chester University — a musically sophisticated audience jumped to its feet in a roaring, standing ovation while the last note of the performance was still ringing through the recital hall, demanding an encore. The ovation was for the Kennett Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Michael Hall and…
Have you ever visited a place that you knew as a child and were surprised at how small it was? Sometimes, you have to experience circumstances and places in your life that seemed threatening as a child and reframe them in the eyes of an adult. For instance, a few years ago, I attended an alumni luncheon at Conestoga High School. It was the first…
On Nov. 2, the Chester County History Center premiered the powerful Netflix feature film, Rustin. The film focuses on civil rights activist Bayard Rustin and the iconic Aug. 28, 1963, Washington March for Jobs and Freedom, which he envisioned, organized, and brought to reality. Born in West Chester in 1912, Bayard Rustin was raised by his maternal grandparents, attended Quaker meetings where he learned the…
The Brandywine Valley boasts many superlatives, among them: The Brandywine River Museum, Longwood Gardens and the Winterthur Museum and Gardens. But there’s one more to add — The Kennett Symphony Orchestra. Yes, Kennett Square. The little town on a hill known for, well, mushrooms. Confession #1. I hate mushrooms. The Kennett Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1940 as an all-volunteer community orchestra, is now the only…
Chadds Ford’s Sanderson Museum was humming with excitement when WPVI- 6 producer-cameraman Dan Sheridan came to do a segment of “One Tank Trips”, a series on area attractions that can be visited on, well - one tank of gas. The day of the shooting was gloomy and rainy while the remnants of tropical storm Ophelia brushed by the Delaware Valley, and museum visitor Anita Little,…
OK my friends, let’s sing along with Toby Keith and Willie Nelson. “And we’ll raise up our glasses against evil forces, singing …whisky for my men…Beer for my horses!” I actually did give a can of beer to my crazy Anglo-Arab mount, a flashy show ring hunter, back in the day — and he liked it. Beer is made from grain, so why not? But…
This is not about an inn with history going back almost 200 years. Nor is it about detailed corporate and legal matters about its purchase by Encompass Health Corp, its scheduled closing on June 25, or its eventual demolition. It’s about a family who believed in hard work and in America. Few remember the Great Ionian Earthquake of 1953 that measured 6.8 on the Richter…
May 7, 1944, had been a stormy day. That Sunday afternoon around 4:40 p.m., and like boys, oblivious to the rain, 7-year-old Larry Wood of West Chester was outside his home in the quiet tree-lined streets of the historic borough playing with his toy rifle. In spring 1944, WW II was still raging in Europe and Japan, and people like Chadds Ford’s 62-year-old Chris Sanderson…
I got an earworm last Saturday morning. It’s not contagious, just annoying. And I blame it all on Michael Hall. But more of that later. Last Saturday morning was the always enjoyable and ever-popular Kennett Symphony Orchestra concert in the round in the soaring Grand Ballroom of the Mendenhall Inn. If you remember the Valley Forge Music Fair in Devon, you’ll recall the center stage…
Anyone driving through the center of Chadds Ford Sunday evening, Oct. 9, may have been puzzled by a warm glow emanating from somewhere on Creek Road. No, it wasn’t just the full Hunter Moon rising in the east, as the light seemed to be coming from… the Sanderson Museum? Wait. Did I just see Sanderson Museum founder Andy Wyeth sitting on the porch steps? And was…
Last Saturday afternoon was the perfect first weekend of Spring. It was the kind of day that makes you want to run out and listen to music by the Russian composer, Igor Stravinsky. Wait, did I hear you say “No”? To most people Stravinsky (1882 – 1971) might bring to mind Disney’s 1940 Academy Award-winning movie Fantasia, with Stravinsky’s discordant and jagged music from his…