$15 general admission.
Advance tickets recommended. Concerts sell out!

Four Performances:

Saturday, May 12 at 8 pm

Friday, May 18 at 8 pm

Saturday, May 19 at 8 pm

Weaving together threads from a wide array of musical sources, the Occidental Community Choir’s Straw Into Gold spring program celebrates the power of the human spirit to transform the humblest of raw materials into the richest of tapestries through the alchemy of imagination, collaboration, and creative expression.

The choir, now in its third season under the direction of Occidental native Sarah Saulsbury, will present a dynamic program of OCC-original creations complemented by the works of renowned contemporary composers from West County and beyond. Straw Into Gold continues the OCC’s 34-year tradition of unique concert experiences that combine humor, storytelling and an off-the-beaten-path repertoire, inviting audiences to wonder as, among other musical singularities, deserts bloom into forests, a spider explains the internet, and shrinking violets become exultant divas.

Tickets can also be purchased at the door the day of performance, on a space-available basis, one half hour before the concert begins.

OCA is located at 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. in Occidental, CA 95465

phone: 707.874.9392    email: info@occidentalcenterforthearts.org

Open every Thursday and Friday 12 – 4 pm, by appointment and during events.

Event and refreshments are free, but donations are always gladly accepted.

Murder on the Russian River: The Russian River Valley—laid-back, marijuana-steeped, and off-the-grid—is the backdrop for Bart Schneider’s new mystery featuring the tough and dogged detective Augie Boyer.

OCA is located at 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. in Occidental, CA 95465

Phone: 707.874.9392    Email: info@occidentalcenterforthearts.org

Open every Thursday and Friday 12 – 4 pm, by appointment and during events.

A juried exhibit of fine art that reflects on something, someone, somewhere. Jurors are accomplished Sonoma County artists Bob Cornelis (Color Folio) and Susan Cornelis.

Show runs May 10 through June 23, 2012.

OCA is located at 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. in Occidental, CA 95465

Phone: 707.874.9392    Email: info@occidentalcenterforthearts.org

Open every Thursday and Friday 12 – 4 pm, by appointment and during events.

Friday, May 25 at 8 pm, OCA auditorium, concert seating.

$15 General Admission. No one turned away.

nellandjim.com

Just returned from a standing room only crowd at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, D.C.), and their debut at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, Nell & Jim will open the show with their sweet harmonies, virtuoso guitar, and new and traditional music described as “…startlingly post-millennial; at the intersection of Americana, bluegrass, folk and country”.

Free song preview/download @ nellrobinsonmusic.com/freesong

nellandjim.com

They will be joined in the second half by Mike Phelan (Marley’s Ghost) and Chuck Ervin (Euphonia) for music, stories and letters from their acclaimed show “Soldier Stories”; a musical conversation about war and service from the Revolutionary War  to the present.. seeking to build community and honor vets while raising awareness of veteran healthcare issues and the human costs of war.

“Soldier Stories held the audience spell-bound” -Steve Baker, Freight & Salvage.

Last year’s show at OCA was a hit; we are pleased to have these virtuoso musicians back for a special Memorial Day weekend event.

OCA is located at 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. in Occidental, CA 95465

phone: 707.874.9392    email: info@occidentalcenterforthearts.org

Open every Thursday and Friday 12 – 4 pm, by appointment and during events.

Event and refreshments are free. Donations are always gladly accepted.

Kathleen Winter‘s first full-length book, Nostalgia for the Criminal Past, won the Antivenom Poetry Prize from Elixir Press and was published by Elixir in March.  Her poems have appeared in The New Republic, Tin House, FIELD, New American Writing, AGNI, VOLT and other journals.  She was awarded writing fellowships by the Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Piper Center and the Prague Summer Program. Winter teaches writing at the University of San Francisco and lives with her husband near Glen Ellen.

Jodi L. Hottel is a Sansei, third generation Japanese American. Her mother’s family was interned at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Nimrod International, Naugatuck Review, Spillway, Touch, English Journal, Frogpond and anthologies from the University of Iowa Press, Tebot Bach, Wising Up Press and the Healdsburg Arts Council. Jodi lives in Sonoma County, California.

Endorsements for “Heart Mountain” by Jodi Hottel

The poems of Heart Mountain, Jodi Hottel’s stunning debut collection, look back more than half a century to the lives of those uprooted by the relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans. Written from the perspective of one who bears witness a generation later, Heart Mountain is a testament to that sorrow, its silence, and its shame. With tender, unflinching detail, Hottel evokes the essence of Japanese gaman: enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity. These are courageous poems, written to acknowledge and honor what it would shame us to forget.

─Terry Ehret, author of Night Sky Journey

Jodi Hottel has written a haunting series of poems in the voices of Americans of Japanese ancestry who were forcibly removed to relocation camps during World War II. The voices here are multigenerational. With a quiet beauty and elegance, these poems illuminate the values, dignity, and enduring spirit with which the deportees faced loss and the shock of undeserved imprisonment. This is very compelling book.

                 —Susan Terris, author of The Homelessness of Self

Poet Jodi Hottel, born too late to know first-hand, has nonetheless captured the fear, the misery, the multiple indignities suffered by Japanese-Americans in World War II. Her chapbook, Heart Mountain, which takes its name from a Wyoming “relocation” camp where her maternal family members were interned, captures the smells and sounds and feel of it all.

Only one with the heart of a poet could write so poignantly of “packing three decades of marriage into two suitcases,” or of the solace that comes with the flowers, grown from smuggled seed packets, blooming in the desert.

—Gaye LeBaron, Press Democrat columnist & historian

Nostalgia for the Criminal Past by Kathleen Winter is the winner of the 2011 Antivenom Poetry Award published by Elixir Press. Contest judge, Deborah Bogen, had this to say about it: “Nostalgia for the Criminal Past is Kathleen Winter’s complicated, insightful, intriguing, sometimes sad and always artful song.”

And Cynthia Hogue said this: “By turns witty, gutsy, and passionate, Kathleen Winter’s Nostalgia for the Criminal Past pulls the reader into a capacious verbal terrain. ‘Penumbra’s a conundrum, / conundrum is penumbra. / An umbrella’s humdrum,’ one poem playfully opens. There is in these poems a subtle, delicate narrative of loss, grief, and survival, but as a poet trained in the law, Winter knows that any truth, like joy, is rare and precious. ‘Joy is brief. / It turns away, extends its limbs, / feathered, reptilian,’ one speaker opines. These poems are the nimble, profound products of experience alchemized into wisdom. Nostalgia for the Criminal Past is a dazzling debut.”

OCA is located at 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. in Occidental, CA 95465

phone: 707.874.9392    email: info@occidentalcenterforthearts.org

Open every Thursday and Friday 12 – 4 pm, by appointment and during events.

Wine, beer and refreshments for sale.

Blue Hotel  is a versatile band of Sonoma County based veteran players Chris Riebli,  Mark Gauche, Nathan Riebli, Michael Nehm, Andy Maroney and Steve Davidson, offering for your listening and dancing pleasure rich and soulful sets of jazz, blues, bossa and dance tunes from over seven decades of the best of popular music. www.bluehotelmusic.com. No fog machines. No glitter. Just pure music, great vocals, and a smooth sound that will linger with you. OCA is pleased to kick off our summer series of Local Talent Sundays with this popular local band. Cabaret seating.

OCA is located at 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. in Occidental, CA 95465

phone: 707.874.9392    email: info@occidentalcenterforthearts.org

Open every Thursday and Friday 12 – 4 pm, by appointment and during events.

Join us for a unique and powerful performance by award winning (National Endowment for the Arts) singer, songwriter, pianist and playwright KATIE KETCHUM, who presents a one-woman concert/drama about pianist Clara Schumann, wife of  19th century composer Robert Schumann.

Through storytelling, music, letters and costume, Ketchum skillfully bring to life this  distinguished pianist of the  Romantic era;  who brought her husband’s works to the forefront  while raising their eight children. Katie Ketchum will also play and sing some rarely performed works by Clara and Robert  Schumann, Brahms, and Chopin. Refreshments available for sale.

OCA is located at 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. in Occidental, CA 95465

phone: 707.874.9392    email: info@occidentalcenterforthearts.org

Open every Thursday and Friday 12 – 4 pm, by appointment and during events.

Kick off the Summer with West County’s fave fab 10- piece band! This versatile and energetic band features a hard driving rhythm section (they all sing), the mighty four-piece Blue Moon horn section (they all sing too!), and one of the finest female vocalists you will find anywhere! BLUE MOON captures the Motown, Rock n’ Roll, Rhythm and Blues, and 70′s Disco spirits, performing the music of such notable artists as Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, The Supremes, Peter Gabriel, Van Morrison, Tower of Power, Huey Lewis & the News, and the Commodores.

Rock & Roll and Swing classics will get you dancin’! www.bluemoontunes.com

OCA is located at 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. in Occidental, CA 95465

phone: 707.874.9392    email: info@occidentalcenterforthearts.org

Open every Thursday and Friday 12 – 4 pm, by appointment and during events.

Open to all OCA, OCC and RAC members! Take-in Monday, June 25th 4-7pm. More information and entry form here.

Opening Reception with food and wine on Friday, June 29, 4:30-6:30pm. Exhibit runs June 28 through July 28, 2012.

OCA members, OCA volunteers, Occidental Community Choir members and RAC members are all welcome to enter “Anything Goes”! No entry fees, just membership. Just bring art, ready to hang (please check guidelines below), and entry forms by the OCA gallery on Monday, June 25 from 4 to 7pm.

Entry forms can be downloaded here in MS Word or PDF. Please type or print clearly and fill in all fields.

For more information call 707- 874- 9392 or email: info@occidentalcenterforthearts.org

Guidelines for submitted artwork:

Completed entry form for each piece, preferably completed before you arrive to drop off work. Sales and labels depend on this information being complete, accurate and easy to read.

All art must be finished and dry. We will not accept paintings with unfinished edges. This includes canvases with unpainted or frayed edges or visible staples. All art must be ready to hang. Securely attached wires are required of wall hung art.

Limit of 4 entries per artist, size limit is 48″ x 48″.

Please make sure that the artist’s name, contact, and title of the piece are on the back or underside of the piece of art. Also, we would love to have a copy of your bio and artists statement to put in a binder for the exhibit. Please deliver these on 8.5″ x 11″ letter sized paper when you bring in your contract and artwork.

OCA is located at 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. in Occidental, CA 95465

Phone: 707.874.9392    Email: info@occidentalcenterforthearts.org

Open every Thursday and Friday 12 – 4 pm, by appointment and during events.