Clark Art: In Concert With Performing Artists In Residence

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — On Sunday, Dec. 15 at 2 pm, the Clark Art Institute presents an afternoon of chamber music in the Michael Conforti Pavilion. 
 
Jeewon Park (piano) and Edward Arron (cello), artistic directors of the Clark's Performing Artists in Residence program, are joined by Amy Schwartz Moretti (violin) and Che-Yen Chen (viola). The program includes G. F. Handel/J. Halvorsen's Passacaglia for Violin and Cello, Georges Enescu's Concertstück for Viola and Piano, W. A. Mozart's Piano Quartet in G Minor (K. 478), and Gabriel Fauré's Piano Quartet in C Minor (op. 15).
 
Jeewon Park made her debut at age twelve performing Chopin's First Concerto with the Korean Symphony Orchestra. Park has since performed in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Seoul Arts Center in South Korea. Park and her husband Edward Arron are in their twelfth season as co-artistic directors of the Clark's Performing Artists in Residence series.
 
Since making his New York recital debut in 2000 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Edward Arron has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras and as a chamber musician throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. He tours and records as a member of the renowned Ehnes String Quartet and is a regular guest with the Boston and Seattle Chamber Music Societies as well as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Arron has served on the music faculty at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst since 2016.
 
Before becoming the inaugural Director of Mercer University's McDuffie Center for Strings, Macon, Georgia, in 2007, Amy Schwartz Moretti was concertmaster of the Florida Orchestra and the Oregon Symphony. She has premiered concertos for Matt Catingub and Christopher Schmitz, collaborated with James Ehnes for Prokofiev's Sonata for Two Violin and Bartók's 44 Duos (both receiving consecutive Juno Awards for Classical Album of the Year in 2014 and 2015), and performed the complete cycle of Beethoven String Quartets in Seoul, South Korea with the Ehnes Quartet.
 
Professor of Viola at University of California, Los Angeles's Herb Alpert School of Music, Che-Yen Chen previously served on the faculty of the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music. Chen joined the renowned Ehnes Quartet in 2023 and has performed and taught in music festivals across North America and Asia. As the founding and former member of the Formosa Quartet, he won the first prize in the 2006 London International String Quartet Competition. Chen was the principal violist of the San Diego Symphony and Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra and has appeared as guest principal with other major orchestras in North America.
 
Tickets $25 ($20 members, free for students with valid ID). For accessibility questions, call 413 458 0524. Advance registration required. Capacity is limited. No refunds.
 
This performance is presented through the support of the Sea Island Foundation. Jeewon Park performs on a Steinway & Sons piano, provided through a special arrangement with the firm.

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Letter: Incomplete Picture from Greylock School Committee

Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:

At the October Mount Greylock School Committee meeting, there was much celebration over the student growth percentiles (SGP) from last year's MCAS test data (Spring 2026). Growth is worth celebrating. But I worry the meeting, and the coverage of it, left families and our community with an incomplete picture of how our students are doing in math.

"Growth" sounds like it means scores went up, but that isn’t quite what SGP measures. SGP compares each student to students in the state who scored about the same the year before, then ranks how they did this year against that group. If a whole group of similar students decreases, the student who decreases the least can still earn a high growth percentile. A strong SGP tells us our students did better than their peers who scored similarly the year before. It doesn't tell us whether they are at grade level.

For example, the current 6th grade class at Williamstown Elementary School (WES) has decreased in their grade-level math proficiency every year since their 3rd grade MCAS. In 2024, 64 percent of the class was meeting expectations; in 2025 48 percent were at grade level, and in 2026 only 33 percent of their class met grade-level expectations. Our current WES 5th grade class follows a similar trend, with 48 percent meeting grade-level math expectations last year vs 56 percent meeting expectations in 2025 when they were in 3rd grade.

Not every class follows this pattern; our current 7th graders gained to 62 percent last year. But seeing entire classes decrease is something that deserves our attention.

Growth comparisons across the state provide useful information, but they do not tell the complete story. We also need to look at where our students are in terms of grade-level proficiency and how those numbers are changing from year to year within the Mt. Greylock school district. This will be our first year with the math interventionist role filled at WES and our second year with the new i-Ready curriculum.

As we watch whether these changes are working, I hope the School Committee will discuss proficiency alongside growth in its public meetings, so our community can see the full picture. Growth matters, but it isn’t enough if fewer of our kids are reaching grade level each year.

Sincerely,

Jenna Hasenkampf
Williamstown, Mass.

Hasenkampf is a parent of WES students in Grades 2 and 4.

 

 

 

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