Clark Art Hosts Dither and I/O Ensemble

08:05AM / Tuesday, January 13, 2026Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.—On Sunday, Jan. 18 at 3 pm, the Williams College Department of Music and I/O Fest 2026 welcome the intrepid electric guitar quartet Dither to the Clark for a program featuring selections from The Expanding Universe, the iconic 1979 album by the electronic composer and computer-music pioneer Laurie Spiegel.

This concert takes place in the Manton Research Center auditorium.

According to a press release:

In 1977, one Spiegel composition, Kepler’s Harmony of the Worlds, was included on "The Sounds of Earth," an LP compilation that accompanied the Voyager spacecraft as it traversed the solar system. Dither captains its concert voyage of The Expanding Universe with four electric guitars through a galaxy of live effects.

Tickets $10 ($8 members, free for college students and children 17 and under). For more information, visit events.clarkart.edu. For accessibility questions, call 413 458 0524.

This program is presented by the Williams College Department of Music and the Clark.

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Discrimination Against Muslim Americans Persists 25 Years After 9/11

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
07:00AM / Saturday, September 12, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Dozens of Muslim Americans were among people killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Untold numbers of Muslim Americans have suffered countless acts of discrimination in their aftermath.

"Of course, you'll find several accounts of Muslims from all over the U.S. describing how they went from the unknown kids in the school to being stereotyped or ridiculed for their Muslim names," Sidra Mahmood recalled recently. "However, many Americans forget that the victims of 9/11 were also Muslim Americans.

"I can't forget the time when a classmate broke down in sobs when 9/11 came up in our classroom at the Islamic seminary I went to in Texas, because her father's best friend who was like an uncle to her, died on 9/11."

Today, Mahmood is a chaplain at Williams College. In 2001, she was growing up in Karachi, Pakistan, when terrorists forced two passenger jets into the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan and another plane into the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. A third plane, which terrorists hoped to crash into a D.C. landmark, was brought down in western Pennsylvania after passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers.

The attacks, which ultimately claimed 2,976 lives, horrified people around the world, including in Mahmood's native land.

"I remember being aghast like anyone who witnessed the fall of the Twin Towers in real time," she said. "However, even as a child, fear gripped me about the possibility of war, especially once we learned that Afghanistan, right adjacent to Pakistan, would be attacked by the U.S. My mother had told me about the 1971 war between India and Pakistan when she remembered hiding in the dark after bomb sirens would go off in Punjab after intentional blackouts.

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