Grammy Winner Headlines Opening of Williamstown Jazz Festival

08:11AM / Friday, September 04, 2026Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Jazz and R&B vocalist Lisa Fischer and her ensemble, Grand Baton, will take center stage on the opening night of the inaugural Williamstown Jazz Festival.

The performance will take place on Friday, Sept. 11, at 7 p.m. at the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance located on the Williams College campus.

According to a press release:

Fischer, who was a breakout star in the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom (2013), is one of the most inventive contemporary jazz live performers working today. Her 1991 signature solo hit, "How Can I Ease the Pain," won the Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance in 1992.

Over her career, Fischer has collaborated with an extraordinary roster of music royalty, most notably touring for 26 years as the primary female backing vocalist for The Rolling Stones and sharing the stage with rock and pop icons like Tina Turner, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, and Nine Inch Nails. In the realm of R&B, she spent over two decades working closely with Luther Vandross and lent her powerhouse vocals to legendary artists like Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, and Chaka Khan. Today, she continues to expand her genre-defying footprint by collaborating with premier jazz and funk artists like Chris Botti, Bobby McFerrin, and Ranky Tanky, while fronting her own progressive world-rock band, Grand Baton.

Ticketing: Individual tickets and 3-Day Festival Passes can be purchased via Jazz in the Berkshires (jazzintheberkshires.org) or InstantSeats.

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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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