Chestnut Hill Local

Violinist using music to heal Mt. Airy hero organizes concert for flood victims

by LEN LEAR

When Richard Casimir, 41, was growing up in Haiti, the most impoverished country in the Western hemisphere, he began taking lessons on the violin and playing for his school orchestra, even though his father insisted “that we were crazy to spend our time playing music. That was for rich people.”

The odds that a boy from Haiti, where violins are almost as scarce as astronauts, could wind up as a professional classical musician were about as great as those of a newspaper editor playing center field for the Phillies. However, Richard is not a man you want to bet against. He has made a habit of defying the odds.

In 1976, the Boston Symphony Orchestra visited Haiti and heard Richard...

Did you ever dream about running away and living on a topical island? Former Chestnut Hill residents Glenn and Wynne (Carson) Curry, who had lived on Lynnbrooke Lane, did, so two years ago they packed up and moved to Vieques, Puerto Rico. They purchased an eight-room guesthouse with bar and restaurant called BANANAS located on the beach in the village of Esperanza and began a new life. The coastal resort village of 1,000 residents is located on the south shore of the island.

If you’ve heard of Vieques, it was probably in connection with the U.S. Navy’s practice bombing range. During World War II, the Navy took over two-thirds of the island and for 60 years used it for training maneuvers. “There are more craters on Vieques than on the...

Last summer, we published some evocative e-mails that Mt. Airy resident Doug Bernstein sent home from his post-college summer journey in Southeast Asia. This summer, having completed a year at Johns Hopkins Medical School, he is working on a research project in Peru where the lab is primarily studying the health effects of deforestation. His first note below, responded to a query sent to the project secretary from his mother, Pam Rogow, after she’d not heard from him for several days following his arrival in Peru.

I just wanted to reassure you that I’m fine and well settled. It has been harder to communicate than I thought. While the phone system is fairly easy if you buy a phone card, you have to contend with the majority of phones that are broken in one way...

Yiddish-inspired concert in Hill school ‘astonishing’

By MICHAEL CARUSO

The Chestnut Hill Community Association’s season of concerts in Pastorius Park ran into weather-related problems again last week. The Wednesday night Klingon Klez concert was forced by the rain to move inside to the auditorium of the Springside School, the same fate that had befallen the previous week’s ensemble, City Rhythm Orchestra. But the Delaware Valley Opera Company’s good luck held on Saturday evening, enabling the troupe to open its production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro as planned on the lawn behind...

Tasty bites added to free Mt. Airy concerts

by GAIL COHEN

Weavers Way Co-op has joined in supporting the East Mount Airy tradition of free evening concerts at the Mount Airy Train Station. Walk a Crooked Mile Books, located in the train station at Gowen and Devon Streets on the R7 line, is the largest used bookstore in the area, with seven rooms of out-of-print books.

Greg Williams, the owner of the store, “loves the neighborhood” and began the concert series four years ago as a way of serving the community, and it has grown to a full schedule of once-a-week concerts in the beautiful natural amphitheater. Over the years, there have been well over 20 different performers who have volunteered their services at the concerts, ranging from gospel to jazz and from classical music to folk singers.

The audience brings out the best of Mount Airy and Chestnut Hill and has become a great venue for seeing old friends and making new acquaintances as folks...

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