AMHERST — Amherst’s famed salamanders that use specially built tunnels to help them safely cross Henry Street in Cushman Village were represented as one of several ice sculptures on the Town Common over the weekend.
The drive-through ice sculptures display was a partnership between the Amherst Business Improvement District, the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce and the Amherst Recreation Department.
“We are super excited to return with our streamlined-due-to-COVID second annual Ice Sculpture Festival,” said Amherst BID Executive Director Gabrielle Gould.
Gould said her organization had planned to have a bigger event than last year, including live music and sculpting and fire performers, as well as a beer and wine garden. But like last year, the decision was to limit the scale of the event in light of public safety concerns.
Winterfest is also off again this year. The was an annual happening that included community events, including a grand finale with various competitions at Cherry Hill Golf Course and a fireworks show.
Black History Month in Amherst will be capped by a Human Rights Commission-sponsored event that will discuss health and wellness disparities for African-Americans.
Jennifer Moyston, the staff liaison for the commission and assistant director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, said the Zoom presentation Feb. 24 at 6 p.m. will include a libation and singing, and a historical account of health challenges.
The event will feature a presentation by Paula Starnes, president of the board of directors for the Youth Social Educational Training Academy in Springfield, and input from the Board of Health and town health director.
Black health and wellness has also been a focus for the women’s basketball team at the University of Massachusetts, which has been selling warmup shirts and donating proceeds from these to the Amherst Survival Center.
A celebration of the musical legacy of Frederick C. Tillis, the composer, saxophonist, poet and founder of the Jazz and African American Music Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts, will be held at the Tillis Performance Hall at the Bromery Fine Arts Center at 4 p.m. Sunday.
The event, also to be streamed on YouTube, will feature performances by student groups, music faculty including Jeffrey Holmes and Salvatore Macchia, and special guests, including Jake Epstein, Rob Faulkner, royal hartigan, Dawning Holmes, Frank Newton, Avery Sharpe and Nikki Stoia. The program will include a variety of jazz, classical, and sacred works composed by Tillis, including “For The Victims and Survivors of September 11th,” narrated by professor Amilcar Shabazz of the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies.
Some of the performers will discuss the life and legacy of Tillis in the Bromery Center lobby beginning at 2:30 p.m. Pamela Tillis will show an excerpt from a documentary film that she is creating about her father.
All in attendance will be required to wear masks and be prepared to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test within the last 72 hours.
An Asian fusion restaurant that recently opened at 31 Boltwood Walk had its commemorative ribbon-cutting, put on by the Amherst Area Chamber, on the morning of Valentine’s Day.
Ricelicious is located at 31 Boltwood Walk and has a menu of various rice bowls.
Among the choices are beef or chicken gochujang; ninja curry, which has a meatball; pork cutlet or chicken cutlet cooked in a Japanese curry sauce; and crying shrimp spaghetti, where the pasta is stir-fried with shrimp, garlic, black pepper, dried chili, parsley and parmesan cheese, and topped with crispy bacon.
Ricelicious replaces Cheers Cut, which opened at the space in 2019 and served Taiwanese-inspired cuisine.
TUESDAY: School Committee, 6:30 p.m.
THURSDAY: Community Resources Committee, 4:30 p.m., and Zoning Board of Appeals, 6 p.m.