Dan Cullinane, who has worked at the State House and in City Hall, is considering a run for the 12th Suffolk House seat if state Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry wins the May 28 special election to fill former state Sen. Jack Hart’s seat. Dorcena Forry, who has been in the House since a 2005 special election, is facing off against Dorchester Republican Joseph Ureneck to represent a Senate district that includes Dorchester, South Boston, parts of Mattapan. and a portion of Hyde Park.  Read more

Ashmont Hill Chamber Music will present a benefit organ recital by native son Aaron Sunstein this Sunday at 4 p.m. at All Saints Church. Sunstein, a doctoral degree candidate at Indiana University, returns to Boston to perform this recital on the historic church’s magnificent C.B. Fisk organ. Tickets are $30, and in the spirit of AHCM’s commitment to community, complimentary tickets are available for those in need by contacting AHCM by email at info@ashmonthillchambermusic.org or phone at 774-573-0526.  Read more

Tasia A. Jones: One of the performers in this weekend’s first- ever Dorchester Fringe Festival. She will appear on Saturday at the Erick Jean Center for the Arts in Four Corners. Photo by Luke BaroskyThe first-ever all-free Dorchester Fringe Festival (DFF) filled with “edgy” entertainers will take place this weekend at two venues. Supported by the Dorchester Arts Collaborative (DAC), the DFF will showcase theater and performing artists, mostly from Dorchester, but some from greater Boston, in a wide range of genres, including theater, musical theater and spoken word.

The fringe festival concept originated in 1947 in Edinburgh, Scotland when a group of performers who had been excluded from that city’s main theater festival, found alternative spaces on the “fringe” of the city in which to perform. Now Edinburgh is perhaps the most prestigious theater festival in the world.

“Fringe festival” means different things in different places, but generally connotes no formal jury process, minimal staging, and a predilection for experimental and up-and-coming artists whose work may be hard to categorize.

Dorchester has no mainstream arts festival, so there’s nothing technically to be on the fringe of, but that didn’t faze DFF co-producers: Uphams Corner poet Liam Day and Savin Hill performance artist Obehi Janice.  Read more

Schoolhouse at Lower Mills  Read more

Signature-gathering deadline is next Tuesday

Arroyo gets signatures in Fields CornerThe door to the Election Department closed on Monday at 5 p.m., marking one end to the first leg of Boston’s 2013 municipal elections countdown as the last-day candidates applied for nomination papers that had been available since April 30.

While 24 people – a mix of elected officials, community activists and long shots – have applied for the papers, not all of them are expected to gather enough signatures to make the ballot. Others may run for other municipal offices.

Nearly half of the two dozen hail from Dorchester, including state Rep. Marty Walsh, former state Rep. Charlotte Golar Richie, former School Committee member John Barros, Codman Square Health Center co-founder Bill Walczak, Barstool Sports’ David Portnoy, Rev. Miniard Culpepper, TOUCH 106.1 FM co-founder Charles Clemons, and District 4 Councillor Charles Yancey.  Read more

Area C-11 detectives busted a 23 year-old Dorchester man on Monday as he attempted to sell them a pair of stolen cameras that he posted for sale on Craigslist just hours before. One of the two cameras was among the items that had been stolen the night before from a Savin Hill Ave. car.

The victim reported the break-in on Monday morning and then circled back with police later that same day after she saw her Canon Powershot SD780 camera— with its distinctive pink case— listed for sale along with another camera on Craigslist. Area C-11 detectives called the number attached to the ad and set up a meeting at the KFC restaurant on Columbia Rd. that same evening.  Read more

The Richard familyThe Richard family issued the following statement this morning:

Last evening, just 23 days after the bombing attack on Boston, our seven year old daughter Jane underwent her eleventh surgery. While she has more trips to the O.R. ahead of her, last night's operation marked an important milestone, as doctors were finally able to close the wound created when the bomb took her left leg below the knee. Part of the procedure involved preparing Jane's injured leg to eventually be fitted for a prosthesis.

By closing the wound, the incredible medical team at Boston Children's Hospital laid the groundwork for Jane to take an important step forward on the long and difficult road ahead of her. One of the things we have learned through all of this is to not get too high or too low. We take today's development as positive news and look ahead with guarded optimism. If things go well, Jane could be ready to transition to the rehabilitation stage of her recovery in the next few weeks.  Read more

The All Saints Choir of Men and Boys ring out in song. Photo courtesy All Saints Church

A recent performance in Harvard’s vaulted Sanders Theatre looked more like a rock concert than a recital of early Renaissance music. Standing in the first two rows, a group of young boys and teens clad in jeans and crimson sweatshirts hooted and hollered for the singers onstage.

The fans weren’t undergraduates, but members of a choir in Dorchester that has a deep connection to the Harvard Glee Club, the country’s oldest college chorus, founded in 1858.

Much of what the Glee Club is today can be traced to the efforts of Archibald T. Davison, a Harvard man with a passion for music and song. A member of the Harvard College Class of 1906, Davison returned to the University for his graduate studies in 1907, joined the Harvard Music Department in 1910, and eventually took on the role of Harvard organist and choirmaster. In 1912, at the urging of singers in the Glee Club, Davison became its “coach.” Several years later, “Doc,” as he was known, became its first official conductor. His hard work and strong musicianship, together with his openness to a broad repertoire, transformed the club.  Read more

The annual neighborhood fundraisers have been a tradition for Mayor Thomas Menino – usually occurring in Jamaica Plain, East Boston, and in Dorchester. With last month’s announcement that he won’t seek a sixth four-year term, the last one he is expected to hold in Dorchester took place last Sunday.

Lawmakers, top administration officials, and neighborhood activists packed the annual “Mayor’s Sunday Brunch” at the IBEW 103 Hall on Freeport Street to see His Honor and to wait in line to shake his hand. Congressman Ed Markey, who is running for John Kerry’s vacant Senate seat, put in an appearance. Former State Senate President William Bulger was in the audience, as Menino, clad in a tan jacket and red sneakers, sat with his wife Angela next to the podium.

Former state Sen. Jack Hart was the emcee, channeling his experience as the host of St. Patrick’s Day breakfast in South Boston. With many of the candidates hoping to succeed Menino in the room, Hart quipped at the outset, “Raise your hand if you’re not running for mayor of Boston.”

Also read: Fr. Jack Ahern's prayer at Sunday's breakfast in honor of Mayor Menino  Read more

For nearly all of the 20th century, the Boston Irish had a lock – even a stranglehold – on the office of mayor. Not until the outgoing Tom Menino followed Ray Flynn in the post was the near-monopoly of old sod descendants truly broken. Now, as the field to follow Menino takes shape for 2013, a trio of well-known locals with green bloodlines might possibly get back the job once held by the likes of James Michael Curley, John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, John B. Hynes, Kevin White, and Flynn.  Read more

More than 5,000 walkers – many of them families who have lost loved ones to violence – will participate on Sunday in the 17th Annual Mother’s Day Walk for Peace in Dorchester to pledge their commitment to peace and shine a light on the ongoing problem of gun violence in our communities. “For more than 17 years, the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute has been an ally to the City of Boston, working hard to make Boston’s neighborhoods safer,” says Mayor Thomas Menino. “Today, a commitment to peace is needed now more than ever.” A special section on the Walk is enclosed in today’s issue of the Reporter. Photo: Louis D. Brown Peace Institute  Read more

Nine of the candidates aiming to capture the seat Mayor Thomas Menino will be leaving at the end of the year met under a church steeple on Monday night, introducing themselves to voters and honing their talking points.  Read more