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“The Distant Sound” at Bard Summerscape
July 30 & August 1 & 6
One of the seminal works of 20th-century opera, The Distant Sound is about a composer who forsakes a woman’s love for a sound —an elusive ideal—that shimmers, mirage-like, beyond his grasp in his imagination. The opera is also about how Grete, the composer’s beloved, is exploited by society and how she survives by retreating into her dreams. Music and libretto by Franz Schreker, sung in German, with English supertitles, “The Distant Sound” is directed by Thaddeus Strassberger with the American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leon Botstein.
Bard SummerScape
July 30 and August 6 at 7 pm
August 1* and 4 at 3 pm
Round-trip transportation from Manhattan to Bard available for this performance; reservations are required.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 07/29/10 at 11:07 AM • Permalink
CND2 at Jacob’s Pillow
Wednesday, July 28 - Saturday, July 31 @ 8 p.m.
Saturday, July 31 & Sunday, August 1 @ 2 p.m.
Dance lovers are already mourning the departure CND2 (Compañía Nacional de Danza 2) co-founder and Artistic Director Nacho Duato; indeed, some thought the troupe’s full name was Compañía Nacho Duato! This is one of CND2’s final egnagements before Duato steps down at the end of July after 20 years at the helm. Learn why this ever-inventive, always engaging Madrid-based dance company has earned its place as a Pillow favorite. The program includes Duato’s Kol Nidre, Gnawa (premiered by Hubbard Street), and the U.S. premiere of Insected, by co-Artistic Director Tony Fabre.
Jacob’s Pillow, Ted Shawn Theatre
Becket, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/21/10 at 07:10 AM • Permalink
Charles Dutoit at Tanglewood
Friday, July 30 @ 8:30 p.m.
The Russians are coming! To Tanglewood, that is, in a program of Glinka, Prokofiev, and Tchaikovksy conducted by globetrotting Maestro Charles Dutoit, who regularly leads all the major orchestras across the United States and Europe. Russian pianist Kirill Gerstein, not yet 30 years old, makes his Tanglewood debut.
Tanglewood, Koussevitsky Shed
Lenox, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/18/10 at 07:08 PM • Permalink
Monica Bill Barnes at Jacob’s Pillow
Wednesday, July 28 - Saturday, July 31 @ 8:15 p.m.
Saturday, July 31 & Sunday, August 1 @ 2:15 p.m.
The second to perform of the three troupes given a Creative Development Residency at the Pillow this year, Monica Bill Barnes & Company had the gala audience in stitches as the dancers twitched and shadow-boxed their way through a couple of James Brown numbers, costumed like fuddy-duddy librarians. The program includes the world premiere of mostly fanfare, created in part during that residency and co-commissioned by the Pillow, along with Another Parade, plus a solo performed by Barnes, Here We Are.
Jacob’s Pillow, Doris Duke Theatre
Becket, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/18/10 at 07:08 PM • Permalink
Blue Ribbon Boys at Helskini
Friday July 30 @ 9 p.m.
The Western swing/old timey Blue Ribbon Boys only get better with the addition of NYC jazz singer Julia Gottlieb. Be prepared to dance, or at least to flex you ankles to this toe-tapping, infectious musical romp.
Club Helsinki Hudson
Hudson, NY
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/18/10 at 06:00 PM • Permalink
Kirill Gerstein at Tannery Pond
Saturday, July 31 @ 8 p.m.
One night after his Tanglewood debut, Kirill Gerstein crosses the border for his triumphant return to Tannery Pond, where he first performed in 1979, while he was still a student at the Manhattan School of Music, as a replacement for a scheduled pianist. The program includes work by J.S. Bach, Chopin, Schumann, and a contemporary piece by Oliver Knussen.
Concerts at Tannery Pond, on the Darrow School campus
New Lebanon, NY
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/18/10 at 11:00 AM • Permalink
Yo-Yo-Ma at Tanglewood
Sunday, August 1 @ 2:30 p.m.
It wouldn’t be summer in the Berkshires without Yo-Yo Ma at Tanglewood, where he’ll be front and center playing Elgar’s Cello Concerto under the capable baton of Charles Dutoit. Also on the program: Karelia Suite by Sibelius and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibtion.
Tanglewood, Koussevitsky Shed
Lenox, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/18/10 at 09:00 AM • Permalink
Ariadne auf Naxos at Tanglewood
Sunday, Monday & Wednesday, August 1, 2, & 4 @ 7:30 p.m.
Continuing the Tanglewood Music Center’s tradition of presenting a fully staged opera production each summer, venerable German conductor Christoph von Dohnányi˚ (TMC Fellow 1952) leads TMC Vocal Fellows and Orchestra in two performances of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos on Sunday and Monday before passing the baton to TMC Conducting Fellow Keitaro Harada on Wednesday, August 4. Ira Siff, whose direction of Don Giovanni at Tanglewood last summer won great acclaim, directs.
Tanglewood Theatre
Lenox, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/18/10 at 08:00 AM • Permalink
Tanglewood on Parade
Tuesday, August 3 @ 8:30 p.m.
One of the sure signs that summer has reached its apex is the arrival of Tanglewood on Parade, which this year celebrates John Williams’ 30th year at the august music festival. The honoree shares the podium with Keith Lockhart and Stefan Asbury as the BSO, the Boston Pops, and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra perform selections from the composer/conductor’s most popular concert and film scores, concluding, per tradition, with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and a hailstorm of fireworks. The concert is preceded by an afternoon of family activities and music; grounds open at 2:30 p.m.
Tanglewood, Koussevitsky Shed
Lenox, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/18/10 at 07:30 AM • Permalink
Bang on a Can at MASS MoCA
Now - July 31
One month before Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival takes over the MASS MoCA campus, the Bang on a Can Festival of Contemporary Music returns for its ninth annual residency, filling the galleries and stages with two weeks of rhythm and learning. Fondly known as “Banglewood,” the festival always selects one composer to honor (this year, Saturday July 24 is International George Crumb Day) and culminates in the Bang on a Can Marathon. Check out pop-up performances throughout the festival, and the Marathon on July 31, which includes Steve Reich’s Double Sextet; Arvo Part’s avant-baroque concerto Fratres for percussion and string orchestra; Julia Wolfe’s Fuel for string orchestra with a film by legendary experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison; new work by Swiss post-jazz master Nik Baertsch; Evan Ziporyn’s Music from Shadowbang; an ensemble of Uzbekis; Christine Southworth’s concerto Zap, originally written for Van de Graaf generator and ensemble; pattern-master Tom Johnson’s translation of an ancient Indian math problem into a minimalist masterpiece; and much more.
MASS MoCA
North Adams, MA
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/18/10 at 07:07 AM • Permalink
The Chocolate Soldier at Bard
August 5 - 7, 12 & 13 @ 8 p.m.
August 8, 11, 14 & 15 @ 3 p.m.
Based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Arms and the Man, this 1908 comic chamber opera by Oscar Straus was the hit of the Broadway following its 1909 English-language premiere, and similarly wowed audiences in London. It’s a charming example of early 20th century Austrian musical works that tells the story of a Swiss mercenary assisting the Serbian army in the Serbo-Bulgarian War who takes refuge in the home of a Bulgarian general and sets the women of the household a-flutter, upending the wedding plans of the general’s daughter. Will Pomerantz directs this light, enchanting summer fare; James Bagwell conducts. Roundtrip transportation from Manhattan to Bard available on the August 11 matinee for $20; reservations required.
Bard SummerScape, Fisher Center
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 07/15/10 at 12:08 PM • Permalink
Berkshire Choral Festival: Choir Camp for Grown-ups
As the TV show Glee reminds us week-after-week, choral groups are for some students what team sports and cheerleading squads are for others—but with one big difference that’s never explored on air. After graduation, cheerleaders hang up their pom-poms and the closest many athletes ever get again to teamwork is a doubles game; whereas, choristers can keep on harmonizing for their entire lives. It is just such dedicated amateur singers, those who are active in choruses and choirs in their own communities, who year-after-year turn up in Sheffield, MA for a week at what Debi Kennedy, director of the Berkshire Choral Festival, affably describes as “choir camp for grown-ups.”
“Every summer, we take over the campus of the Berkshire School for four weeks,” she says. Though each of the week-long sessions is primarily comprised of people who have never met, “we have a loyal constituency; a tremendous number of talented amateur singers who come back year after year. Some have 20-plus years with us, and a number have been here for every one of our 29 years. As one regular puts it, ‘It’s the best week of my year.’ ”
That “best week” just got even better. “We always held the concerts in a hockey rink that was like an open-air quonset hut,” Kennedy says. This year the venue shifts to the Berkshire School’s new state-of-the-art athletic facility, where the audience and musicians not only get to sit in mosquito-free, air-conditioned splendor, but where the sound produced by an orchestra of up to sixty-five instrumentalists and a chorus of up to 210 voices, not counting professional guest soloists, is acoustically contained. (The new facility is also significantly closer to the parking lot.)
The Berkshire Choral Festival was founded in 1982 to provide choral singers with the opportunity to rehearse and perform masterpieces of the choral repertoire under the direction of world-class conductors and with the help of a professional musical staff. The amateur singers who comprise the chorus arrive in Sheffield on a Sunday, register, and have their orientation. On Monday morning rehearsals begin. Before Saturday’s concert, a “camper” will have had a total of 28 intensive hours of rehearsal. Afternoons are free for exploring the attractions of the region, then in the evenings at 5 p.m., there is a recital given by members of the faculty. After dinner, rehearsals resume until 9:45 p.m. On Fridays, the Springfield Symphony shows up for more rehearsals with the choir and the guest conductor. The culmination of the week, of course, is the concert on Saturday night. There is a new class, a new repertoire, and a new conductor each week.
“Audiences can range from 350 up to 800 for a showstopper such as the Bach St. Matthew’s Passion or the Verdi Requiem,” Kennedy says. This Saturday’s concert, the first of the season, is Judas Maccabeus, one of Handel’s most popular oratorios, second only to the Messiah, conducted by Heinz Ferlesch, Music Director of the Vienna Singakademie.
For a complete roster of this season’s concerts and to order tickets, visit the Berkshire Choral Festival website
Next concert: Saturday, July 17, at 8 p.m.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 07/11/10 at 04:29 PM • Permalink
Summer’s Hottest Ticket? Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival at MASS MoCA
Chicago-based Wilco is making a habit of touring our region in summer. Last year, the literate, prolific, politically progressive band played Dutchess Stadium; the previous summer Wilco made an improbable and magnificent appearance at Tanglewood. The area has made an indelible impression on the band, who will be back again this August 13 - 15—their only East Coast appearance —to launch, headline, and curate a new, three-day festival of music, comedy, art, film, video installations, and more at MASS MoCA, a venue that seems downright intimate by comparison. And MASS MoCA has given you a scant 48 hours notice of this groundbreaking event; tickets go on sale Friday, April 9.
In addition to concerts by Wilco, fronted by Jeff Tweedy, the Solid Sound Festival will include performances by the band members’ side projects, including Glenn Kotcheʼs On Fillmore, The Nels Cline Singers, The Autumn Defense featuring John Stirratt and Pat Sansone, and Mikael Jorgensenʼs Pronto, though one wonders how these individuals have time for other projects given Wilco’s grueling touring schedule. Among the festival’s many participatory events, guitarist Cline will demonstrate his Solid Sound Stompbox Station, an interactive guitar pedal exhibit; and stringed-instrument experts will lead workshops.
How did Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival end up at MASS MoCA? Says museum director Joe Thompson, “We got a call from one of the band’s representatives a couple of years ago. They had enjoyed playing in the Berkshires at Tanglewood but wanted a bit more time, space and context to develop a more interactive, lasting relationship with their audiences, and with new audiences. They wanted to experiment—we love experiments ourselves and have enjoyed developing the concept in partnership with the band, its management, and Alex Crothers of Higher Ground, in Burlington, Vermont who is unlike any music producer I’ve ever met.”
Tickets for Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival go on sale Friday, April 9, at 10 a.m. through the band’s website or MASS MoCA’s, or in person at the MASS MoCA box office at 11 a.m. Tickets to the three-day extravaganza are a relatively gentle $86.50—$99.50 after June 1, though it’s unlikely any will be available by that time. Given how quickly the band sells out much larger venues, we encourage you have your credit card ready on Friday morning. Should you need to be the first to know everything about this event, you can follow developments on Twitter.—Bess Hochstein
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 04/07/10 at 07:33 AM • Permalink
RI Selects: Crosby, Stills & Nash Are Coming to Tanglewood
Tickets on sale April 20 at 8 a.m.
Four decades after they got together at the Woodstock music festival, Crosby, Stills & Nash continue to perform their moving counterculture anthems like Teach Your Children, Our House, and Suite: Judy Blue Eyes. Last week, Tanglewood announced that CSN would be playing the Koussevitzky Music Shed on Wednesday, September 6, with tickets going on sale online at 8 a.m. on April 20 (and by phone at 10 a.m.). Tickets for the just-announced Herbie Hancock concert on Monday, August 9, will go on sale the same day.
Tanglewood Online Box Office
SymphonyCharge: 617.266.1200 or 888.266.1200
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 04/06/10 at 10:09 PM • Permalink
Jacob’s Pillow Announces Its 2010 Festival
Jason Hartley of Trey McIntyre Project; photo Jonas Lundqvist
In Genesis, Jacob lays his head on a pillow of stone and dreams of a ladder to heaven. And so it came to pass that the Carter family of Becket, MA, named their c. 1790 farm Jacob’s Pillow, because of a pillow-like boulder in the garden and the fact that the property was at the top of a steep road then called Jacob’s Ladder, now George Carter Road.
Nearly a century and a half later, in the early 1930s, the dancer Ted Shawn (left) bought Jacob’s Pillow as a retreat, ultimately holding demonstrations there by an all-male dance troupe he had assembled in an effort to dispel the taboo against men pursuing careers in dance. When the U.S. entered World War II, his troupe members all did the manly thing and joined up, so Shawn leased the farm to one dance impresario, then another, both of whom expanded the programming. The audience response was so enthusiastic, civic leaders saw an opportunity to do for Becket what Tanglewood had done for Great Barrington. They formed a committee and raised $50,000 to buy the property and build a proper theater (using the same architect who had designed the Tanglewood shed) to augment the barn studio. The Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Committee asked Shawn to be the director. Due to wartime gasoline and tire rationing, many audience members had to climb the hill on foot or horseback for the privilege of witnessing the art of movement by a heavenly, international array of ballet, modern dance, mime, ballroom and folk dancers.
Göteborg Ballet; photo Ingmar Jernberg.
This summer, Jacob’s Pillow’s 78th season, 50 companies and hundreds of emerging and master dance artists from as near as New York City and as far as Australia will travel to the former Carter farm in Becket to demonstrate their art. Highlights of the 2010 Festival include the U.S. debut of The Göteborg Ballet of Sweden; three world premieres, co-commissioned by Jacob’s Pillow, of works by diverse young choreographers Kyle Abraham, Monica Bill Barnes, and Camille A. Brown; U.S. premieres from Spain, India, Thailand, and Israel; and celebrated favorites, including contemporary ballet company Trey McIntyre Project (top photo), the men-on-pointe offerings of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, and the ever-popular Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.
The 2010 Festival features more than 110 ticketed events and 200 free events, including performances on three stages, moderated interviews with artists, talks by experts, film screenings, exhibits, the opportunity to observe training at The School at Jacob’s Pillow, receptions, tours, and over 75 dance classes for the community including weekly master classes with Festival artists.
Ella Baff, Jacob’s Pillow Executive Director, encourages all who attend to plan to “spend at least a day, because the Festival is a center of learning, socializing, and participating in art, that goes beyond just being an audience member.”
June 19 - August 29
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
358 George Carter Road
Becket, MA 01223
Phone: 413.243.0745
Fax: 413.243.0749
For a complete roster of the 2010 ticketed events, visit the Jacob’s Pillow website.
Full-season and Flex-5 Subscribers may order tickets now online, by mail or via fax.
Jacob’s Pillow Members may order single tickets by phone from March 1.
The general public may order single tickets from April 7.
Once the Festival begins, students who have signed up, will receive weekly .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), alerting them to the availability of special $20 tickets, which they can reserve online. (Each student must show a valid ID when picking up his or her ticket just prior to the performance.)
Jacob’s Pillow memberships start at $60.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 01/24/10 at 02:58 PM • Permalink
Critic’s Choice: Lauren Ambrose & The Leisure Class at the Lion’s Den
The band at Joe's Pub. Photograph by Bernie DeChant
Music critic Jeremy Goodwin previews the show at the Lion’s Den in Stockbridge on Monday January 18 at 8:30 p.m.
The only issue is whether we’ll be allowed to dance on the tables.
When Lauren Ambrose and The Leisure Class made their live debut last November at the Brick House Pub in Housatonic, the small dance floor was quickly filled with folks breaking out vintage dance moves and generally reveling in the band’s mix of hot, New Orleans-flavored jazz.
There may be less room for spins and dips when the band brings its hard swing to The Lion’s Den at The Red Lion Inn Monday night, but the energy level is likely to be similar. Like that initial gig, this is a low profile tune-up for another to follow in New York City, at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre on January 21.
The Brickhouse debut was publicized mainly by word of mouth. The same underground, in-on-a-secret flavor informs Monday’s show. The nascent band just launched a Facebook page this month, and it’s unclear when (or if) they’ll string a couple shows together, or perhaps record some songs.
Ambrose’s highest-profile resume item is of course her remarkable work on HBO’s Six Feet Under over its five-season run. She’s since racked up the accolades as a stage actress, winning ecstatic raves for playing iconic Shakespearean heroines like Juliet and Ophelia for New York’s Public Theatre. But she may be most familiar to Berkshirites as someone to bump into at the market, or the one singing the odd Michael Jackson cover at the old Club Helsinki, since she also calls the Berkshires home.
The Leisure Class is a sharply-tuned septet of area musicians (some on loan from other bands), boasting clarinet, accordion, baritone sax, banjo, upright bass, drums and whatever else it takes to crank out its sepia-toned dance music and slow-burn ballads. There’s also plenty of room for Ambrose to turn on the sultry and exercise her pipes, especially on chestnuts like “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?” and “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.”
If these cats really make a go of it, they may not be long for the no-cover, word-of-mouth, tuneup gig. Get the jazz while it’s hot. —J.G.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 01/13/10 at 03:17 PM • Permalink
“Radio Deluxe” Comes to the Tanglewood Jazz Festival
Jessica Molaskey and John Pizzarelli play Tanglewood September 5
The New York Times cabaret critic Stephen Holden has flipped his lid for John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey, who host Radio Deluxe, which will tape at Ozawa Hall on Saturday, September 5 as part of the Tanglewood Jazz Festival. “The wittiest, most musically savvy husband-and-wife team in pop-jazz, they transformed the club into a silk-covered magic carpet that floated up and away to screwball heaven,” he wrote when they opened at New York’s legendary Cafe Carlyle last fall. When he saw the couple again this spring at Birdland, he was even more enthralled by them. “I could exhaust my list of superlatives describing how Ms. Molaskey and Mr. Pizzarelli’s musical and comedic repartee sustains an easygoing sophistication that is unmatched in my nightclub experience,” he wrote.
The husband-and-wife team have developed a loyal following in our region, where Radio Deluxe, which brings the American songbook into the 21st century, can be heard on WAMC on Tuesday nights from 8 -10 p.m. (and on Saturdays from 2 - 4 p.m. unless it gets pre-empted by the Metropolitan Opera broadcast.) Rural Intelligence caught up with the peripatetic Pizzarelli, who said he’s jazzed to be coming to Tanglewood.
What’s special about performing at Tanglewood?
It’s an absolutely great setting. You have that beautiful concert hall and then you look out and see all that white wine and pesto. I never get to be part of any of that. I am always the guy playing, and I look out and think, That would be fun. It’s such a sweet setting. It’s sweet to watch all those people eat, but that’s never us.
Why have I only just discovered your program?
We have only been doing the show for four years, and it sneaks in and out of markets to be honest with you. People are discovering us and we are discovering them—it’s a mutual discovery system that we’ve been on.
How did you and Jessica meet?
We met doing a show called Dream which was based on the lyrics of Johnny Mercer. I liked the way she sang. She liked the way I played the guitar. And the rest is history. We got married and never really performed together. She did Broadway and I did what I did. When Michael Feinstein opened his room [at New York’s Regency Hotel], they invited me and they asked for Bucky [John’s father] and Jessica too. I didn’t want us to work together—I wanted to stay married. Then they tossed all these other names of cabaret performers—Cybill Shepherd, Lucie Arnaz, Maureen McGovern—it was crazy and I said, Well, if Cybill Shepherd is backstage with me and my father, she’ll go running for the hills the third night. My father can be hilariously volatile. I said to Jessica, You have to do this because you understand the dynamic. We went out there and figured it out, and we became quite successful. So for radio, they basically tried to bottle what we did. People would say it should be a TV show, it should be a ham radio show—it is ham radio in a sense. We turned on the mikes and said, From high atop Lexington Avenue . . . and it just became what it is.
Why Lexington Avenue?
We used to live high atop Lexington Avenue and it became our moniker. I was a fan of old radio broadcasts when they used to say, “From high atop the Paramount Ballroom in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. . .” I always thought we should be high atop somewhere.
You don’t usually have an audience so you play a lot of records. What will you be doing at Tanglewood?
We’re going to have mostly live music. I have my father, Harry Allen on tenor sax, Aaron Weinstein on violin, my quartet, and Kurt Elling. We’ll interview people—it’s a live living room setting. We have a few nutty Radio Deluxe surprises planned.
You are following in the Tanglewood time slot previously occupied by Marian McPartland of NPR’s Piano Jazz.
I’ve done her show and it is an honor to even be in that position. She’s an icon. We can only hope we have the success with our show that she’s had with hers
Who are your fans?
They’re people of all ages. They’re the radio rats who listen to NPR all the time. They are people who catch us on LIU as they are driving back from the Hamptons. It’s the same cross section of people who come to listen to us live. There are kids who have been introduced to us by their parents, and parents who have been introduced to us by their kids.
There is something so charmingly 1950s about a couple’s show. Do you know of anything else like it?
No. Car Talk is about as close as I can think of two related people on the radio who are genuinely fun together and there does not seem to be a script. The only rules we had was that it would not become a Sonny & Cher type of thing. We wanted it to be genuine.
How has doing Radio Deluxe changed your career?
It’s helped our live gigs in markets like LA, Seattle and Toronto. People want to come out and see who we are.
So are live shows your bread and butter?
I think the bread and butter for any real jazz musician is going out on the road and promoting your CDs. I think I sell most of my CDs on the road.
You’re a native New Yorker?
I grew up in Saddle River, New Jersey. I’ve lived in New York for almost 20 years.
So why are you a Red Sox fan?
Because they are the greatest team! I was a Yankees fan until the early 80s and when they hired Billy Martin for the fifth or sixth time, I didn’t want to be rooting for the Yankees anymore.
Is there television in your future?
I have always believed there is a variety show a la Ed Sullivan in the future. I have pitched it and people go yea, yea, yea. It’s not a Rosie O’Donnell stye show. It’s a host who says, “Here’s an opera singer, here’s a juggler, here’s Van Halen, and now Lyle Lovett will sing a number with me.” Something like that. I still think that can be done. How brilliant was Ed Sullivan? He said, “Here’s the Beatles.” That’s all you have to do. I could host that and Jessica could sing. She would be Dinah Shore.
The New York Times raved about your act at New York’s Cafe Carlyle.
The room is so sweet—it’s fantastic.
Do you do a different show for a small room like that compared to a concert hall?
No, we do what we do. Jessica is more comfortable on a large stage. She likes to walk out on a stage in 1,200 seat theater. She used to feel the people were staring at her in the small clubs. I love the clubs because I can see faces. My father has always said, “I like to see faces. Turn the lights up!” I sometimes forget in large settings that people are listening in the back of the theater. You can’t immediately sense the response of the crowd in a big theater, and it can throw you off. I’ve gotten much better at that. In a small theater, people talk back to us. Because of the show and who we are, people feel they can interrupt and say, What do you think you are doing. They would never do that with Bobby Short.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 08/26/09 at 09:29 PM • Permalink
A Musical Sleuth Revives Works by a Lost 19th-Century Composer
After-party: hanging with Hanani (center) at Close Encounters With Music.
Just when you think you’ve heard it all—the entire classical music canon—Close Encounters With Music’s artistic director Yehuda Hanani pulls another rabbit out of a hat. The trick this time is the re-discovery of a heretofore virtually forgotten 19th-century composer, Eduard Franck, a student and colleague of Felix Mendelssohn.
“The 200th Anniversary of Mendelssohn’s birth prompts a re-evaluation of his inner circle,” says Hanani. Saturday night’s concert, Franck’s American premier, is the first of two Franck/Mendelssohn & Company evenings scheduled for this season by Hanani’s chamber music organization. Joining Hanani, a cellist, onstage will be violinists Shmuel Ashkenasi and Yehnonatan Berick; pianist James Tocco; and the Avalon String Quartet.
Eduard Franck’s background is similar to Mendelssohn’s. Born in 1817 to a privileged banking family in Breslau, he grew up surrounded by the luminaries of the age—Heine, Humboldt, the Mendelssohns, Wagner. An accomplished pianist, prolific composer and renowned teacher, Franck later joined a professional circle that included Mendelssohn, the Schumanns and Chopin. Moritz Moszkowski, the Romantic pianist and composer, also born in Breslau (1854-1925), studied piano with Franck in Berlin.
“Along with my colleague James Tocco, I am honored to rectify an unfortunate historical omission,” says Hanani, who was introduced to first editions of Franck’s chamber music scores by the composer’s descendants in Germany. “Whether because he published his works late in life, or because of his innate reticence, Franck’s has been a neglected voice.”
As always at Close Encounters concerts, this Saturday evening music will be mixed with Hanani’s erudition: “Franck’s elegantly-crafted music deepens our understanding of the Zeitgeist that produced the German Romantic composers leading to Brahms and Strauss. His work has a glimmer of the chromaticism that was to follow.” Then following the performance, the audience will storm the stage, joining the musicians in a glass of wine.
“The idea,” Hanani says, “is to recreate the intimate atmosphere of the 19th-century salon.”
Close Encounters with Music
Celebrating Mendelssohn and Discovering Eduard Franck
Saturday, February 21; 6 p.m.
Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center
14 Castle Street, Great Barrington
Tickets: $35; 518.528.0100
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 02/16/09 at 08:35 AM • Permalink
Seeing Through Glass: 1 Composer, 2 Events
Philip Glass is one of the most inventive, admired, and controversial composers of our time. On Thursday, January 15, MASS MoCA will screen Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts, a documentary by the filmmaker Scott Hicks that explores the contemporary composer’s creative process and offers candid glimpses into his personal and spiritual life. Then, the following evening, the man himself will appear.
In conversation with the Boston Phoenix film critic Jerry Peary, Glass will try, with the aid of clips from the many films he has scored, as well as bits of performance, to explain his unique take on the relationship between music and the moving image. In feature films such as Kundun, The Hours, The Truman Show, The Thin Blue Line, and Fog of War, Glass has used music to help shape narrative. He sees film as one of the two new art forms (jazz being the second) born in the 20th century. “In its first 100 years,” he says, “it has created a new kind of literature, one that the world of live music, experimental theatre, dance, and even opera can draw on, just as, in the past, novels, plays and poems became the basis of new music and theatre works.”
In anticipation of Glass’s 70th birth, filmmaker Hicks (“Shine”) started shooting his documentary in 2005. Over the next 18 months, he followed Glass across three continents, capturing on film his annual ride on the Coney Island Cyclone roller coaster, the world premiere of his new opera in Germany, and a rare performance on a didgeridoo virtuoso in Australia. Permitted unprecedented access to Glass’ working process, family life, spiritual teachers, and longtime collaborators, including Martin Scorsese, Errol Morris, Chuck Close, and Christopher Hampton, Hicks creates a portrait of one of the greatest artists of this or any era.
MASS MoCA
Marshall Street, North Adams; 413.662.2111
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts is the first in MASS MoCA’s 2009 winter documentary series, Larger than Life
Thursday, January 15; 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $8, $5/students and those attending both nights
Philip on Film
Friday, January 16; 8 p.m.
Tickets: $38/orchestra, $34/mezzanine
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 01/07/09 at 01:00 PM • Permalink
Suddenly, Next Summer: Tanglewood 2009
“Thinking about next summer at Tanglewood helps you get through the Berkshire winter,” said Nancy Fitzpatrick at the 2009 Tanglewood Season Preview, which attracted some 200 guests to Shakespeare & Company in Lenox on Thursday, November 20. Fitzpatrick, a Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) trustee, introduced Mark Volpe, the BSO’s managing director, who announced that James Levine had recovered from last summer’s emergency kidney surgery and will be returning as music director. Levine will conduct six concerts, including an all Tchaikovsky program on opening night, July 3. Levine will also conduct Don Giovanni twice with the Tanglewood Music Center Vocal Fellows on July 26 and 27.
While the “pre-season” schedule includes, as usual, Garrison Keillor and A Prairie Home Companion on June 27, Tanglewood regulars James Taylor and Mark Morris have new spots on the calendar. In fact, the final week of August will feature four nights in a row of James Taylor: He’ll perform an informal concert with his band in Ozawa Hall on August 27, which will be followed by two benefit concerts for Tanglewood in the Koussevitzky Music Shed on August 28 and 29; he will then perform with the Boston Pops, conducted by John Williams, on August 30.
Choreographer Mark Morris is collaborating with Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma on two world premieres on August 5 and 6. “They will then take them to the Mostly Mozart Festival so you can see them here first,” said Ellen Highstein, director of the Tanglewood Music Festival, who noted that the festival students learn a great deal from Morris. “He’s a great musician who happens to work with his feet.”
Michael Tilson Thomas is returning to Tanglewood for the first time in twenty years, and he’s bringing The Thomashefsky Project, a tribute to his grandparents who were pioneers of the Yiddish theater in New York, to Ozawa Hall on August 19 and 20. Other heavy hitters on the schedule include Joshua Bell, Sir James Galway, and Andre Previn, who will do an evening of jazz with David Finck in Ozawa Hall on August 16.
The closest thing to a pop concert is jazz singer Diana Krall (video, left), who will perform on July 4, and there are unspoken hopes that her significant other, Elvis Costello, may join her onstage as he did two summers ago ago during the jazz festival. If you want to order tickets now, you need to become a Friend of Tanglewood. Otherwise, tickets don’t go on sale until February 15.
