Music & Dance

Arts

Review: Karole Armitage at Jacob’s Pillow

Emily Wagner and William Isaac; photo: Julieta Cervantes It has been said (though the original quipster remains undetermined) that “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” So where does that put choreography about physics? Dancers, of course, are bound by physics; force, motion, biomechanics and gravity apply, though the

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Arts

Review: Barak Marshall at Jacob's Pillow

Photograph by Gadi Dagon A prominent presence looms throughout Barak Marshall’s hour-long dance-theater piece, MONGER, but never appears on stage. It’s the mistress of the characters we first see huddled in shabby black overcoats in the darkness, who cluster together in terror as her high heels click across

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Arts

Review: Camille A. Brown and Dancers at Jacob's Pillow

Camille A. Brown and Juel D. Lane in Been There, Done That; Christopher Duggan photoCamille Brown is a young dancer/choreographer taking the dance world by storm. As a sophomore at the LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts (New York City’s “Fame” school) she earned

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Arts

Review: Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal at Jacob's Pillow

Celine Cassone and Nathan Madden in Locked Up Laura (photo: Christopher Duggan)There’s an acute pleasure in seeing beautiful, finely trained dancers not only perform but own complex, unpredictable choreography, and that pleasure is available to audiences at Jacob’s Pillow this weekend as Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal

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Arts

Lauren Ambrose Goes Hog Wild on Father's Day

You probably know that we're big fans of actress Lauren Ambrose's jazz singing with The Leisure Class. Now we're psyched to hear her sing Willie Nelson and Patsy Cline tunes on Sunday, June 20, at Lester Blumenthal's Route 7 Grill in Great

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Arts

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

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Arts

Dan's Diary: Lauren Ambrose & The Leisure Class Packs the Lion's Den

With its low ceilings, small tables and intimate scale, the Lion's Den at the Red Lion Inn is a classic cabaret, and it was literally packed to the rafters for Monday night's second Berkshires performance of Lauren Ambrose and the Leisure Class, a gypsy-like, New Orleans

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Arts

Critic's Choice: Lauren Ambrose & The Leisure Class at the Lion's Den

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

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Arts

"Radio Deluxe" Comes to the Tanglewood Jazz Festival

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

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Arts

Dan's Diary: A Youthquake at Music Mountain

On Sunday afternoon, two teenage girls with apples-and-cream complexions who looked like they were dressed for their high school prom, opened the 80th season at the Music Mountain Chamber Music Festival in Falls Village. Madalyn Parnas, an 18-year-old violinist, and her sister Cicely, a 16-year-old cellist, who are known as

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Arts

A Musical Sleuth Revives Works by a Lost 19th-Century Composer

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

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Arts

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

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