We announce the lineup for our popular Berkshire Jazz Showcase, a free event on Pittsfield’s First Street Common Saturday, July 8, 1-5pm.  

The artist and restaurateur (Ciro's and Sal's), Salvator Del Deo, 94 had been evicted from the historic dune shack in Provincetown which he has maintained for 77 years. Despite community protests he is being given the boot by The National Park Service . In 2007 Daniel Ranalli wrote about living in a shack.

The works in On the Town celebrate city life and community, illuminating a Boston area of the past through the vision of one of its more unique residents. Arnold Trachtman’s paintings tell stories and reveal an artist as deeply invested in his neighborhood as it was in him.  

The Clark Art Institute hosts three free events as part of I/O Fest, the Williams College Department of Music’s annual immersion in the music of today. Students in the music program take audiences on a tour of new sounds and adventurous music during a concert for families on January 15.

He’s been making jazz, and nurturing young jazz artists, for more than 50 years, and it’s about time we paid tribute to Mike Schiffer. At the age of 93, he is still playing local gigs. But this time, on Sunday afternoon, Jan. 29 (4pm), he’ll be in the audience with the rest of us lucky jazz followers.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is pleased to announce the first round of recommended awards for fiscal year 2023, with more than $34 million in funding to support the arts nationwide. This is the first of the NEA’s two major grant announcements each fiscal year and includes grants to organizations through the NEA’s Grants for Arts Projects, Challenge America, and Research Awards categories.

In short order, playwright Lynne Kaufman offers enticing insights into two contrasting, important modern poets, and the simple production succeeds through fine acting. This compact but impactful taste of familiarity fully satisfies on its own, while many attendees will want to learn even more about these fragile artists and their robust literary works.

It has taken months for Martin Mugar to get a fix on the remarkable Philip Guston exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. The work is now on the road. Mugar attempts to unpack the complex phases of the work from initial Social Realism to Abstract Expressionism to a late phase entailing controversial cartoonish images of the Ku Klux Klan. Initially the late work cast him as a pariah in the art world. During which he taught at Boston University and was embraced by like minded professors and students.

Gloucester 400th Plus is an occasion for research and reflection on all aspects of the history and culture of Cape Ann. in 2022 the Cape Ann Museum hosted a range of panel discussions and lectures. Here is the full program with links to their videos. It is significant that the museum has preserved and made available such a valuable resource.

All the big opera companies have something to learn from the Prototype Festival, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

While manager of the Boston Tea Party Steve Nelson booked, first the Yardbirds with Jimmy Page, then later the Jeff Beck band for four nights. Beck was touring with Rod Stewart, Ron Wood and Mick Waller. (Editor: I saw that lineup at the Newport Jazz Festival.) On the cusp of superstardom Beck broke up the band. Rod went solo and Ron eventually joined the Rolling Stones.

In a fast-moving 60 minutes, mime comic Ennio provides cleverly curated cartoon characterizations of celebrities and lip syncs to songs, mostly recorded by the people portrayed. The music is the songbook of our lives (if you’re middle aged or older!), including rock-and-roll, pop of various sorts, and rap.

Victoria Bond will conduct at the UN on January 27. The event can be live streamed. She will then travel to Stockton, California for a tribute to Ray Charles .

Thanks to the popularity of the instantly recognizable Great Wave—cited everywhere from book covers and Lego sets to anime and emoji—Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) has become one of the most famous and influential artists in the world. This major exhibition organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), takes a new approach to the work of the versatile master.

Who does not remember Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film 'A Clockwork Orange' based on the novel by Anthony Burgess from 1962!? It was one of the most chilling cinematic affairs then, and it remains today on stage. Here, the photographs speak a million words....

A fine cast delivers with lesser material in Broadway in Lauderhill's opening season production of "The Full Monty." The Full Monty is charming and amusing in places, but a musical mess in others. The production runs through Jan. 29 at the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center.

The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA)  presents Across Shared Waters: Contemporary Artists in Dialogue with Tibetan Art from the Jack Shear Collection, on view from Feb. 17 through July 16, 2023.

A strong equity national touring production of "Turner: The Tina Turner Musical" is playing in Ft. Lauderdale through Jan. 29. This jukebox musical focuses on the life of a legendary performer. Triple threat performers shine in the production.

This major exhibition is the first dedicated to Hopper’s formative development on Cape Ann, marking the centennial of the pivotal summer of 1923 when Edward Hopper and his future wife, Josephine “Jo” Nivison, visited Gloucester. Edward Hopper & Cape Ann opens on Hopper’s birthday, July 22, 2023, and runs through October 16, 2023, and is presented in collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art, the major repository of the Hoppers’ work.

All of us have had that restaurant experience in which we thought the food would never come. In this case, the cause is not a lost order or long prep time or overtaxed restaurant staff. It is willful delay by the server from hell.

The 90th birthday of composer Pauline Oliveros was celebrated on Saturday at the newly reconfigured Zankel Hall in Carnegie Hall.  The steeply raked seating on two sides of the hall, leading to a central stage area embedded in seats on all four sides, felt like an Oliveros’ creation.  We are brought to the hall to listen, deeply.

The exhibition highlights Behind Blue Eyes, a project started by Dima Zubkov and Artem Skorohodko, volunteers who distribute food and supplies to residents in liberated Ukrainian villages.

In the hands of some, a sandwich may be a most humble joining of Wonder Bread with a plain and prosaic filler of any sort. In another, it can be a sublime assemblage of aspiration and dreams. Such is the aesthetic divide between most of the truckers who patronize Clyde’s Sandwich Shop in Reading, PA, and the unseen kitchen staff who fill their orders. The Berkeley Rep production exceeds every standard the script demands.

Rhiannon Giddens talks often of being comfortable in the crossroads of her art. The new configuration of Zankel Hall in Carnegie looks like a crossroads. The audience comes from every direction to focus on the world being presented. The stage is a hybrid space where different music from different times can exist side by side.

"Rotterdam" is an emotionally-rich play receiving a strong production at Island City Stage. The production runs through Feb. 19 at the company in Wilton Manors, near Ft. Lauderdale. "Rotterdam" opens Island City Stage's 2022-23 season.