E. Alexander Baker, Erika Berland and Wendell Beavers are all residents at the Eclipse Mill in North Adams, Massachusetts. The mill offers live and work spaces for creative people. Baker’s exhibition can be seen in the Eclipse Mill gallery until October 29 with hours from Thursday to Sunday, 11 am to 6pm.

Many adjectives have been thrown at or glued to the conductor Rafael Payare, who came to Carnegie Hall with the San Diego Symphony he conducts.  We haven't heard him live. He has a life-and-death urgency to his music-making. Carlos Simon and Shostakovich seemed so present, so thrilling and so important.  

Lisa Sanaya Dring’s "Sumo," playing at La Jolla Playhouse, tells the story of six sumo wrestlers living and training at an elite facility in Tokyo.

For many regions, 2023 was a difficult vintage, torn between heat waves often coupled with heavy rainfall, and drastic drought. In view of this record, Alsace is in a privileged position, and 2023, at a time when the wines are still fermenting (the harvest ended on Thursday, October 12), looks like a miraculous vintage.

Anthony Rapp revives his 2013 one-man show, supported by a five-piece rock band. He shares vignettes about the launch of the 1996 rock musical "Rent," singing songs from the musical as well as his own compositions. But his real emphasis is on the deaths of two people close to him. The creator of "Rent," Jonathan Larson died unexpectedly after the dress rehearsal to "Rent," while Rapp's loving mother suffered decline before her death from cancer.

The homely but whip smart Mary is the middle sister of five. Unmarried; without a dowry; and at risk of being dispossessed from her family home when her father dies, a suitable marital match would be welcomed. Newly title young duke, Arthur de Bourgh, is visiting for the holidays. While he and Mary share interests, he does have baggage.

Berkshires Jazz, Inc. brings the legendary Django Festival Allstars to the area on Sunday evening. Nov. 12, for an 8pm concert at the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center (Barrington Stage’s facility at 36 Linden Street, Pittsfield). It’s the only New England appearance of this remarkable group, who will be en route to their 5-day residency at the annual Django Reinhardt New York Festival at Birdland.

As co-founder (with Ralph Gleason) of the most influential rock and popular culture magazine of its era, Jann S. Wenner is anointed and had the platform to make Zeus-like Olympian statements. But pure ego consumes his assumption that his short list of “friends” represents “the greatest rock stars and cultural icons of our time.” The seven that he crowned in his book The Masters are all white, straight and male.

A stirring production of "I Love a Piano" is playing at Boca Raton's Wick Theatre in South Florida. The production runs through Nov. 12. Triple threat performers and backstage artists shine.

It is disappointing to find the current production of Sunset Boulevard not living up to that standard.

The Kronos String Quartet and their collaborators, among them Carnegie Hall which presented this evening, celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of this radical and exciting group.  

Kim Noltemy, the Ross Perot President & CEO of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, joined the Dallas Symphony Association (DSA) in January 2018. (She had worked for the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 21 years). One of her first initiatives was a symposium for Women in Classical Music. Noltemy moved fast and the first conference was held in 2019

Several categories saw ties this year, including the top honors for Outstanding Musical Production and . Barrington Stage Company’s production of Cabaret and the Sharon Playhouse production of Something Rotten shared the musical award. Shakespeare & Company’s production of August Wilson’s Fences shared the top play production honors with Bridge Street Theatre’s East of Berlin.

These were seen by the reviewer on a trip to NYC for the American Theatre Critics Association conference. Each of the four is worth seeing with history and music being common threads. Supported by excerpts of period music, "Spies" tells the true story of a 17th century friar who was charged with preventing what would become the 30 Years War. The dark "Watch" uses operatic form and modern dance to tell a story related to the real-life mass murders in a Charleston church with a black congregation and a Pittsburgh synagogue. "Wholesale" is a heavily adapted revival of the 1962 musical that launched Barbra Streisand's career. "Love" tells the story of former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos in sung-through immersive disco fashion!

The Clark Art Institute announces its summer 2024 schedule, featuring a robust program of exhibitions, events, and activities. Leading its summer program is a major new exhibition of works by French artist Guillaume Lethière featuring some eighty paintings, prints, and drawings. Organized in partnership with the Musée du Louvre (Louvre Museum), the exhibition premieres at the Clark and then travels to Paris for an autumn 2024 exhibition at the Louvre.

I was seduced into binge watching Sanctuary, an eight episode Japanese series on Netflix. It focuses on sumo wrestling, the national sport that is unique to Japan. Obesity is essential to success in the sport resulting in disease and premature death. While I had no prior knowledge of the sport I am now a fan.

BSC will produce the Tony Award-winning musical La Cage aux Folles, and the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, Next to Normal, which will be directed by Alan Paul, in a co-production with Round House Theatre, Bethesda, MD.

The Transcontinental Railroad connected the Eastern and Western United States the same way that the Silk Road of Asia connected the Orient to Europe. Upon completion of the railroad, goods that would take six months to travel by boat around the Horn from the West to East Coast now were transported across the country in days. Most importantly, ideas and culture were transported. This crisscrossing changed the United States and made it the superpower it is today.

The captivating photographs in the exhibition draw on an important archive of an estimated one million photographs, a recent acquisition donated to the Museum by the North of Boston Media Group, owners of the Gloucester Daily Times. Through the photographs and personal accounts of more than one dozen GDT photographers, the exhibition reflects the people and stories of Cape Ann and shares the integral role that local photojournalism plays in documenting the community.

From May 17 to September 29, 2024, the Guggenheim Museum will present the solo exhibition Jenny Holzer: Light Line, a reimagining of Holzer’s 1989 landmark installation.

Shakespeare & Company announces the first four titles of the 2024 season, including a World Premiere and a musical exploration of Shakespeare’s language and music.  In addition to titles yet to be announced, Shakespeare & Company's 47th Season includes: 

The English Concert led by Harry Bickett performs an annual Baroque opera, semi-staged at Carnegie Hall.  These performances are highly anticipated, for good reason.  This year's was no exception.

Directed by Wallace Worsley, Universal’s largest-scale silent film played a large part in making Lon Chaney a legend. It paved the way for the rest of their enduring legacy of gothic horror from the golden age of film. In The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923; 2 hours, 13 minutes), Quasimodo (an inarticulate, deformed human being, who is the bellringer of the Cathedral of Notre Dame) sacrifices his life to save Esmeralda (a Gypsy girl who once befriended him) from Jehan, the hunchback's evil master and brother to Dom Claude, chief priest of the cathedral.

Dining with my Sicilian Dad, at home or out and about, was always a culinary adventure. From him I learned to eat anything that didn't eat me first.

Paintings by Mark Rothko, with evaluations reaching $80 million, are out of range for museums to borrow and insure. Currently there are two, once-in-a lifetime exhibitions of his work. Through April 2, 2024, more than a hundred paintings are on display at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris.  Through March the National Galley has Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper with a hundred works drawn from all phases of his career.