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On a recent trip to Languedoc, the wines from the first evenings samplings of AOC Pezenas stood out as quality driven wines. In fact, one out of every ten wines sold worldwide is from Languedoc.

Audiences choose the order of the plays in annual "Shorts" festival. Actors bring comic energy to roles in production of popular theatrical event. Relevance not hard to spot in largely-escapist shows

San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre has the honor of mounting the World Premiere of Ken Ludwig’s newest comedy/farce “Robin Hood”, deftly directed by longtime stage and TV veteran Jessica Stone.

Ivan Fischer, the great Hungarian conductor, returns to Mozart's original version of Don Giovanni. Putting on a production from the Don's point of view, everything is a body. Furniture, peasants, chorus all are wearing white body suits and often strike arresting poses. This concept invites us to listen more closely to the terrific Budapest Festival Orchestra and the singers.

Opening the first half of the annual Film Night at Tanglewood Andris Nelsons shared conducting duties with 85-year-old John Williams. Nelson's was a surprise guest trumpet soloist in the score of Lincoln by Williams. It was a sold out evening on a perfect summer night in Lenox. It is always a thrill to hear him conduct the iconic scores that have earned him a record 50 Academy Awards nominctions.

Machinal, a new production of a neglected 1928 play by Sophie Treadwell at the Greenhouse Theater Center, is stunning in its balletic staging and the nuanced performance of Heather Crisler, playing the Young Woman.

Mostly Mozart programs with intent. While the most obvious connections between a program including Prokovief's 1st Symphony, Mozart's 25th and the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto may be their bridge positions between musical periods, the Classical, Romantic and Neoclassical, more than a ladder rung binds these pieces. Exuberant turns of phrase, often taken at a tear, provide their texture. Violinist Gil Shaham uses his consummate pyrotechnics on behalf of the music.

Trisha Brown was a founder of Judson Dance Theatre and was an influence on following generations of dancers exploring post modernism and pure movement. Dhe died in March at 80. This week the company has performed at Jacob's Pillow Dance with works tom 1980 to 2009.

This is another chapter from Gloucester Poems: Nugents of Rockport. It will be launched with a reading on Wednesday, August 23, at Gloucester Writers Center, 126 East Main Street, Gloucester, 01930. The event, paired with Annisquam poet, Geoffrey Movius, is free and will start at 7:30 PM. Mom graduated from Middlesex College of Medicine and Surgery during the Great Depression. After WWII its founder, Dr. John Hall Smith, sold the Waltham property which was launched as Brandeis University. I graduated from Brandeis in the class of 1963.

The trials and tribulations of the great Romantic composers have always fascinated the classical music-loving public. From the extramarital wanderings of Richard Wagner to Frederic Chopin's stormy relationship with the lady novelist George Sand, it has provided fodder for intermission conversation over coffee and small overpriced sandwiches. Arguably, the most famous triangle relationship was between three composers: Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann (née Wieck) and Johannes Brahms.

The Anderson Brothers, consummate musicians, make the case for Gershwin's popularity by citing his access to the new media, radio. The songs themselves are enough to convince us. Joined by Molly Ryan, who has a perfectly beautiful voice, the fabled composer entrances.

A man for all seasons, Jerry Martin, the Berkshire artist/ illustrator has passed. With quirky Mr. Natural looks and mannerisms he was a pithy and complex character and friend. He was a lively presence in the Alice’s Restaurant gang that hung out at the church in Stockbridge and communal holiday gatherings. In the summer we skinny dipped in the secluded Green River on his spacious property. Benno Friedman remembers our much loved friend. He passed this week at 91

“Hamlet” once again graces the Lowell Davies Outdoor Festival stage as part of the Old Globe’s Summer Shakespeare Festival. The ‘melancholy Dane’ and his travails is crisply directed by the Old Globe’s Erna Finci Viterbi artistic director Barry Edelstein, who caps off another winning season of plays and musicals selected and produced under his stewardship.

In southern France, close to the Mediterranean Sea lies a region that specializes in wines made for seafood. That wine is Picpoul de Pinet and is perfect for oysters, mussels, clams and the gamut of seafood that inhabits the earth.

As a matter of public record we have examined the Federal tax information Form 990 disclosures of the Berkshire Museum from 2011 to 2015. They do not appear to create a profile of a cultural institution in dire straits. The museum is going forward with last ditch plans to sell 40 works of art. It is possible that there has been a dramatic downturn in the past two years? A Berkshire Eagle editorial asked “Why deny access to the museum's profit/loss statements for the past two years?" Based on reports for the prior five years we have questions for the museum, its director, Van Shields, and the board of trustees.

On Wednesday, August 23, there will be a reading and book launch for Gloucester Poems: Nugents of Rockport at the Gloucester Writers Center. It will feature the author. Charles Giuliano, and poet Geoffrey Movius.The new book is built around an extensive interview with the author's mother, Dr. Josphine R. Flynn, that was conducted in 1986 during a commute from Palm Beach to her summer home in Annisquam. In this excerpt from the book they discuss the Nugents of Rockport and summers she spent with her grandmother on Beaver Dam Farm in Rockport. The book is available through Amazon.

The special exhibition Figuratively Speaking, at the Eclipse Mill Gallery, September 1 to 24, offers fresh and evocative interpretations allowing for a broad range of approaches to the perennial conundrum of the human condition. The five Berkshire based artists include William Archer, Joanna Klain, Linda O’Brien, Opie O’Brien, and Wilma Rifkin.

We are now one month away from the opening of the three day 'Fresh Grass' festival that takes place, yearly, on the grounds of MASS MoCA, located in North Adams, Massachusetts.

This season Julianne Boyd has taken another crack at Sondheim's Company and critics appear to be unanimous that a sensational production is on the short list of her best work. She is noted for loving musicals and this one is a corker.

Award-wining ensemble, Broken Box Mime Theater will host an Open Studio Share at the Bennington Center for the Arts on Sunday, August 27 at the conclusion of a week-long residency

Youthful, still, at 49, Joshua Bell proved his place in the history of great performances at Tanglewood, when playing Mendelssohn's, 'Violin Concerto in E minor, Opus 64.

New City Players presents a blazing production of True West. The Sam Shepherd play sizzles in sunny, suffocating South Florida Expect plenty of fireworks in powerfully acted production.

International Contemporary Ensemble is the go-to group for the performance of contemporary music.They presentedd three important contemporary composers as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival.

At the end of a night of binge drinking the Princetown freshmen Tom (Joshua Boone) and Amber (Alexandre Socha) hook up. In the clear night of morning was she raped?. They were so drunk that neither can recall details. It is up to a review panel of faculty to hear both sides and decide on appropriate action. It is a poignant and timely issue as lives are in the balance on college campuses all over America.

In a key op-ed piece for the Berkshire Eagle, Laurie Norton Moffatt the director of the Norman Rockwell Museum, called on the Berkshire Museum to "pause" its plans to sell 40 works including two by Rockwell. Largely based on her position the story broke in the national media. In the process the rhetoric escalated. In this opinion piece she asks for a wider understanding of the commmitment and responsibilites of serving on boards of non profits. With so many cultural institutions looking for funding from the same small pool of donors there are parfticular and extreme pressures for boards in the Berkshires. She calls for a focus on issues and not individuals.