Music
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Verdi's La Traviata in Met HD
Coming to the Clark April 14
By: - Apr 06th, 2012Willy Decker’s strikingly beautiful production of Verdi’s La Traviata, a hit when it premiered at the Salzburg Festival in 2005, comes to the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute on Saturday, April 14 at 1:00 pm, live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera. Soprano Marina Poplavskaya stars as opera’s most fascinating heroine. “Poplavskaya rules...the Russian soprano is riveting...the total effect is stunning†(Associated Press).
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Los Lobos Scorches Mass MoCA
East LA Rocks Mill City
By: - Apr 06th, 2012East meets West. Last night the legendary Chicano band from East LA, Los Lobos, blew the roof off the Hunter Center of Mass MoCA. It was the ultimate bicoastal culture clash between the sizzling band with an eclectic mix of rock and interpretations of ratcheted up traditional Mexican music and a nearly full house of mostly blue collar locals, aging hippies, and bluebloods from neighboring, posh Williamstown.
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Boston Pops Season Starts May 9
Previews with Video Clips
By: - Apr 05th, 2012The Boston Pops 2012 season under the direction of Keith Lockhart, opens in style on May 9 with Broadway sensation Bernadette Peters performing many of the signature songs that have made her one of this country’s legendary stars of the stage and screen. The Boston Pops 2012 unifying theme, Visions of America, inspires a season dedicated to celebrating many of this country’s greatest musical traditions, culminating in a multimedia “Visions of America Photo Symphony†program to end the season on June 14, 15, and 16. These special concerts will feature R&B sensation Patti Austin, jazz vocalist Steve Tyrell, photographs by Joseph Sohm, music by Roger Kellaway, and lyrics by the unrivaled team of Alan and Marilyn Bergman, with a recorded narration provided by Clint Eastwood.
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Roaring Twenties at Ozawa Hall June 2
Presented by Close Encounters with Music
By: - Apr 05th, 2012The cabaret beckons at Ozawa Hall Saturday, June 2, 6 pm as Close Encounters With Music ushers in the summer season in the Berkshires. In a performance that evokes the twenties of the last century—a time exemplified by Art Deco, Prohibition, the loosening of social restraints, Jazz, the Charleston and flappers—“Roaring Twenties†offers a panorama of composers and styles that defined and shaped the era: Gershwin, Kurt Weill, Alexander Zemlinsky, Hanns Eisler, Cole Porter, Poulenc, Schoenberg, and Erwin Schulhoff provide a bi-continental glimpse into a decade that still looms colorful, mythical and seductive in cultural history.
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The Mount Launches Spring Programming
Hildegard Hoeller Lecture on Wharton April 21
By: - Apr 05th, 2012The Mount will kick-start its 2012 season with two programs planned for late April. On Saturday, April 21 at 3:00 PM, Berkshire resident, Wharton scholar and Professor of English, Hildegard Hoeller will give a informative talk on Edith Wharton and her changing views of New York, entitled Edith Wharton: Old and New New York. On Sunday, April 22, The Mount will present Music in the Drawing Room with an afternoon performance by Elizabeth Morse, principle harpist of the Berkshire Symphony.
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Yale at Carnegie for April Fool's Day
The De Profundis Program Became De Gaudeum
By: - Apr 02nd, 2012World class performers who teach at Yale and often perform in the Berkshires during the summer took to the stage at Carnegie in New York and whipped up music for the ages, tooting sackbuts and all.
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Michael Tilson Thomas Continues with His Mavericks
Carnegie Hall Hosts Partch, Bates, Del Tredici and Harrison
By: - Apr 01st, 2012We have had time to appreciate maverick composers of the 20th century. Now they often seem distinctively beautiful. Instruments are a treat for the eye. The music fully engages. Michael Tilson Thomas is a daring and committed conductor.
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Ahmad Jamal at the Colonial Theatre
New Album Blue Moon and European Tour
By: - Apr 01st, 2012The recently released CD Blue Moon is being hailed by critics as among the best of a recording career that started in 1955. With an amazing rhythm section of Herlin Riley, drums, Manolo Badrena, percussion, and Reginald Veal, bass the iconic jazz pianist performed at the Colonial Theater in Pittsfield. They are about to embark for Italy to launch a European tour in support of the critically acclaimed new album.
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Opera Notes: Peter Gelb Controlling the Message
Does the Met Deserve Great Divas Dessay, Mattila, Blythe?
By: - Mar 29th, 2012Diva after diva arrives at the Met this spring. Their quality is uneven, but if they are thin and pretty, the General Manager., Peter Gelb, hopes can sell tickets. Even if they can't sing, or when they do, occasionally, they are off pitch.
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Michael Tilson Thomas Brings Mavericks to Carnegie Hall
Jessye Norman, Joan La Barbara, Meredith Monk, John Adams, All Live.
By: - Mar 28th, 2012If you wonder how to get young people into a classical concert, just follow the San Francisco Symphony and its peerless leader. If Tilson Thomas was not born into a famous theater family, we probably wouldn't be treated to such exciting concerts.
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Aston Magna Celebrates 40th Season
Gala June 9 at Tanglewood's Ozawa Hall
By: - Mar 27th, 2012Aston Magna Music Festival (Daniel Stepner, Artistic Director) America’s oldest annual summer festival in America devoted to music performed on period instruÂments, celebrates its 40th Anniversary Season in the Berkshires. This summer’s concert series from June 8 through July 7 is devoted to music spanning from the 17th to the 20th centuries.
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St. John Passion at Carnegie with Bernard Labadie
Ian Bostridge a wonderful Evangelist with Les Violins du Roy
By: - Mar 26th, 2012The St. John Passion is always placed after the St. Matthew in Bach's greats. Bernard Labadie led a performance that showed it special and fine features.
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FreshGrass Festival at Mass MoCA
No Wilco But Fiddle Music September 21-23
By: - Mar 26th, 2012With the Wilco Solid Sound Festival on hiatus Mass MoCA is beefing up its now annual FreshGrass Festival. The three day event will occur from September 21-23 with a lively mix of known and emerging bluegrass artists. This is a step in the right direction for extending the shoulder season in Northern Berkshire county. Order early and save on weekend passes on sale April 11.
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Thomas Hampson: Mastersinger
The Metropolitan Opera Guild Honors a Great Baritone
By: - Mar 23rd, 2012Thomas Hampson is committed to music, as a performer, a researcher, a promoter of all American music. The Metropolitan Opera Guild put on an evening honoring him, and his unique contributions to opera and music education.
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Jeff and Jane at Williams Inn April 21
Space is the Place
By: - Mar 20th, 2012If you missed their now legendary gig at Mass MoCA in January there is another opportunity for the senior set to cheer on the antique rockers Jane and Jeff Hudson in a rave-up at the Williams Inn on April 21. Don't miss this vintage, synth/ pop rock, dance music.
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Cosi Fan Tutte at the New York City Opera
Christopher Alden Directs the Opera for Today
By: - Mar 19th, 2012George Steel, general manager of City Opera, remarked that Mozart works best in medium-size theaters. Certainly in the Lynch Theater the current production of Cosi Fan Tutte thrives. Across the boards, it is terrific.
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Boston Lyric Opera's Barber of Seville
Rossini's Masterpiece Finds Human Truths
By: - Mar 16th, 2012Cast, led by Sarah Coburn's Rosina, is uniformly excellent. Production, with borrowed elements, pulled together in the vigorous direction of choreographer Doug Varone
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Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time
An Important Remembrance in this Season of Renewal
By: - Mar 12th, 2012First performed in a German prison camp where the French composer Olivier Messiaen had written the Quartet, a small group of first-rate musicians gathered to present Quartet for the End of Time in New York..
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The Boston Symphony Conducted by Christoph Eschenbach
A Carnegie Triumph
By: - Mar 09th, 2012A French program that looked at first like your usual fare was turned into an evening of fabulous music by the Symphony, many of its members soloists, an exciting conductor, and a brilliant young French pianist, Cedric Tiberghein.
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Khovanshchina and Opera Notes
In Sync with The New Yorker
By: - Mar 07th, 2012The Metropolitan Opera has put on Khovanshshina, a wonderful opera by Modest Mussorgsky, with a stellar cast including Mr. and Mrs. Abdrazakov, he Ildar, and she the great mezzo Olga Boradina. Boradina has never sounded better, her lower depths are unusually rich. Abdrazakov was positively Buddhist as a priest of the old guard. His voice was magnificent, but his handsome face was marred by an ersatz Marx Brothers beard. Kirill Petrenko conducted with passion and subtlety.
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Handel's Rinaldo Wins at the Lyric Opera
Daniels, Davies, Pisaroni, Prina, Kleiter, Van Den Heever, First Among Equals
By: - Mar 05th, 2012Everyone is excited about opera in Chicago. Rinaldo was in the works before the arrival of Anthony Freud, the new General Manager. Clearly he is poised to continue the great record of his predecessor, William Mason.
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Radvanovsky Arrives at the Met Early
James Levine is still Music Director
By: - Feb 29th, 2012Unexpectedly Met audiences were treated to Sondra Radvanovsky as Aida; in announcing the new season, Mr. Gelb ignored the Levine problem; Chicago announces a world premier, and so it goes.
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Michael Doucet avec Beausoleil at the Colonial
Cajun Sun Brightens Berkshire Gloom
By: - Feb 25th, 2012Garrison Keillor has dubbed frequent guests and multiple Grammy winners Michael Doucet avec Beausoleil “The greatest Cajun band in the world.†During their lively gig at the Colonial Theatre we found out why.
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Los Lobos at Mass MoCA
Prowls North Adams on April 5
By: - Feb 23rd, 2012On Thursday, April 5, at 8 PM for a concert sponsored by Berkshire Gas. Rolling Stone Magazine says, "With the exception of U2, no other band has stayed on top of its game like Los Lobos", and they are touring in support of their acclaimed new album - their first in four years - Tin Can Trust.
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Travis Tritt at the Colonial on March 10
Country Music in Pittsfield
By: - Feb 21st, 2012Travis Tritt, will appear at The Colonial on March 10 at 8pm. With up and comer Lyndsey Highlander as a special guest, this evening of country music will delight audiences with wonderful stories, beloved country music and a rare, personal atmosphere.
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