Music
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Ariadne auf Naxos at Tanglewood
Rising Stars in Student Production
By: - Aug 03rd, 2010This season three of the Tanglewood Music Center Vocal Fellows who performed in Ariadne auf Naxos are headed for the Metropolitan Opera Company. Audrey Elizabeth Luna, a scampy temptress and comedienne, as the delicious Zerbinetta makes her Met debut as Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflote. Emalie Savoy who performed the role of Ariadne/ The Prima Donna joins the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Cecelia Hall, the mezzo-soprano as the Young Composer will make her Met debut as the Second Priestess in Gluck’s Iphigenie en Tauride.
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Gilles Vonsattel Delivers at Tanglewood
Substitute Soars with Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1.
By: - Jul 26th, 2010Pianist Peter Sirkin was forced to cancel due to illness, but substitute virtuoso Gilles Vonsattel stepped up and delivered an enthusiastic performance of Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 on Saturday at Tanglewood.
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Bethel Woods, Celtic Woman and a Dancing Cat
A Woodstock Pilgrimage
By: - Jul 26th, 2010“Collecting Woodstock†is an immersive work-in-progress. Less a collection of artifacts than of information, the multimedia exhibit documents a decade of civil discontent with the sights and sounds of celebration and anihilation, ascension and assassination, idealism and disillusionment. Nothing much has been sanitized, except inasmuch as time has distanced us from the immediate conditions of psychedelic squalor that characterized a generation and that necessarily prevailed when “we were half a million strong†and gathered in a field some 15 acres square.
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Betty Buckley at the Colonial August 11
Broadway in the Berkshires
By: - Jul 21st, 2010Betty Buckley received her second Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a musical for her performance as Hesione in Triumph of Love, and an Olivier Award nomination for her interpretation of Norma Desmond in the London production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard, which she repeated to more rave reviews on Broadway.
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The 2010 Festival of Contemporary Music
Tanglewood August 12-16
By: - Jul 21st, 2010The 2010 Festival of Contemporary Music, August 12-16, will be the culmination of a season-long celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO’s renowned summer music academy for young professional musicians, with performances of works by the TMC’s distinguished composition faculty over the course of its history.
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Audra McDonald at Tanglewood
Broadway in the Berkshires
By: - Jul 19th, 2010Broadway star and four time Tony winner, Audra McDonald is on the run. It took some 26 hours of travel time, including multiple delays in Mexico City, to reach a scheduled Tanglewood concert. From the stage of sold out Ozawa Hall she announced that she was about to perform for the Obama family. Despite all that jet lag she settled into a stunning and intimate evening of show tunes. The evening was a highlight of what is proving to be a sensational season in the Berkshires.
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Michael Tilson Thomas at Tanglewood
Mozart and Stravinsky Launch the Weekend
By: - Jul 17th, 2010Stepping in for the ailing James Levine, the sprightly and masterful Michael Tilson Thomas is becoming a familiar presence at Tanglewood. For the second weekend he conducted Stravinsky and Mozart on Friday night and returns on Saturday with more Mahler. On Sunday afternoon Pops features Alec Baldwin and Arlo Guthrie as guest artists. In one of the most anticipated concerts of the season Audra McDonald appears in Ozawa Hall on Sunday evening.
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Maureen McGovern: at the Colonial July 23
A Long and Winding Road: The Concert
By: - Jul 14th, 2010This eclectic concert at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, on July 23, is an entertaining and introspective look at the songs that inspired Maureen McGovern before her Academy Award-winning hit “The Morning After.†Her repertoire includes selections of iconoclastic singer-songwriter material including “The Circle Game,†“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?†“The Moon’s A Harsh Mistress,†“Imagine,†“Fire and Rain†and many others.
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Opening Night at Tanglewood
Michael Tilson Thomas Conducts Mahler’s Symphony No.2
By: - Jul 10th, 2010The opening night of Tanglewood saw the transformation of adversity into triumph. There was concern over the announcement that yet again maestro Jame Levine would miss the entire season due to chronic health issues. As the opening night of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 in C minor amply demonstrated Michael Tilson Thomas proved to be far more than a substitute. He brought his unique vision and passion to the complex, eclectic and visceral symphony. With this performance the season in Lenox has been launched with magnificent confidence.
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Viva Quetzal at the Clark Art Institute
Performing on the Lawn July 27
By: - Jul 08th, 2010Viva Quetzal, playing contemporary North American jazz and rock and the indigenous rhythms of Latin America, will perform on the lawn of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute on Tuesday July 27 at 6:00 pm. The public is invited to bring family, friends, lawn chairs and a picnic to this high-energy, multi-cultural concert. Barbeque fare is available for purchase and museum exhibitions Picasso Looks at Degas and Juan Muñoz are open until 6:00 pm. In the event of rain, the concert will be held in the auditorium. Concert admission is free.
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Tanglewood Season Opens July 9
Michael Tilson Thomas Conducts Mahler's Resurrection
By: - Jul 06th, 2010Although Tanglewood had some 60,000 visitors last weekend for Pops followed by three sold out concerts by James Taylor and Carole King the season officially opens this weekend. Which means that the Boston Symphony Orchestra is in residence until the end of August. Michael Tilson Thomas will conduct the orchestra in the absence of the ailing James Levine. Thomas was a Tanglewood Music Fellow in 1968 and 69. He will be joined by two other TMC fellows soprano Layla Claire and mezzo soprano Stephanie Blythe.
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James Taylor and Carole King at Tanglewood
Spectacular July 4th Musical Fireworks
By: - Jul 05th, 2010The Berkshire season was launched in a sensational manner with three sold out Tanglewood performances by James Taylor and fellow singer/ songwriter, the legendary Carole King. They shared music, memories and intimate moments during concerts that averaged two and a half hours. Fans who bought lawn tickets last winter were rewarded by a gorgeous summer evening under the stars.
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Getting More Out of Tanglewood Concerts
Lenox Library Lectures by Jeremy Yudkin
By: - Jul 05th, 2010For the past few years I have been getting a lot more out of Tanglewood concerts by attending the lectures at the Lenox Library. On Friday and Saturday afternoons, from 2:30 to 4 PM, the music to be performed is discussed with recorded intervals by Professor Jeremy Yudkin. He brings zest, charm and enthusiasm to the experience. It allows me to listen more attentively and enjoy the concerts by a world class orchestra and its renowned conductors.
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EnlightenNext Free Jazz Concert
At Foxhollow in Lenox July 30
By: - Jul 03rd, 2010A jazz concert headlined by Israeli guitarist Oz Noy and five-time Gibson Female Jazz Guitarist of the Year Leni Stern - Noy wrote the soundtrack for Tommy Chong's AKA Tommy Chong documentary, and Stern has a new album out Now called sa belle sa ba. Berkshire-based Unfulfilled Desires will also perform fresh off a Paris engagement at Sunset-Sunside.
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Richie Havens at Mass MoCA
A Winter Lion on a Summer's Eve
By: - Jul 03rd, 2010An often perplexed, if forgiving, crowd seemed relieved when he and his accompanist, Walter Parks (whom Havens never mentioned, whose presence he never acknowledged) negotiated their way back to coherence in the language of music. Richie Havens’ artistry has mellowed but not lost much of its power and none, really, of its sweetness. His rhythms drive like a locomotive through the mists and downpours of yesteryear, spanning a generation and, as it were, a continent, undergirded all the while with a steady and persistent optimism that charms even as it meanders, disengaged, from song to song.
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Idina Menzel Sizzles with Pops
Doc Severinsen and Beatles at Tanglewood
By: - Jul 03rd, 2010On Friday night of the Fourth of July weekend, with three sold out concerts by James Taylor and Carole King, Tanglewood got off to a slow start with Pops. There was a relatively sparse turnout. Too bad for those who missed the Tanglewood debut of the Tony Award winning singer Idina Menzel. She thrilled the audience with hits from Rent and Wicked. Doc Severinsen was typically attired in an outlandish outfit as he squeaked a few toots on trumpet. Keith Lockhart conducted a 125th anniversary salute to Pops.
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Tom Rush at Natick Center for the Arts
TCAN Performance Delights Audience
By: - Jul 01st, 2010Fifty years ago when he came to Cambridge to attend Harvard, the popularity of folk music was just blossoming and Tom began his involvement as host of a weekly show on the Harvard campus radio station, WHRB. It was wonderful to attend his sold out performance at the Natick Center for the Arts.
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Rosanne Cash Packs the Colonial
Featuring the List and Black Cadillac
By: - Jun 30th, 2010Country music star, Rosanne Cash, the eldest daughter of the legendary Johnny Cash, utterly captivated the audience last night at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. In every sense, emotionally and artistically, Cash demonstrated how she has distanced herself from the dominance of the Country Music World in Nashville. Her easy, charming manner, memory gaps and screw ups, only further conveyed her charm, passion, humanity and vulnerability. It was a stunning evening.
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Beeline Ramblers
Berkshire Musicians Summer Schedule
By: - Jun 27th, 2010Fran Mandeville and Lisa Burnstine Mandeville live in North Adams but they make sweet music all over the Berkshires. Here is a schedule of the Beeline Ramblers for the summer season. If you catch them at the Dreamaway Lodge in Becket be sure to enjoy dinner. Tell em we sentyah.
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The New York Philharmonic in Lindberg and Beethoven
A Triumpant Season Ends with Something New, Something Old
By: - Jun 26th, 2010Alan Gilbert, in his inaugural season with the Philharmonic has been daring and provocative is his programming. He has also conducted traditional repertory with great flare. He has made it clear that he is going to lead his audience into the 21st century and help us get there. But not without moving us. He shares Beethoven's expressed desire in the subtitle to the Missa Solemnis: This is for the heart, not the brain.
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Roomful of Teeth
Mass MoCA's Club B-10
By: - Jun 22nd, 2010Roomful of Teeth is an ambitious work-in-progress with the stated intent of bringing the full range of human vocal potential to bear upon the aesthetic experience. Friday’s performance at Mass MoCA showcased works by Caleb Burhans, Caroline Shaw, Eric Dudley, William Brittelle, Judd Greenstein, Rinde Eckert and Avery Griffin. The play of a cappella sound waves against bone, tooth, beam and brick in a high-ceilinged, sold-out room pulsed with energies that seemed unearthly but were firmly rooted in the human.
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The New York Philharmonic Blasts Off at Avery Fisher
Alan Gilbert Gives Us Horns
By: - Jun 21st, 2010While onductor Gilbert declares that his penultimate program of the season is about Vienna, it was clearly all about the trumpet, in Wagner and Mozart and an end of the 20th century concerto for the trumpet by HK Gruber, a madman who deserves his own story. But this was trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger's evening, even though the composer saddled him with three horns. Saddled is a bit unfair. The audience was intimdated but the trumpterer wasn't. He even sang into his trumpet.
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Simon and Garfunkel Cancel Tanglewood
Tour Postponed Because of Illness
By: - Jun 17th, 2010The scheduled appearance by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel at Tanglewood on July 27 has been cancelled. Art Garfunkel continues to recover from a vocal paresis. The tour was originally planned to start in April. It was then shifted to July. Now it is postponed indefinitely. Garfunkel is expected to recover but not in time for the summer concerts. With James Levine out for the season this is the second Tanglewood cancellation in less than a week. There is speculation about how these cancellations will impact tourism and the hospitality industry.
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Barbara Cook at Mahaiwe August 15
Elaine Stritch Postponed
By: - Jun 16th, 2010In a bit of musical chairs, Tony award winner Barbara Cook replaces a scheduled appearance by Elaine Stritch at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. The much anticipated concert will occur on August 15. The Stritch appearance has been postponed because she is joining the Broadway cast of Sondheim's A Little Night Music. This season Cook appeared on Broadway in Sondheim on Sondheim.
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The Metropolitan Opera Encore HDs
Local Theaters Show Opera Performances
By: - Jun 15th, 2010If you missed some of the Met's wonderful HD broadcasts over recent seasons, this is a good time to catch up. A list of dates and times follows. We have included the Met's precis for each opera and excerpts from commentary which appeared on this site.
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