Music
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FreshGrass at MASS MoCA
Tenth Annual Festival
By: - Apr 29th, 2021FreshGrass features bluegrass traditionalists and innovators on four stages and platforms throughout the museum’s 16-acre campus. Festival programming also includes FreshScores, a silent film with original live music; FreshGrass commissions and world premieres; instrument and industry workshops; pop-up performances and retail; and local Berkshire food and spirits vendors.
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Barber of Seville at San Francisco Opera
A Drive In Performance
By: - May 03rd, 2021Desperate times call for desperate measures. With the stage of the grand War Memorial Opera House dark for over a year, the San Francisco Opera fashioned a creative fix – not a permanent solution, but one which offers a measure of the thrilling artistry that only live opera can provide. In overcoming myriad technical, logistical, marketing, and public health issues, the company has produced a wonderfully charming “Barber of Seville” that will live in our memories. Gioachino Rossini’s 19th century imagination could probably conceive of people driving automobiles, but patrons attending one of his great comedic operas while ensconced in their vehicles would probably be beyond his wildest notions.
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The Orchestra Now at Bard
Maestro Leon Botstein Celebrates Beethoven
By: - May 03rd, 2021The Orchestra Now opened its belated celebration of Beethoven’s birthday. Their performance of the Fifth Symphony lay somewhere between the unearthly suggestion the composer may have intended, and a fierce protest. From the introduction of iconic Da, da, da, DUM, either a major or minor key although we’re told this is a minor piece, to the figure's infinite variety of repetition through the piece, TON reminds us of why this is the symphony of symphonies.
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Music Mountain’s 92nd Chamber Music Season
Starts Sunday, July 4
By: - May 04th, 2021Live music is back at Music Mountain! On Sunday, July 4, Music Mountain’s 92nd Chamber Music Concert Season kicks off with the Shanghai Quartet -- called "utterly sublime" by The New York Times -- playing Beethoven String Quartet in B Flat Major, Op. 18 #6, Zhou Long Chinese Folk Songs and Smetana String Quartet in E Minor, “From My Life.” Chamber music concerts will continue every Sunday afternoon at 3pm through Labor Day.
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The Adlers: Live at the Drive-In
San Francisco Opera
By: - May 09th, 2021The experiment continues. San Francisco Opera broke new ground with their production of “Barber of Seville” – live performances of an opera at a “drive-in” with music delivered by FM radio to patrons seated in their vehicles. Now the company’s resident artists, the Adler Fellows, are giving their annual concert series at the same venue, the beautiful and versatile, Frank Lloyd Wright designed Marin Center.
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Boston Modern Orchestra Presents John Adams
Adams is a Worcester Native and Composer
By: - May 19th, 2021Does listener friendliness in music depend on melody? John Adams, on whatever musical journey he takes, is haunted by melody, sometimes explicitly and at others, finds it in minimalist repetition where a base line beats and also sings.
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Shen Wei at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
At the Palace and Flying in the Piano Wing
By: - May 20th, 2021At the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on Evans Way in Boston, representatives of Mrs. Gardner welcome you to her home. In the original Palace, art is hung by her direction. The work of contemporary artists in residence hangs in the new wing. You are richly rewarded by a visit to Isabella's place.
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Aaron Tveit Live! In Concert
Barrington Stage Adds Second Performance
By: - Jun 03rd, 2021Barrington Stage Company (BSC), announces that a second performance has been scheduled for Aaron Tveit Live! In Concert on Monday, July 19 at 8:00pm. The encore performance has been scheduled to accommodate worldwide audience demand after tickets for BSC’s Gala performance of Aaron Tveit Live! on Sunday, July 18 quickly sold out.
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Woodie King Jr. Steps Down
Insights from 50 Years of New Federal Theatre
By: - Jun 04th, 2021Woodie King Jr. is stepping down as Artistic Director of the New Federal Theatre, the company he founded in 1970. His original mission was to give voice to actors and writers of color, black, Hispanic and Asian, and to women. The mission has been richly fulfilled. The list of artists to whom King gave a first chance includes every important performing artist of color and many women..
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Tanglewood Caps Attendance at 9,000
Half of Normal Capacity for Shed Performances
By: - Jun 04th, 2021IN SUPPORT OF REGULATIONS SET BY THE TRI-TOWN HEALTH DEPARTMENT AND THE LENOX AND STOCKBRIDGE HEALTH BOARDS, TANGLEWOOD WILL LIMIT ATTENDANCE CAPACITY TO 9,000—50% OF ITS USUAL CAPACITY OF 18,000; THIS REPRESENTS A SIGNIFICANT INCREASE OVER THE PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED ATTENDANCE CAP OF 25%.
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Wilco's Jeff Tweedy at MASS MoCA
Benefit Concert July 17
By: - Jun 09th, 2021Wilco's Jeff Tweedy takes the stage, joined by special guest and bandmate, Nels Cline, for a concert benefiting MASS MoCA’s Joe Thompson “Yes” Fund. All proceeds directly support the museum’s mission – instilled by our founding director Joe Thompson — to champion artists and art-making in all forms.
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Tanglewood and Pops for July Fourth
Moved from Traditional Hatch Shell
By: - Jun 11th, 2021This 2021 Boston Pops July 4th Spectacular will be a televised, live-streamed concert to take place under the direction of Keith Lockhart from the stage of Tanglewood’s Koussevitzky Music Shed, Sunday, July 4, 8-11 p.m., broadcast live on Bloomberg TV and Radio, as well as locally on WHDH-TV Channel 7.
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Tania Leon Wins 2021 Pulitzer for Music
Stride Premiered by the NY Philharmonic Before Pandemic Struck
By: - Jun 12th, 2021Tania Leon has been awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for music for Stride, commissionedb by Project 19 of the New York Philharmonic. The project commissioned work by women composers.
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Opera Saratoga
Inspired by Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
By: - Jun 21st, 2021Opera Saratoga announces the company’s return to the stage for its 60th Anniversary with a season of performances inspired by the iconic novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Working closely with a team of medical professionals and a dedicated COVID Safety Officer, Opera Saratoga is committed to bringing audiences and artists together safely for the 2021 Summer Festival, which will be produced outdoors during June and July in partnership with the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), Saratoga Spa State Park, and Pitney Meadows Community Farm to provide three unique performance spaces for audiences to safely enjoy two fully staged productions and a special concert.
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Nancy Rhodes Champions American Opera
Encompass Opera Theatre Produced American First
By: - Jun 21st, 2021Nancy Rhodes, founder and artistic director of Encompass New Opera Theatre, led a Zoom for an international audience of teachers. Rhodes formed Encompass just as the women’s movement was blossoming. There are special women in the American music world who have soldiered on in their professions, whatever complications were created by gender. Bursting onto the scene at about the same time as Gloria Steinem, Nancy Rhodes created an innovative company..
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Berlin Philharmonic Live at Waldbuhne
Bernstein, Williams and Gershwin Featured
By: - Jun 27th, 2021Berlin Philharmonic had its big season finale in Waldbühne Stadium, Olympic Park, Berlin. Gershwin, Bernstein and John Williams were featured on a program re-introducing the Berlin Philharmonic live and to their live audience. Wayne Marshall conducted, and performed the Rhapsody in Blue. Martin Grobinger, a percussionist, was featured in a John Williams’ The Special Edition.
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Close Encounters with Music in the Berkshires
Yehuda Hanani Programs for Listening Pleasure
By: - Jun 27th, 2021One of the treasures of the Berkshires is Close Encounters with Music, the brainchild of premiere cellist Yehuda Hanani. Close Encounters performs in nooks and crannies around the Berkshires and also in more prominent venues like the modern Osawa Hall designed by William Rawn of Boston, who went on to create much the same successful combination of indoor and outdoor space in Sonoma County, California. Concerts are performed in the charming turn-of the-century Mahaiwe in Great Barrington. Conceived by Joseph Mcarthur Vance, this hall was brilliantly updated by Hugh Hardy.
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Berkshire Jazz
Return to Live Music
By: - Jul 02nd, 2021Berkshires Jazz is delighted to be jumping back into ‘live’ programming with six events in the second half of 2021, including three in August. It is the most ambitious schedule in our 17-year history, and reflects our confidence that there is a pent-up demand for in-person jazz events.
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Tannhäuser at the Munich State Opera
Awakening to Dissolute Pleasures
By: - Jul 12th, 2021The Munich Opera House may not be the house that Wagner built, but it was an important venue in his career, a place where he conducted, and where his works were premiered. King Ludwig II insisted that the first two episodes of the Ring premiere here. Wagner had hoped to withhold them for his new Festival Theatre at Bayreuth. Tannhäuser, whose 2017 production in being reprised in Munich’s annual festival, was an immediate favorite of Ludwig, Wagner’s sponsor and savior.
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Jeff Tweedy at MASS MoCA
This Saturday
By: - Jul 12th, 2021This Saturday the one and only Jeff Tweedy takes the stage in MASS MoCA's Joe's Field, joined by special guest and Wilco bandmate, Nels Cline. If you're mourning another year sans-Solid Sound, here's your chance to get that Wilco-meets-MASS MoCA fix.
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Tristan and Isolde in Munich
Petrenko and Company Take Us Into the Beyond
By: - Jul 15th, 2021Kirill Petrenko and Jonas Kaufmann are still standing after four performances of the grueling Tristan and Isolde in Munich. In 1869, the New York Times reported that Wagner’s music was driving people to insanity and suicide. “We learn from Munich that Herr Eberle, the piano-forte conductor, has gone mad over Tristan and Isolde and it is known that rehearsals of this unique opera had previously killed a celebrated German tenor, Ludwig Schnorr.” Familiarity has made this opera an all the more thrilling experience.
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Boston Lyric Opera Launches desert in
Opera Mini Series in Association with Long Beach Opera
By: - Jul 21st, 2021Now available at opera box.tv, Boston Lyric Opera offers a mysterious, death-defying plunge into streaming opera. The eight part mini series stars Isabel Leonard and Talise Trevigne as a married lesbian couple who run a desert Inn, where people can be reunited with their dead loves, like a real world ouija board set in Palm Springs. The Inn sign is not missing a letter. The eerie Bates Motel missed some in the TV series. The kinky Chelsea, where traditional residents were like some of the characters in this series, also is distinguished by missing letters. What is not missing here is terrific music, drama and singing and not singing actors. James Darrah brings his film background and gifts to a wild opera moment.
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Katya Kabanova by Leoš Janácek
Produced by West Edge Opera
By: - Jul 27th, 2021With “Katya Kabavona”’s powerful score and intense drama, Janácek expressed his full maturity in the vocal genre. It is a classic, and West Edge’s production is well worth seeing.
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Salome in Munich
Marlis Petersen, Kirill Petrenko and Krzysztof Warlikowski
By: - Jul 26th, 2021The Munich State Opera is presenting Salome, the opera by Richard Strauss. The set is dark, yet in full view as we enter the opera house. A man is fidgeting over a desk deep in the set. On it sits a banker’s lamp with its classic green hood. A patent for this lamp was taken out in 1909. In a prologue to the opera, Mahler songs are being sung, another brief clue to date the monumental, elegant setting created by Malgorzata Szczesniak.
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Elizabeth Cree Composed by Kevin Puts
At California's West Edge Opera
By: - Jul 28th, 2021In “Elizabeth Cree,” the eminent Pulitzer Prize winning team, composer Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell, have crafted a score and a darkly comic libretto with Gothic atmosphere that is absolutely riveting. West Edge Opera’s stellar new production at its wonderful outdoor venue channels the creepiness of the events even at a broad daylight matinee.
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