Features:

There is something magical about James Taylor and Tanglewood. But add his pal, Carole King, and wow. With the Pops on Friday, and three concerts by the dynamic duo, Tanglewood is set to draw some 60,000 visitors on the Fourth of July Weekend. Talk about fireworks. Zowie.

Joe Finnegan, a former Wall Street floor trader, who evokes the heart-throb, Don, in TV's Mad Men, moved his family four years ago to Williamstown. He hooked up with boyhood friend Steve Lawson to become President of his Williamstown Film Festival. We talked with Finnegan about gearing up for his first season as General Manager of the prestigious but challenged Williamstown Theatre Festival.

The best things in life are free. Sortah. On Saturday, February 13 from 11 AM to 8 PM there is no charge to hang out at Mass MoCA. There will be tours of the galleries as well as fun and games. With complimentary cake and ice cream. Whoopie. Afro Cuban Hip Hop drummer and band leader Pedrito Martinez, will keep the dance floor packed starting at 8 PM. It will cost you $15 in advance and $19 the day of the show. Not free but cheap to shake your bootie on a frosty night.

In the Berkshires they say never miss a Clark party. Particularly in the dead of winter. February 13: The party of the season takes place from 6 to 8 pm at the Clark. "Picture Yourself at the Clark" celebrates the opening of the Clark exhibition Giovanni Boldini in Impressionist Paris with an evening of live music, delectable hors d'oeuvres, and fun with portraits

There will be a sweetheart of a concert by Champian Fulton on Valentine's Day at the Eagle Hill Cultural Center in Hardwick, Mass. Recently she was awarded the American Harvest Music Society for 2009 Best Jazz Vocalist & Pianist.

A benefit evening at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield on February 14 will feature performances by Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion, The Mammals, Bobby Sweet, Vetiver, Tift Merritt, Meg Hutchinson, Kris Delmhorst, The Guthrie Family and special guests.

The MIT Media Lab and Visual Arts Building has recently opened. The building was designed by Pritzker Award architect Fumihiko Maki who is known for elegant fusion of East and West aesthetics. An uberModernist, Maki studied and worked both in the United States and Japan. His signature is crisp, exact design forms and attention to building materials and details. In a time of the Great Recession, MIT is continuing to complete its campus projects while other prestigious universities have put their's on hold.

The Coolidge Award is an annual celebration honoring a film artist whose body of work is recognized as consistently original and challenging. The category from which the recipient is chosen each year rotates, to reflect the broad range of film arts championed by The Coolidge Corner Theatre throughout its history. This year's recipient is Director, Producer and Screenwriter Jonathan Demme. His films include Melvin and Howard, Swing Shift, Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia and Rachel Getting Married to name a few.

The 2010 DeCordova Biennial, under new director, Dennis Kois, has parted from its prior annual format. It has also progressed to a mix of master artists like Otto Piene and Paul Laffoley, established artists, William Pope.L and Liz Nofzinger, and the usual blend of emerging artists. In all the museum is displaying 17 artists from all six New England states.

Unlike many other cities, Boston has no structured program for encouraging public art. There is no ordinance for a percentage of construction budgets and no major designated funding sources for public art. Artists working on a large scale generally must fend for themselves. This past Fall, an ambitious competition was held to create a longterm temporary exhibit of public art in East Boston's Harbor Shipyard. The result may give a shot in the arm to public art in New England's largest city.

The Tuscon Gem Shows are the largest of their kind in the United States. In another installment David Wilson discusses the beauty and unique qualities of fossils.

First established in 1999, the James and Audrey Foster Prize (formerly the ICA Artist Prize) recognizes Boston-area artists of exceptional promise. The biennial program creates a significant opportunity for locally-based artists to exhibit their work in a leading contemporary art museum, and offers a substantial financial award of $25,000 to the winner. This year there are nine finalists ranging from photographers to sculptors to painters to filmmakers and mixed media artists.

In the dead of winter The Clark Art Institute collaborated with its neighbor The Williamstown Theatre Festival with a reading of the hilarious Yasmina Reza play ART. This summer, when the Clark mounts Picasso Looks at Degas, they will again join forces with a reading of Steve Martin's comedy Picasso at the Lapin Agile.

The Portland Museum of Art will present legendary editor Judith Jones, who will speak about her life in food, working with Julia Child, and her latest book, The Pleasures of Cooking for One on Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 6 p.m. at the Holiday Inn By the Bay.

The New York Times has posted a feature on the unique Topia Inn in Adams, Mass. Astrid Hiemer filed this report when it opened.

Be still dear heart. February is for lovers and the Colonial Theater in Pittsfield is offering that romantic mood. Highlights include a touring production of Romeo and Juliet as well as an Elvis Valentine's Bash.

While on a tight deadline to complete the installation of "Gravity Is a Force to Be Reckoned With" in the vast Building Five at Mass MoCA Inigo Manglano-Ovalle took a break to discuss his work. He will simultaneously show "Juggernaut" at the Williams College Museum of Art. A Williams alumnus class of '83 in 2005 he received the college's Bicentennial Medal.

Anticipate a mind boggling experience when the Williams College Museum of Art opens the special exhibition "Landscapes of the Mind" on January 30. The exhibition will remain on view through May 2 with a gala opening on Thursday, February 25.

In a pre Holiday meeting Joe Thompson, director of Mass MoCA, greeted staff, volunteers and the media followed by curators presenting a preview of the coming season. Musician and performance artist, Laurie Anderson, will be in residence with a dialogue on January 16. After a dinner break there will be Alt Cafe that night. Time to mark your calendars.

The Barrington Stage Company season will start on May 27 with a Stage 2 production of "The Whipping Man" and run through December with "A Christmas Story." Not for the squeamish that arch villain "Sweeney Todd" will be serving up gory meat pies to the delight of one and all starting June 17.

Obie winner John Douglas Thompson will return this summer to star as "Richard III" at Shakespeare & Company. Tina Packer will direct "The Taster" a new play by Joan Ackerman. And Elizabeth Aspenlieder will star in "A Winter's Tale."

Only the Metropolitan Museum of Art has the clout to secure loans of the most iconic narrative paintings of American art from the Colonial Period to the beginning of World War One. It may be the most ambitious and comprehensive survey of American art ever assembled. The exhibition is on view at the LA County Museum of Art February 28 to May 23.

Patrick Sky was a prominent protest singer during the 60’s. His caustic wit, outspoken views and willingness to test the boundaries of good taste added to his reputation as angry young man, malcontent and practical joker. His musicianship and intuitive sense of traditional forms made him a natural as a producer of recordings by artists such as Mississippi John Hurt, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Paul Geremia as well as the many other artists he recorded for his Green Linnet label.. Underlying his career was a sensitivity and a passion for causes, political and artistic. So when he embraced Irish traditional music…

The designer of the first laptop computer (1980) Bill Moggridge was named Director of the Smithsonian's New York based Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the National Design Museum. He is the first designer to be given this administrative post. After a wonderful career designing strategic elements for a rapidly changing technological society, he will be attempting to add depth and breath to a museum that should better reflect our aesthetic as well as functional past, present and future. However, will the skills of the master designer resonate as a museum administrator or Smithsonian bureaucrat?

Harvard's GSD is beginning a masters program that combines art, design and public involvement. The purpose of the degree focused on Art, Design and the Public Domain is for students who seek to engage with the public and social environment, either physical or virtual, with a view to shaping and transforming human action and historical experience. The three semester course is a multi-disciplined exploration of the social and virtual realms of the public environment from an art and design perspective. Will its direction eventually replace the MFA degree?

The German Pavilion, now referred to as the Barcelona Pavilion, was created and built in less than a year by Ludwig Mies van der Rohr for the German Government's exhibit for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition. The architect used geometry and materials in the most elegant ways to create one of the most beautiful edifices of the 20th Century. It was torn down shortly after the exhibition closed. In the 1980s, several Spanish architects had it rebuilt. It is now a major architectural attraction in Barcelona where it has been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.

The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington announces a schedule of events and performances from now through August. Highlights include the sold out Live in HD broadcasts from the Met. Tony winner, Patti LuPone, jazz masters McCoy Tyner and Bucky Pizzarelli are among the highlights. As well as appearances by the Paul Taylor and Alvin Ailey dance companies.

Stiffelio, Verdi's mid career opera which had been banned when it was first produced, arrives at the Met. Placido Domingo conducted the magnificent Sondra Radvanovsky.

The concept of Garden Cities was introduced in 1898 by Ebenezer Howard. A visionary and sophisticated Catalan industrialist Eusebi Guell commissioned Gaudi, in 1899, to create a Garden City on a large tract of land overlooking Barcelona. The result is the fantastic Park Guell. The garden city never was completed, but the resulting environment is one of the great open spaces and public areas ever created. Imagination was implemented, and a masterpiece is now shared by all who visit it.

Recently the Museum of Fine Arts acquired three paintings by the African American artist Felrath Hines. For most of his career he worked as a framer and then as one of America's foremost painting restorers. After his death in 1993 he was twice shown at New York's June Kelly Gallery. Works from the estate have been acquired by major art museums.

From February 4 through June 6, 2010, the Portland Museum of Art will present Objects of Wonder: Four Centuries of Still Life from the Norton Museum of Art, an exhibition comprised of more than 50 works of art in various media. The exhibition will feature artists as well known as they are diverse, including Gustave Courbet, Henri Matisse, William Harnett, Marsden Hartley, Edward Weston, Marc Chagall, Georgia O’Keeffe, Andy Warhol, and Robert Mapplethorpe.

The special exhibition "Extinct! Endangered Species & Habitats" includes students and faculty of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It will be on view at the Brush Art Gallery and Studios, in Lowell, Mass. through February 21. There will be a talk by science writer Deborah Cramer on January 30.

Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano is one of the premiere designers and renovators of museums in the world. He was chosen in 2003 to preserve the existing century old Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum as well as create an imaginative new addition. Mrs. Gardner, who embraced everything Italian, would have absolutely loved Renzo Piano. At the recent announcement unveiling the new designs at the museum, Piano mentioned his love of the light in the space, the beauty of the courtyard and the special quality of the institution.

Performance artist, musician and composer, Laurie Anderson, has been in residence at Mass MoCA working on Delusion a new work commissioned for the Vancouver Winter Olympics. She will return to the Berkshires performing February 27 at the 62 Center of Williams College.

Spain's most visited site, Barcelona's La Sagrada Familia is a cathedral like no other in the world. Antoni Gaudi's masterwork is a soaring almost other worldly edifice to his devout Catholicism and his original creative process. This is an architecture of passion and mysticism that was the architect's great obsession for 43 years.

"The Visible Vagina." How's that for a catchy title? This historical exhibition is being presented in two New York Galleries simultaneously. The tandem of shows with a major catalogue will be on view through March 20. The artist couple from Boston and Truro, Tabitha Vevers and Dan Ranalli, wrote to us about the unique project and other current exhibitions.

The exhibition "Acts & Memory: Paintings by Langdon Quin, 1990-2010" will be on view at the Museum of Art of the University of New Hampshire through April 8. David Carbone is the curator of the exhibition.

Highlights of the 2010 Festival include the U.S. debut of The Göteborg Ballet of Sweden; three world premieres co-commissioned by Jacob’s Pillow from diverse young choreographers Kyle Abraham, Monica Bill Barnes, and Camille A. Brown; U.S. premieres from Spain, India, Thailand, and Israel; and celebrated favorites including contemporary ballet company Trey McIntyre Project, the men-on-pointe offerings of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, and the ever-popular Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.

Mass MoCA has organized a provocative documentary film series Lie!Cheat! Steal! Fake It! We recently attended the first in the series "American Casino" that explored the sub prime mess that decimated banks and brought down Wall Street. The films are screened on Thursdays once a month through April 29.

Paraza is wonderful! It is just a village in the South of France, but people from around the world have chosen to live there seasonally or year round. This article highlights the French and international population.

Dzul Dance founder and artistic director, Javier Dzul was awarded a prestigious commission in the fall of 2009 by the Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CONACULTA) of Mexico and the provincial government of state of Campeche for bringing international awareness to Mayan culture. For this honor, conferred once each decade, Dzul was awarded full funding to create a dance company, La Compania de Danza Contemporanea del Estado de Campeche.

For the 2010-11 Carnegie Hall season, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Music Director James Levine present a concentrated three-program series, Tuesday, March 15, Wednesday, March 16, and Thursday, March 17, 2011, at 8 p.m., as part of Carnegie Hall’s Great American Orchestras and Concerto Series.

The Gem show as Tucson knows it, is a collection of shows that are all held in this city from the end of January to the middle of February, some spanning the full period, some for a week, some for a few brief days. This year, 2010, there are 42 different shows being held here between Jan 22 and Feb 15.

Taking on two symphonic war horses, the Schubert Unfinished and Beethoven's Fifth, James Levine helps you hear them as new. The program was performed on January 24.

James Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra will give the American premiere of Elliott Carter’s Flute Concerto, featuring BSO principal flutist Elizabeth Rowe in her Symphony Hall solo debut, on February 4, with repeat performances on February 5 and 9. The program also features Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 and the Overture and Entr’actes from Schubert’s incidental music to the 1823 play Rosamunde.

The superb actor Brian Dennehy suggested that Hughie and Krapp's Last Tape be performed together, and this was a brilliant choice. The run has been extended to February 23.

In an apparent coup the 2010 DeCordova Biennial, showcasing contemporary New England artists, includes William Pope.L who describes himself as the "Friendliest black artist in America." He performed during the recent vernissage.

On September 21, 2007, in Federal District Court in Springfield, Judge Michael A. Posner ruled that Mass MoCA had not violated the artist Christoph Buchel according to the 1990 Visual Arts Rights Act. Now a Federal Appelate Court has found that the claim of copyright infringement against the museum has merit and should be heard by a federal jury. Tension mounts as the artist will indeed have his day in court.

Antoni Gaudi's genius can be seen in the design of private residences. Two of his most cherished projects are now museums in Barcelona. In Casa Batllo and Casa Mila, his personal style can be seen intersecting with Catalan Art Nouveau, Moderniste, to express his unique vision. These examples are a family home and a large apartment building that in two somewhat different ways illustrate the master's unique hand in architecture, design and art. Each one is a startling structures of wonder and delight.

Tosca has been performed at all the American opera houses this season, and surely the production at the Lyric is one of the best.

Central Valley is a significant break in Costa Rica's mountainous backbone.With its rich volcanic soil and ideal year-round climate, it is a haven for people, flowers and plants. San Jose, the capital city, is the center of it all. The Sarapiqui region is steamy, tropical and carpeted with fruit plantations. Birds, bats and jungle plants thrive in its rain forest. River rafting is a highlight.

In our continuing coverage of the enormous Tuscon Gem Shows our correspondent, David Wilson, reveals a special passion for onyx.

Over five consecutive Mondays at 7PM, from February 8 to March 8, 2010, the Williams College Department of Romance Languages will screen five recent films from France at Images Cinema on Spring Street in Williamstown, Mass. The screenings are free and open to the public.

Catching up with Rachel Perry Welty at the DeCordova last week we learned that she is super busy. With a solo show in Miami at Gallery Diet, a Duo at the ICA with Kelly Sherman, and a group show at the Arts Council of Princeton, New Jersey. And that's just February. You go girl.

By now the cat is pretty much out of the bag. It is anticipated that Tina Packer, founding director of Shakespeare & Company, will launch the season with "Women of Will." The collage of women's roles in Shakespeare has absorbed her for 15 years. There will be a sneak preview of the work in progress on February 28.

A clash of the Titans will prevail in Pittsfield.Berkshire Museum’s current exhibition, Armed & Dangerous: Art of the Arsenal, explores the evolution, function, and craft of weaponry and armor throughout human culture and the animal kingdom. This exhilarating exhibition, drawn primarily from the Museum’s permanent collection, runs through June 6, 2010.

The Lyric Opera of Chicago is presenting Donizetti's Elixir of Love throughout the month of February. The moment the curtain rises on a small southern Italian village, we meet Nemorino (Filianoti) who is passionately in love with Adina (Cabell), a coquette who is fickle as a breeze, flitting from man to man. She quickly recommends finding a new love each day as the solution to anyone's amorous issues.

The Lyric Stage Company of Boston announces the fifth production of the 2009- 2010 Season: Karen Zacarias’ intriguing new story of love, family and scientific discovery, Legacy of Light Directed by Lois Roach, the play runs February 12 through March 13, 2010.

A village in southern France welcomed a group of international artists and writers/reporters for ten days in September, 2009. We felt at home and explored the beautiful and fascinating region. Finally, the artist from around the world presented their new work to the people of Paraza and surrounding communities at a warm and lively vernissage - before we all had to say good bye.

For ten days in September we were invited by the artist, Dorothea Fleiss, of the organization East West Artists to participate in 12e Symposium d’art contemporain. It was hoted by Christine and Werner Endriss in the vilage of Paraza in the South of France. It proved to be a truly remarkable experience.

Reviewing a new country flavored CD by Jerry Corbitt was an opportunity to reflect on a friend. Wilson managed him before Corbitt joined the Youngbloods and a career as solo performer,writer, producer and sideman. Recently they reconnected through Facebook.

A superstar in regard to art, technology and education, John Maeda brings a computer scientist's technical understanding with an artist's appreciation and love of art and design to the task of leading Rhode Island School of Design in the 21st Century. According to Maeda, RISD's Mission has not changed, it is being enhanced. President Maeda articulately expresses his vision and ideas as the leader of one of the world's great design and art school.

The special exhibition Harry Callahan: American Photographer will be on view at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston from November 21 through July 3, 2010. He was a renowned professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. Many of his best known images, including many of his wife, Eleanor, were created in Chicago.

An installation by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle is in the process of being constructed and installed in the largest gallery at Mass MoCA in North Adams. Just up the road the Williams College Museum of Art will simultaneously mount an installation of his work Juggernaut from December 1 through October 31, 2010. The renowned artist is a Williams alumnus.

The Portland Museum of Art has recently installed three major works of contemporary art by leading figures in today’s art world: Jenny Holzer, Richard Serra, and Ellsworth Kelly. This is the first time that these pieces have been exhibited in Maine. The works will remain on view through summer.

Filmmaker John Waters will converse with artist Roni Horn. It is but one of the many events planned for the Winter/Spring at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art.

A new season of events kicks off July 5 with the reigning "Pied Piper of Music," Dan Zane and Friends and continues with opera, dance, theatre and "something for every taste."

Located between the larger and better known artist communities of Pittsfield and North Adams it is easy to overlook the vibrant Adams art scene. We visited and interviewed eight artists in their studios. They are all well established with an intriguing variety of work.

The Arts and Artists of Adams, Massachusetts have received little attention. There are two vital and evolving arts organizations, the Topia Art Center and Greylock Arts Gallery, as well as several cultural entities to visit and enjoy.

With a combination of budget cuts, a reduced schedule and mixed reviews the second season for Williamstown Theatre Festival artistic director, Nicholas Martin, proved to be challenging. In 2010 Martin will work with a new general manager Joe Finnegan. This appointment has been announced by WTF.

The Berkshires will be booked solid for the Fourth of July weekend. On Friday night Keith Lockhart will lead the Pops in its 125th anniversary concert. On Saturday and Sunday the legendary song writers James Taylor and Carole King will bring their world tour to Tanglewood.

Once again the Boston Symphony Orchestra has scheduled a full, rich and diverse season for Tanglewood 2010. Many of the most beloved composers and conductors will be featured.

For ten days in September Astrid Hiemer and I participated in an international artists' symposium in Paraza a village in the South of France. It was organized by the artist, Dorothea Fleiss, and hosted by the Stuttgart based couple, Christine and Werner Endriss.

From the bay to the valley, the Somme region of France offers diverse landscapes, including coastal treasures,fascinating cities and tranquil battlefields steeped in the memory of the Great War. Stunning Gothic buildings, grand chateaus, Belle Epoque architecture and charming farm houses dot the landscape.

Last year, for the first time, Shakespeare & Company mounted a winter production. The one woman show "Bad Dates" was a hit for Elizabeth Aspenlieder which won her Boston's Norton Award when she the took the show to Lowell. She is now in rehearsal, directed by Tina Packer, as the lead in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" which opens January 29 and runs through March 21. We dropped by for a rehearsal and to catch up on S&Co.'s ongoing efforts to pay down a $10 million debt.

The live in HD series of broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera were an enormous success this past year for the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. There will be a preview of the season which starts in the fall with a broadacast of a vintage performance of Renee Fleming starring in Eugene Onegin on July 11. The Mahaiwe is planning a stunning schedule of dance, music, film and theatre for the coming season.

Julianne Boyd, the artistic director of Barrington Stage in Pittsfield likes to start the season with a popular musical. For the third time, marking his 80th birthday, Boyd will direct a Stephen Sondheim production, this time, the ghoulishly delicious Sweeney Todd. It will run from June 17 through July 17 to the delight of one and all.

Music Director James Levine conducts a new production of Tosca on Opening Night as well as four other operas Many of the world’s greatest singers are featured in new roles. Debuts include conductors Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Muti, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Esa-Pekka Salonen; directors Pierre Audi, Luc Bondy, Patrice Chéreau, Richard Eyre, and William Kentridge; designers Herzog & de Meuron, Rob Howell, Richard Peduzzi, and Miuccia Prada In its fourth season, The Met: Live in HD series will include nine live transmissions to more than 35 countries around the world

The late August Wilson, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award premiered a number of his plays at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston. The 2009-2010 Huntington season will highlight a production of his acclaimed "Fences."

There was a full weekend schedule of events celebrating the opening of a new building on the campus of Mass MoCA which, for the next 25 years, will house "Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective."

Opening a year ago in October of 2008, the Chace Center marked Rhode Island School of Design's continued commitment to great design and the desire to be 21st Century state of the art in terms of exhibitions and teaching art, architecture and design. They have an ongoing exhibition series dealing with contemporary design and have major design exhibitions like last Spring's Marcel Breuer Exhibit.

At 75, sitting in a wheelchair paralyzed by an unknown virus several years ago, Michael Graves ruminated on his education and career at his 50th reunion at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. This was a personal journey of the kid from Indianapolis to the architecture professor at Princeton emeritus, Target's object maker, Post Modern's pater and Corot-like painter.

The Cultural Center At Eagle Hill is ambitious, original and offers a model we fervently wish would be adopted by other communities.

During the cold winter in the Berkshires the hot new restaurants to enjoy is Flavours of Malaysia tucked away in a basement on McKay Street just around the corner from the new Beacon Cinema in Pittsfield. On weekends reservations are recommended.