New York Times

Please join Close Encounters With Music for an End-of-Summer Celebration and Auction. You will enjoy beautiful vistas, a scrumptious lunch, an appearance by the PRISM quartet (saxophones). and an auction of exciting items to bid on,

Kirill 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.

Jacob’s Pillow presents the world premiere of a new work by legendary club dancer Archie Burnett entitled Life Encounters on the Henry J. Leir Stage from July 28 - August 1. Life Encounters explores New York City Club Dance styles through treasured memories from Burnett’s own life with a cast of illustrious dancers including Abdiel Jacobsen, Princess Lockerkoo, Ephrat Asherie, Samara Cohen, Maya Llanos, and Deandre Browne.

The Mount, Edith Wharton’s Home announces its line-up for the 2021-2021 Summer Lecture Series. Now in its 28th year, the Summer Lecture series bring leading biographer and historians to the Berkshires. This year’s series will New York Times bestselling author Janice P. Nimura, Pulitzer-prize winner author Debby Applegate, and Biographer Sydney Ladensohn Stern.

In this new book of color photographs, all shot in 1981, Allen Frame attempts to revisit a zeitgeist that had given rise to an aesthetic that was distinctly New York. The distinctiveness was related to a circle of friends, many – though not all of them - gay men, who were making art at a specific moment in New York’s history.  FEVER is Frame’s personal documentary of that time, before the deepening tragedy of AIDS that would claim the lives of many of the young artists pictured in this book.

The Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award was created in 2007 by an anonymous donor whose commitment to an ongoing annual gift to Jacob’s Pillow of $50,000 is generous and far-reaching. The Award, presented each year to an artist of exceptional vision and achievement, carries a cash prize of $25,000 which the artist can use in any way they wish. Dormeshia is this year's winner.

As a title, Sections riffs off the organizational structure of a newspaper—a structure which is palpably felt in print editions where each section is folded separately and sandwiched into the others. This concept plays out spatially across the gallery, as the walls, floor and ceiling each become uniquely activated by the work installed on them.

Tiny Beautiful Things, George Street Playhouse’s filmed play, based on Cheryl Strayed’s book, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar (2012), a collection of Strayed’s columns is beautifully brought to life by actress Laiona Michelle, who as Sugar, plays a down-to-earth, expletive-spouting advice-giving columnist

Does 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. 

WAM Theatre will present a special limited run of Madeline Sayet’s solo show, WHERE WE BELONG, directed by Mei Ann Teo. This Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company film adaptation, produced in partnership with Folger Shakespeare Library, is filming now at Woolly Mammoth in Washington, D.C., and will be available for digital streaming through WAM Theatre June 24-27, 2021 only.

Live 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.

Manhattan Theatre Club in association with The Huntington presents the virtual premiere of The Niceties, written by Eleanor Burgess and directed by Kimberly Senior. The presentation reunites the original stars Lisa Banes and Jordan Boatman, and has been reimagined for the virtual stage since its original production in MTC’s 2018-2019 Season at The Studio at Stage II. 

American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) at Harvard University announces today the ensemble of magicians to perform in the return engagement of The Conjurors’ Club created by Vinny DePonto and Geoff Kanick. Back by popular demand, the live interactive multi-magician experience runs online April 28 - May 16, 2021.  

The performing arts series Works & Process announces the addition of 6pm performances at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as a part of New York state’s “Safely Bringing Back the Arts” pilot program. Since March 19, under the guidance of the Department of Health, two concurrent series of performances produced by Works & Process are taking place in the Guggenheim’s iconic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed rotunda. These reduced-capacity events are among the first indoor performances the state has permitted since it closed venues due to the pandemic a year ago, reaching a milestone in the recovery of the city’s cultural sector.

Bang on a Can announces the hourly schedule for the second OneBeat Marathon – Live Online – on Sunday, May 2, 2021 from 12pm - 4pm EDT, curated by Found Sound Nation, its social practice and global collaboration wing. Over four hours the OneBeat Marathon will share the power of music and tap into the most urgent and essential sounds of our time. From the Kyrgyz three-stringed komuz played on the high steppe, to the tranceful marimba de chonta of Colombia's pacific shore, to the Algerian Amazigh highlands and to the trippy organic beats of Bombay’s underground scene – OneBeat finds a unifying possibility of sound that ties us all together.   

Onsite events run June 30-August 29, with online streaming through September 23. Newly imagined—with the safety of artists, staff, and audiences at the forefront of all planning—the Festival will feature commissioned works and world premieres, present new site-specific performances created especially for the Pillow’s 220-acre campus, and engage hundreds of artists who have had incredibly limited performance opportunities for the last year.

Newport Music Festival announces the complete seventeen-concert schedule for its 53rd season, from July 4-20, 2021. All concerts will be held outdoors at historic mansions and venues in Newport, Rhode Island including The Breakers, Bellevue House, Castle Hill Inn, The Chanler at Cliff Walk, King Park, the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center, Norman Bird Sanctuary, and Rough Point. The full schedule is included below and available at www.newportmusic.org. Tickets will go on sale to the public on April 19.  

The Huntington announces the return to live, in-person performances following an incomparable year-and-a-half of stages left dark because of the global pandemic. The 7-play season will begin on August 27, 2021 and take place primarily at the Wimberly Theatre in the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA in the South End while The Huntington Theatre undergoes a transformational renovation; one production will take place at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre.

Bang on a Can announces the hourly schedule for its next Bang on a Can Marathon – Live Online – on Sunday, April 18, 2021 from 1-5pm ET. All 15 pieces on the program will be world premiere performances of newly commissioned works, streamed from musicians' homes around the country and across the world. Over its first six live online Marathons in 2020-2021 (May 3, June 14, August 1, October 18, February 21, and March 21) Bang on a Can has presented more than 125 performances, including 47 world premieres of new commissions and over 150 composers and performers. Bang on a Can plans to continue these Marathons, streaming online at live.bangonacan.org,

Thornton Wilder's Our Town is a widely produced icon of American Theatre. It is the subject of a new oral history by Howard Sherman.

When James Laughlin founded New Directions he wanted the company to be a place where writers could carry out their experiments in print. His initial mission was simple: introduce American readers to  international, modernist writers who could not get their work published in the United States--Dylan Thomas, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Henry Miller, Vladimir Nabokov (Laughlin rejected his scandalous blockbuster, Lolita!), and many more. "These writers were really radical,” says publisher Barbara Epler. Today they are part of the canon. Indeed, they are its twentieth-century core. 

This March, journalist Julie Scelfo will be hosting conversations about extraordinary women from the nineteenth century who have helped shape the American story with their achievements. The events will occur free on Zoom.

Bang on a Can announces a dynamic slate of new virtual programming taking place from March through May 2021, all streaming at live.bangonacan.org. All shows are free to watch, but viewers are encouraged to consider purchasing a ticket to help support the performers and commissioned composers.

The work of Benny Andrews (November 13, 1930 – November 10, 2006) is complex, compelling and problematic. The son of Georgia sharecroppers he matured to be a true polymath in the art world. Today he is regarded as a leader in the development of African American art. He was also a part of the movements of figurative expressionism and the Rhino Horn group. This is the third exhibition and an extensive catalogue from Michael Rosenfeld Gallery which represents the estate.

The marvelous New York Theatre Ballet is offering Sunday conversations on dance in their Between the Acts Series.  Agnes de Mille was featured recently.  Diana Byer, the founder of the troupe, spoke with Anderson Ferrell and Diana Gonzalez-Dudert from the De Mille Working group, Broadway dancer and actor Dirk Lumbard, and NYTB’s Elena Zahlmann. Diana Byer, the company's founder, president, and artistic director, has said: "...Right now ballet is dominated by a very athletic style, and it's important that there's not just one style out there. I'm really committed to keeping this other way of working alive, a way that's more about the meaning of a gesture, the feeling of the music, or a story.'