Tanglewood

The Koussevitzky Music Shed and lawn were packed for the opening last night of the 76th season of BSO's renowned Tanglewood Music Festival. Solo violinist Joshua Bell and conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos’s performed an all Tchaikovsky program. While heart warming, under sauna like conditions, the musicians and audience were over heated and drenched by the end of a muggy, oppressive evening.

On Saturday of the recent, third Wilco Solid Sound Festival at about 7,800 Mass MoCA set a single day attendance record. While it would be possible to sell a few hundred more tickets Mass MoCA director Joe Thompson insists that for the comfort and quality of the event that's just about capacity. With the sale of some 7,200 tickets, about 10% to Berkshire county residents, the event took in but also spent a lot of money. Given ongoing infrastructure development and expenses Thompson said that the museum will be close to breaking even or making a little after the final tally. But it's a ton of work.

In 2008 Terence Blanchard was a headliner for the now cancelled annual Tanglewood Jazz Festival. His quintet performed with the 34 oiece Tanglewood Jazz Orchestra in his A Tale of God's Will for the Spike Lee HBO documentary When the Levees Broke. He returned to Tanglewood last night with his quintet in a concert of hard bop straight ahead jazz.

Anna Myer and Dancers, North American Family Institute/Youth Link, and Bennington College present a new iteration of the dance, music, and spoken word pieces “Hoop Suite” and “Hindsight Now” on Saturday, July 13 at 8 p.m. in the VAPA Theater on the Bennington College campus

Since 1988 Mazzeo's Ristorante has been a successful and popular destination. Recently the restaurant moved to a large venue with steady drive by traffic between Pittsfield and Lenox. We opted for the terrace on a sultry summer evening.

Fifty years ago I first heard Joan and Bob at the legendary Club 47 in Cambridge. Much has changed since then but a regal Baez, accompanied by The Indigo Girls demonstrated why she remains the queen of folk music. It was a stunning Tanglewood concert during a gorgeous afternoon in the Berkshires.

Opening the festival on Friday night Wilco performed a set of requests. Last night they returned to Joe Thompson Field, under a moonlit sky, to deliver a set of 28 songs. Fans came from far and wide for the third and most successful of the Solid Sound Festivals which concludes this afternoon.

Last night Wilco returned to Mass MoCA to headline the third Solid Sound Festival this weekend. Under a big bright moon on a perfect evening they performed a set of requests for some 4,000 mellow fans. We got a contact high as pungent skunk weed perfumed the Berkshire air.

In an annual trek from the Utah Symphony to Tanglewood violinist and author Gerald Elias opts for the scenic route. It is always exciting to rejoin the Boston Symphony Orchestra with its many perks of which he writes "For me, at the top of the list was Tanglewood."

Here is a complete listing of scheduled concerts for the 2013 Tanglewood season.

Each season Gerald Elias returns to the Berkshires from Utah to play violin with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He reports with dismay, however, the daunting task of cleaning up all the trash dumped on his property by passing cars. Can you believe it? This year four 33-gallon heavy-duty lawn and garden bags. It gives new dimension to the checkout question at the super market, paper or plastic?

Tanglewood is front ending the 2013 season with popular music programming. It starts with Melissa Etheridge on June 21 and a weekend that also included Warren Haynes and the Pops preforming a tribute to Jerry Garcia. Then Joan Baez paired with the Indigo Girls. Terence Blanchard returns to Lenox on June 28 in a weekend that includes the perennial Garrison Keillor and Jackson Browne. The serious music begins July 5.

The former model, photographer and breast cancer awareness activist Matuschka is the subject of a current 40 year retrospective of her work at Sohn Fine Art in Stockbridge. Much of the work was created in the Berkshires as the jazz entrepreneur and journalist Edward Bride explored in a 2006 interview. Because of the media coverage of the recent elective surgeries of Angelia Jolie this proves to be both timely and provocative coverage of a courageous and interesting artist.

After its last outing at the Met a dozen years ago, Harbison's grand opera seemed to be forgotten. Now, a trimmer, more fleet version brings the works virtues to the fore. The opera will be performed at Tanglewood on July 11.

With the numerous cancellations of former Music Director, James Levine, his inevitable retirement and a two year interregum, the past few years have been a nightmare for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Just in his mid 30s the Latvian born Andris Nelsons has been appointed as Music Director of the BSO and Tanglewood.

Julianne Boyd, the artistic director of Barrington Stage in Pittsfield called for a morning chin wag about the upcoming season. That led to a lively discussion of the current state of theatre and impact of criticism. Now in its 8th season the company has just completed raising $7 million. This is part one of an extended dialogue.

The first time I performed the Concerto for Orchestra I was moonlighting on last stand of the second violins in the New Haven Symphony. The New Haven Symphony has a long and respectable history as a semi-professional orchestra with many fine musicians. The gig also enabled me to pick up a few bucks for my Yale tuition.

Daniele Gatti arrived at Carnegie Hall with the Boston Symphony Orceshtra for their annual spring visit. Gatti had recently triumphed at the Metropolitan Opera conducting Parsifal in a consummate performance. Katrina Dalayman, the Met’s Kundry, reports that the group of mega stars gathered to sing were exceptionally collaborative, guided by Gatti, emailing back and forth. This group effort showed on the stage with the BSO.

When Michael Feinstein appeared at Tanglewood last summer Liza Minnelli hopped the train with him at the last minute and popped on stage to thrill the audience in The Shed with "New York New York." While Faith Prince and Megan Hilty are confirmed as guests this summer we asked him if there is a chance that Barbara Cook may also board his Lenox bound Chattanooga Choo Choo. Barbara, who loves Tanglewood, just smiled.

Claybourne Park, winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and 2012 Tony Award for Best Play is coming soon to a theatre near you. Here in the Berkshires from September 26 through October 13 at Barrington Stage in co production with Vermont's Dorset Theatre Festival where it will run from August 15-31. It begs questions about regional theatre companies focused on a short list of recycled Broadway and Off Broadway plays.

During our meeting of the American Theatre Critic's Association we visited Carmel, Indiana for an evening of The Great American Songbook with its Ambassador, Michael Feinstein and guest artist, Barbara Cook. For the audience of 1,600 filling the Palladium it was a love fest.

The Terence Blanchard Group, featuring New Orleans’ jazz trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard, joins the 2013 Tanglewood season line-up with a performance in Ozawa Hall on Friday, June 28, at 8 p.m. Mr. Blanchard first performed at Tanglewood during Jazz Fest on August 31, 2008.

American folk singer Joan Baez, and folk rock duo the Indigo Girls, have been added to the 2013 Tanglewood line-up, with a special concert in the Shed on Sunday, June 23, 2013, at 2:30 p.m. Joan Baez and the Indigo Girls last performed at Tanglewood on August 30, 1990. Also performing this year will be Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds Five and Guster with support from Boothby Graffoe as part of their 30 city “Last Summer on Earth Tour” on Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at 7 p.m.

This is the second in a series of articles on the crisis in the arts by Larry Murray. They are reposted with permission of Berkshire On Stage. He reports that appropriations to state arts agencies grew by 110 percent between 1992 and 2001, reaching an all-time high of $450.6 million in 2001 before decreasing to $354 million in 2008. Since 2008, state appropriations have decreased by 27 percent, close to 1996 spending levels.

Andris Nelsons, who helms the Birmingham Symphony in England, is everywhere these days. He can pick and choose his venues, but the big, tantalizing question is Boston. He conducted there last week and early this week and reports that the acoustics in Symphony Hall are superb. Members of the BSO do not hide their enthusiasm for this thoroughly musical young man.