Tanglewood

The Mount will kick-start its 2012 season with two programs planned for late April. On Saturday, April 21 at 3:00 PM, Berkshire resident, Wharton scholar and Professor of English, Hildegard Hoeller will give a informative talk on Edith Wharton and her changing views of New York, entitled Edith Wharton: Old and New New York. On Sunday, April 22, The Mount will present Music in the Drawing Room with an afternoon performance by Elizabeth Morse, principle harpist of the Berkshire Symphony.

The cabaret beckons at Ozawa Hall Saturday, June 2, 6 pm as Close Encounters With Music ushers in the summer season in the Berkshires. In a performance that evokes the twenties of the last century—a time exemplified by Art Deco, Prohibition, the loosening of social restraints, Jazz, the Charleston and flappers—“Roaring Twenties” offers a panorama of composers and styles that defined and shaped the era: Gershwin, Kurt Weill, Alexander Zemlinsky, Hanns Eisler, Cole Porter, Poulenc, Schoenberg, and Erwin Schulhoff provide a bi-continental glimpse into a decade that still looms colorful, mythical and seductive in cultural history.

The Boston Pops 2012 season under the direction of Keith Lockhart, opens in style on May 9 with Broadway sensation Bernadette Peters performing many of the signature songs that have made her one of this country’s legendary stars of the stage and screen. The Boston Pops 2012 unifying theme, Visions of America, inspires a season dedicated to celebrating many of this country’s greatest musical traditions, culminating in a multimedia “Visions of America Photo Symphony” program to end the season on June 14, 15, and 16. These special concerts will feature R&B sensation Patti Austin, jazz vocalist Steve Tyrell, photographs by Joseph Sohm, music by Roger Kellaway, and lyrics by the unrivaled team of Alan and Marilyn Bergman, with a recorded narration provided by Clint Eastwood.

The recently released CD Blue Moon is being hailed by critics as among the best of a recording career that started in 1955. With an amazing rhythm section of Herlin Riley, drums, Manolo Badrena, percussion, and Reginald Veal, bass the iconic jazz pianist performed at the Colonial Theater in Pittsfield. They are about to embark for Italy to launch a European tour in support of the critically acclaimed new album.

Ed Pincus films at the Harvard Archives while the Turkish film festival continues at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The American Repertory Theater showcases Futurity: A Musical by the Lisps and the Boston Symphony Orchestra presents Brahms: A German Requiem. Leon Kirchner’s opera, Lily (a musical adaptation of Saul Bellow’s novel Henderson, the Rain King) will be performed at the New England Conservatory First Monday at Jordan Hall. Happy Passover and Happy Easter.

Aston Magna Music Festival (Daniel Stepner, Artistic Director) America’s oldest annual summer festival in America devoted to music performed on period instru­ments, celebrates its 40th Anniversary Season in the Berkshires. This summer’s concert series from June 8 through July 7 is devoted to music spanning from the 17th to the 20th centuries.

Thomas Hampson is committed to music, as a performer, a researcher, a promoter of all American music. The Metropolitan Opera Guild put on an evening honoring him, and his unique contributions to opera and music education.

A French program that looked at first like your usual fare was turned into an evening of fabulous music by the Symphony, many of its members soloists, an exciting conductor, and a brilliant young French pianist, Cedric Tiberghein.

With the Wilco Solid Sound Festival taking a hiatus and the Clark Art Institute in the midst of construction and renovation it may prove to be a challenging summer for Mass MoCA. We discussed with Thompson how best to continue to grow cultural tourism through synergy among the arts organizations of the Berkshires. In the past two years the 6,000 visitors for the Wilco weekends brought much needed revenue to the region. We need more such initiatives. This is the final chapter of the dialogue with Thompson.

Unexpectedly Met audiences were treated to Sondra Radvanovsky as Aida; in announcing the new season, Mr. Gelb ignored the Levine problem; Chicago announces a world premier, and so it goes.

On an unseasonably mild February afternoon, during the off season, we sat with Mass MoCA director, Joe Thompson, for an in depth overview of his 25 years of developing the largest contemporary art museum in North America. In this first installment we discussed the beginnings and mandates for the 17 acre campus and its 650,000 square feet of "developable" space. We spoke on the record for an hour and a half then another hour after that. It is most unusual to spend that much time with a busy museum director.

We may be years away from the installation of a new Music Director at the BSO, but Nelsons presence at an important event, made me wonder.

As tickets go on sale for the 2012 Tanglewood season we are saddened to learn of the demise of the annual Tanglewood Jazz Festival. The BSO at a later date will announce plans for the now open slot of Labor Day Weekend. But it is encouraging to learn of new dates for jazz masters Chick Corea and Gary Burton as well as a date for bass player Christian McBride.

My foxy colleague Larry Murray of Berkshire On Stage caught us napping. He scoops the return of Blythe Danner to Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Catherine Russell, who has earned comparisons to jazz icons such as Ella Fitzgerald and Bessie Smith, will share her soulful blues on Saturday, February 18, at 8pm in MASS MoCA's Hunter Center in a concert sponsored by Amtrak.

In announcing a stunning, star studded program for the 35th season of Shakespeare & Company, now in his third season as artistic director, Tony Simotes provided indicators of what to expect in the future. This summer he will play his aces with former teacher and friend Olympia Dukakis in The Tempest. The company's homegrown star, John Douglas Thompson, returns after a hiatus in a new one man play Satchmo at the Waldorf.

For the 35th season of Shakespeare & Company there is a stunning contrast between the old- King Lear and the Tempest- and the new Satchmo at the Waldorf. Olympia Dukakis will play Prospero in The Tempest. In a play being written and developed by Wall Street Journal drama critic, Terry teachout, John Douglas Thompson returns to Lenox in a one man show focusing on jazz legend Louis Armstrong and his mobbed up manager Joe Glaser

It is that time of year when we look back at the highlights and insights of the past season. Take a deep breath and anticipate what lays ahead for 2012. There is much to remember as well as look forward to.

For the second season this summer there will be head to head musicals in Pittsfield. Berkshire Theatre Group has announced that A Chorus Line will be presented at the Colonial Theatre. While a few blocks away Barrington Stage will feature Fiddler on the Roof. Both theatre companies have yet to announce their complete summer season of plays and performances.

This vast restaurant on the main drag between Pittsfield and Lenox changes hands and food themes every couple of years. Tex Mex attracts drive by tourists during high season but is on life support during the winter months. In order to survive restaurants must attract a local audience to sustain year round. Significantly, during our disappointing visit the cavernous space was virtually empty.

It is heartening to think that people who love and make opera, even if they don't know what they are doing or saying, come up with dramas that heightened our every day. Rodelina at the Clark and Mahaiwe December 3rd, followed by Faust on December 10. Both poperas are bound to be fun.

Tanglewood, one of the world’s most beloved music festivals and the famed summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra located in the beautiful Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, celebrates its 75th anniversary season, June 22-September 2, with a spectacular lineup of musical guests and programs that spotlight Tanglewood’s rich tradition of presenting summertime concerts at their best since 1937.

In the process of scanning a vast archive of vintage jazz and rock images we came upon a album shot during the 25th anniversary party of the now off air WBCN. It jogged rusty rock memories. On hand were a heady mix of music celebrities from a golden age.

Over a number of years there have been annual collaborations between Jacob's Pillow and Mass MoCA. As a part of the Williamstown Film Festival the New England premiere of Never Stand Still, directed by Ron Honsa, was screened in the Hunter Center of Mass MoCA. The documentary film includes a sketch of the founding of the festival by Ted Shawn in 1941 as well as a collage of its diverse programming.

Meade make her mark in the Berkshires singing excerpts from Norma and I Lombardi last summer. If you hear her, you will never forget her. A big, glorious voice full of all the complex detail the style requires.