Tanglewood

Hot Tuna Blues sizzled at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. It launched a busy Valentine celebration in the Berkshires. Barrington Stage is presenting a weekend long V Day Cabaret. Shakespeare & Company is opening a winter run of Mystery of Irma Vep. Williamstown Theatre Festival announces its season on Friday and hosts a reading of a Neal Simon play on Monday at the Clark. The Met Live in HD will screen Nixon in China on Saturday at the Mahaiwe, Beacon and Clark. Here's looking at you sweetheart.

Larry Murray moved from promoting the Pocket Mime to the BSO and Boston Ballet. He also worked with the legendary opera promoter Sarah Caldwell. He was on duty and fielded the press calls when his friend Arthur Fiedler passed away. In this second installment Murray describes his early years in theatrical marketing and PR.

In this installment, rural critic, Charles Giuliano, and metropolitan critic, Greg Book of the weekly, Boston Phoenix, compare and contrast issues of covering their arts communities. A primary difference is how the arts in the Berkshires are integral to driving the cultural economy. Cook comments on an uneasy relationship between museums and the community of local artists.

Initially, Larry Murray and Charles Giuliano divided coverage of the four major Berkshire theatre companies as well as the Colonial and Mahaiwe. Murray retired to the Berkshires after a long career as a publicist and marketing specialist for a range of organizations including the BSO, Boston Ballet, and Sarah Caldwell's Opera Company. He started his own blogs Arts America and Gay in the Berkshires. Last season he left BFA to focus on a new site Berkshire on Stage. This is the first of several dialogues about his career in the arts and an overview of the critical condition.

The connection between Mozart and Mahler is not immediately apparent, but both pieces chosen for Sunday afternoon's program concern farewells. Mozart's Posthorn Serenade celebrated the end of the school year and the departure of students. Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, the deep sense that the composer had little time to live. Mozart's goodbye was full of musical puns and play, aptly captured by the Maestro and orchestra. The Mahler was sung wrenchingly as the orchestra both set the tone and enriched the songs. The sound at Carnegie is of course incomparable.

From 1967 to 1970 Steve Nelson produced rock and blues shows at The Boston Tea Party, The Woodrose Ballroom in South Deerfield, MA and Paramount Theatre in Springfield, MA. Now he is a co-founder of the Music Museum Of New England. Charles Giuliano was art director and then music critic for Boston After Dark, which became The Boston Phoenix. They spoke about the Museum and the music scene back in the day. This is the first of four parts of their conversation.

The Wilco Solid Sound Festival is set for June 24 to 26 at Mass MoCA. Tanglewood launches its season the following Fourth of July weekend with three dates for perennial favorite James Taylor. In a surprise move Tanglewood has announced a prequel to the Taylor weekend. It will present the vintage soul group Earth Wind and Fire on Saturday, June 25, while Wilco will rock in North Adams. What gives?

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame bands Earth, Wind, and Fire and Steely Dan are being added to the 2011 Tanglewood season line-up. Earth, Wind, and Fire will perform on Saturday, June 25, at 7 p.m. in the Koussevitzky Music Shed as part of the band’s 40th anniversary tour. Steely Dan will perform on Tuesday, July 26 at 7 p.m. in the Shed. Tickets for both events go on sale February 6, 2011.

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival will present more than 160 ticketed and free dance performances by companies from Argentina, Cuba, Canada, France, Germany, Norway, South Korea, Switzerland, and across the United States. Executive Director Ella Baff has crafted an international festival of dance, music, and the visual arts spanning three months and including six world premieres, seven U.S. premieres, five engagements with live music, three U.S. company debuts, and more than 300 total ticketed and free events, talks, performances, classes, and tours.

Now that we have slogged through the Holidays there is a lot of new theatre and music to enjoy. This month Huntington Theatre opens Ruined. Over in Cambridge ART focuses on visionary architect R. Buckminster Fuller. Emerson has a range of events at its Majestic and Paramount theatres. We have tips and links for information and tickets.

Mass MoCA can be such a tease. They have been so coy about admitting that the Wilco inspired Solid Sound Festival will return this year in June. It's still not official but mark your calendar for June 24 to 26. Better start making travel plans and hotel reservations asap. North Adams is sure to be swamped with Wilco fans.

Tony Simotes, the artistic director of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, announces and comments on the program for the 2011-2012 season. A highlight that opens the season is the series Women of Will with Tina Packer and Nigel Gore. The epic project will be presented in five segments covering the entire arc of the works of Shakespeare.

People still yearn to sit in a darkened theater with an audience -- to laugh and cry and applaud together. The marvels of technology now bring premier events from the world over to our backyards. The ticket prices are reasonable and the productions first rate.

For most of us right now its jingle bells. With the announcement of the 2011 Tanglewood schedule this week, however, Berkshire arts organizations are hard at work planning a fast launch to the season on the Fourth of July. But, like Abbott and Costello, come summer, let's hope they aren't wondering about "who's on first." There is desperate need for branding, pooled resources, and a marketing strategy for the Berkshires.

Once again James Taylor will be featured with four concerts at Tanglewood this summer. From an all-Italian Opening Night Boston Symphony Orchestra program under the direction of James Levine on July 8, four appearances by living legend Yo-Yo Ma, a Boston Pops Cole Porter tribute led by Keith Lockhart, and the incredibly popular Film Night with John Williams, to the welcome returns of Itzhak Perlman and Christoph Eschenbach and special appearances by favorite artists Joshua Bell, Stephanie Blythe, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Christoph von Dohnányi, Kurt Masur, and Peter Serkin to the closing BSO performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony under the direction of Lorin Maazel,

Our Boston arts and entertainment correspondent has been making a list and checking it twice. There is a lot of fun for the whole family on tap for the holiday season. Barbara Brilliant once again provides a cheat sheet to the best and brightest offerings and convenient links to the box office.

At the end of the summer of 1968, having published several issues of Avatar, David Wilson and Charles Giuliano parted to pursue new options. For a time they again collaborated publishing a newsletter/ fanzine The WAG Newsletter. They were involved in the music business as critics, publicists, and broadcasters. Eventually, they pursued academic interests, Art History, for Giuliano, and Psychology for Wilson. A couple of years ago they connected and are again working together on projects such as this.

There is a domino impact for the arts in the Berkshires with the merger, over the next year, of the Colonial Theatre and the Berkshire Theatre Festival. A more dynamic Colonial increases the critical mass and leadership of Pittsfield as the matrix and hub of the arts and cultural economy. It is equidistant from the boundaries of the region that represent more than an hour to drive from one end to the other. Strengthening the thriving arts community in Pittsfield changes the paradigm for the region. It increases the potential for synergy or competition.

Recently, the California collectors Sonny and Gloria Kamm visited Pittsfield during a national search for a museum to partner with housing their collection. Over 30 years they acquired 10,000 vintage and contemporary tea pots. Some of them through Pittsfield Gallerist Leslie Ferrin. She hosted a reception in their honor. Today, she and Stuart Chase, director of the Berkshire Museum, announced that the collection will not come to Pittsfield.

The sixth annual Pittsfield CityJazz Festival will run from October 8 to 21. There will be lots of free events as well as ticketed concerts at the Crowne Plaza and Colonial Theatre. There is also a vital educational component with performances and jazz history in local schools. Over ribs and corn bread we talked with organizer Ed Bride about his life long passion for jazz.

In this hilarious production of Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound the director, Jonathan Croy, has let a brilliant cast off the leash. Much of the humor of this production reaches well beyond the witty, convoluted script of Stoppard. The actors have been encouraged to improvise creating wonderfully inventive physical comedy. There is so much slap stick and flinging about that the cast must be black and blue during the run of this must see show.

With three days of programming the arts and the creative community were underplayed in the recent Berkshire Forum. Although the arts are a major employer and drive the economy of the Berkshires just one session was devoted to this essential agenda. The too few seats at the table excluded any representatives from the four major theatre companies, or even Jacob's Pillow. Mass MoCA director Joe Thompson was included in another panel where he commented on the important Wilco Festival this summer.

The founders of the first Berkshire Forum Tina Chase and Mary Collins George intend to move forward with planning next year. Despite a thin attendance for the three days of lectures, panels and performances they report nearly breaking even. A daunting range and depth of information and insights was provided. It evoked expanding and redefining the branding of the Berkshires. A highlight among many was the dialogue with Boston Globe editor Martin Baron.

During the recent, season ending, Tanglewood Jazz Festival we spoke with Mark Volpe, the managing director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He has had his hands full, yet again, with another medical absence by maestro, James Levine. Despite the concerns of some classical critics regarding the continuity and consistency of the orchestra, for the most part, the season has been successful. Even magical. But regarding non-classical programming, of which there is very little in the program, he was quoted making harsh remarks in the Berkshire Eagle. We asked him about that and were surprised but guardedly pleased by his response.

Day two of the annual Tanglewood Jazz Festival. A change in the weather brought out a great crowd on the lawn for the afternoon concert. It headlined the Count Basie Orchestra with Eddie Daniels and Bob James featuring their Broadway Boogie. This closes the season in Lenox.