Tanglewood

James Levine has given so much joy and musical pleasure during his tenure at the Metropolitan Opera. A musician of the highest order, we have all appreciated his insights. No one can replace him. But Fabio Luisi, a classically trained conductor who started as a pianist and accompanist, clearly can convey composers' intent and musicians' best efforts. He will start his new position at the Met this fall. Berkshire Fine Arts has covered him this season.

Acclaimed actors Robert De Niro, Ed Harris, and Morgan Freeman give life to the words of John, Robert, and Edward Kennedy, respectively, when they join conductor Keith Lockhart, the Boston Pops Orchestra, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus for the world premiere performance of The Dream Lives On: A Portrait of the Kennedy Brothersâ€"the centerpiece of the Boston Pops 125th anniversary season celebrationâ€"on May 18, at 8 p.m. (repeated on May 19), at Symphony Hall in Boston, MA

Celebrating the 8oth Birthday of God, AKA Stephen Sondheim, there are many productions for audiences to chose from. The biography and review, with Sondheim appearing in video clips, Sondheim on Sondheim, has opened on Broadway. It features a lively cast headlining Barbara Cook, Vanessa Williams and Tom Wopat. In the Berkshires productions of Sweeney Todd will open at Barrington Stage Company while A Funny Thng Happened on the Way to the Forum will be presented at Williamstown Theatre Company. The dueling musicals open on Fourth of July weekend.

Roll Over Beethoven. Yes, rock is coming back to Tanglewood this summer. Well, kindah, with Crosby, Stills and Nash on September 1. Mid season jazz pianist Herbia Hancock will appear on August 9.

On paper the Boston Symphony Orchestra has planned a full and ambitious season. October 2, when James Levine leads an all-Wagner program with Bryn Terfel on opening night, we will know whether this is wishful thinking. The health of the 66 year Levine impacts not just the BSO but the Metropolitan Opera and the coming season at Tanglewood. For the past three years there has been a scramble to find conductors for concerts he has dropped out of. This grueling schedule assumes his full recovery from yet another surgery,

Rock fans in the Berkshires just got a shot in the arm. Wilco, the Chicago band that blew the roof off of Tanglewood two summers ago, will give two performances at Mass MoCA during the Solid Sound Festival from August 13-15. Far out. The weekend of music, art, and interactive events will feature Wilco's only East Coast performance this summer.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall performed Mendelssohn's glorious oratorio, Elijah. It was presented with a cast worthy of Cecil B. de Mille. It featured the orchestra, a chorus of 110 voices, four principal soloists and five ensemble soloists. The musician count does not itself make a memorable evening, but this one surely did. Maestro de Burgos, substituted for an ailing James Levine.

In 2008, with $8 million in debt and missed payments, Berkshire Bank initiated foreclosure on Edith Wharton's Lenox estate The Mount. Under executive director, Susan Wissler, that debt has been reduced to $5.1 million with an annual budget of $2 million. The Mount is about to launch a new season with expanded programming. While The Mount is back on track it faces daunting challenges.

The San Francisco Symphony presented the premier of Post-Scriptum by Victor Kissine, which brought the house down. This was followed by Christian Tetzlaff playing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major with intelligence and passion.

Chronic back pain will cause Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor and artistic director, James Levine, to end his season in Boston. This year he has been absent for 22 performances or 60 % of his schedule. Jayce Ogren will lead the world premiere of Peter Lieberson's Songs of Love and Sorrow March 25, 26, and 27. The following week, April 1, 2, and 3 in Boston, and April 5 at Carnegie Hall in New York, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos will conduct Mendelssohn's Elijah. The conductor for the world premiere of John Harbison's Double Concerto for violin and cello on a program with Mahler's Seventh Symphony, April 8, 9, and 10, will be announced.

The soprano Dawn Upshaw, first vocalist to win a MacArthur genius award for her promotion of new composers, and the infinitely apt pianist Emanuel Ax performed Chopin, Schumann and former poet laureate Billy Collin's Piano Teacher poems set to music by Stephen Prutsman. They brought extraordinary musicality to this performance.

Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15 opened the program for the New York Philharmonic. Second up on the program conducted by Riccardo Muti was a symphony composed by Paul Hindemith, composed for Serge Koussevitsky during Tanglewood's first season.

Compared to other Berkshire theatre companies it seems that Barrington Stage plays it safe in running the hits. This season opening with Sweeney Todd. But Julianne Boyd in a recent interview responded that it just smart business in a tough economy. She takes pride in developing six productions that have moved on to New York. She is also excited by the cultural renaissance and economic development in Pittsfield.

In a great Boston tradition the Pops will open its 125th season at Symphony Hall on May 4. Keith Lockhart will conduct. A richly varied program continues through June 20. An evening of Pops will launch the Carole King James Taylor Tanglewood love in on Friday, July 2. A number of concerts have already sold out.

Back in the day the Berkshire Museum, the oldest in the region, collected everything from soup to nuts. The museum's director, Stuart Chase, is challenged to find projects drawn from a vast collection of 30,000 objects. The interactive exhibitions are fun for families and instructive for 13,000 annual visiting students.

In what has become a season ending Labor Day Weekend event the 2010 Tanglewood Jazz Frestival will wail in Lenox on Saturday and Sunday, September 4 & 5. John Pizzarelli, his Dad, Bucky, and wife Jessica Molaskey will kick it off at 2 pm with a live broadcast of their popular "Radio Deluxe." Perhaps like last year, Kurt Elling will fall by to scat with John. He is featured that night.

The 2010 Tanglewood season will start with a blokbuster Fourth of July weekend featuring Keith Lockhart and the Pops on Friday, with James Taylor and Carole King on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. And that's just the beginning. Tickets go on sale February 14

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Dutch early music specialist Ton Koopman leads a program of 18th- and 19th-century works by Haydn, C.P.E. Bach, and Schubert January 6-12. In addition to conducting the BSO from the podium, Mr. Koopman leads the orchestra from the harpsichord in a performance of Haydn's Symphony No. 98, which features harpsichord obbligato. One of Mr. Koopman's close collaborators, Yo-Yo Ma, joins him and the orchestra as the soloist in Haydn's Cello Concerto No. 1.