Victoria Bond is a composer who has experimented with many styles.  Over the years she has worked with Dr. Paul Barnes, a pianist and Greek Orthodox chanter, developing Illuminations on Byzantine Chant. Barnes had hoped to capture the wide emotional range and spiritual message of Orthodox Christianity,  Bond is captivated by this mystical world.

Dreamgirls features a predictable show biz story about the career of a successful entertainer, in this case, a girl singing group, first called the Dreamettes.  It is also the story of a ruthless young man (Curtis) who will control, lie, manipulate, and cheat to achieve his aims. When he hurts or destroys someone, his response “It’s business.”

As the New York Times reported on December 17, “When (Romy) Golan arrived at Koons’s 10th Avenue studio in New York last winter for her interview, she said she was asked to sign a filming release giving the artist the right to “view and approve any footage, still images and/or promotional material that are proposed for use.” Golan had no plans to film her interview or take photographs but signed the release." Koons effectively killed the story in Brooklyn Rail.

On the cusp of WWII David Smith created a series of fifteen, dinner plate scaled, bronze relief sculptures. A gift from his estate fourteen bronzes and one on extended loan have been donated to the Harvard Art Museums. There is irony that Medals of Dishonor are displayed on a campus engulfed in responses to inappropriate remarks by its President, Dr Claudine Gay, before Congress. Under pressure she has resigned. Because of war, and atrocities on both sides in Israel and Gaza, both Jewish and Islamic students proclaim that they do not feel safe on college campuses.

The film Maestro reminds us that classical music can be accessible to a wide audience. This is not because the film makes the music accessible. In fact, Bradley Cooper conducting is a bad joke. You wonder what Yannick  Nezet-Seguin, credited with teaching the actor to conduct, was doing.

Plagiarism has been very much in the news.  Even the recent president of Harvard has been under the gun. And yet there seems to be no firm guidelines to instruct non-academics and even academics as to how to spot evidence of plagiarism.  What follows is a meditation on plagiarism and how to avoid it.

Elle, a shallow but genuine and smart fashionista obsessed with the color pink, is dumped by her status seeking boyfriend who is off to Harvard Law School. Surprisingly (and true, except the law school was Stanford in real life), Elle insinuates an acceptance as well. Her presence provides humorous contrast to the staid environment.

Doomed by progeria, a condition that ages the carrier at 4 1/2 times the normal rate, Kimberly turns 16. Her chronological age corresponds to age 72 given this condition, meaning that she probably has little time left in her life. Nonetheless, she attends to daily activities like any other school kid. But her working class parents are loose cannons, and a grifter aunt who insinuates herself into the household develops a get-rich-quick scheme that is anything but normal.

The Dahls raised their children in the "Christian way," and Christmas homecoming celebrated by food and song is a great family tradition. But as adults the four offspring have deviated from the parents' hopes - among them a lesbian, a pathological believer, a recovering addict, and a lost sheep. When singing together, they seem the idyllic family, but when the music stops, the fractures appear. Despite the holiday setting, this is not a Christmas play.

With great sorrow, the Boston Symphony Orchestra announces the death of its beloved Music Director Laureate, Seiji Ozawa. The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s longest-serving conductor, holding the title of Music Director for 29 years (1973–2002), Maestro Ozawa died February 6, 2024, in Tokyo. He was 88 years old.

Harry Bartnick is a realist painter whose modernist aesthetic is deeply rooted in traditions of classicism. He refreshes and refines his vision through annual visits to Europe particularly the ruins of Italy. In recent years that has evolved into aerial depictions of nature ravaged by industrial and residential development. While framed as environmental commentary the works have an uncanny beauty that evoke a range of responses. Following a template, the artist has launched a website for his extensive and unique oeuvre.

Barrington Stage Company’s Black Voices Matter Program is proud to present “Black History: Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future” on Monday, February 26 at 6:00pm at the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center (36 Linden St.)  

The Boston Pops’ 138th season opens on May 10 and 11 with one of the great entertainers of our time, Harry Connick Jr., singing American Songbook classics. Returning to the Pops for the first time since 2001, Connick performs in what will be the 35th anniversary year of the release of the When Harry Met Sally soundtrack that earned him his first Grammy Award and went multi-platinum. He joins Maestro Lockhart, who is in his 29th year leading the Pops, making him its second longest-serving conductor since the Pops was founded in 1885, after Arthur Fiedler. 

The playwright points out that sanitation people often feel “invisible” to the people whose garbage they pick up. In the same way, both Marlowe and Danny feel they have become invisible.

The Future Lab (s) Gallery, 43 Eagle Street, in North Adams, Massachusetts, is currently inviting to the closing event of their 'Glow Ocean' exhibition on Friday, March 27, from 6 to 8 p.m. The show will be open one final time on Saturday, 3/28, from 1-3 p.m, so that protesters from North Adams and other visitors can still experience this immersive glow show. The 3rd NO KINGS DAY! is happening in all 50 Sates of the USA on Saturday, March 28, 2026

Palm Beach Dramaworks delivers an award-worthy production of "Death of a Salesman." The company's mounting of Arthur Miller's masterpiece runs through April 20.

Julia Bullock has made a big opera career outside conventional wisdom. At the Aix Festival in Provence this year she sang Olivier Messiaen's Harawi, a challenging work to which she brings unusual insights.

Kirill Serebrennikov, the brilliant Russian director, brought The Nose to Munich via Zoom. He is detained by the Russian government in Moscow. The production is superb.

The play opens with Dr. Pap addressing a classroom – the audience.  The content of the lecture is unimportant, yet those brief moments absolutely hook the viewer.  There is no waiting to get involved with the story line. 

n Philip Glass’s adaptation of a trilogy of Cocteau films to opera (the others being “Orphée” and “Les Enfants Terribles,” both previously produced by Opera Parallèle), the composer saved his most imaginative treatment for this most uncommon love story. 

Jeremy Denk is a world class pianist and writer. Recently he performed Bach violin sonatas with a magnificent young violinist, Maria Wloszczowska at the 92nd Street YMCA in New York. 

Covid delayed the opening of Artists of the Thursday Chinese Dinner Group by two years. It was worth the wait with a tasty buffet dinner on opening night at Berkshire Art Museum in downtown North Adams. The former church houses the Barbara and Eric Rudd Art Foundation, Most of the church displays a permanent installation of his work. The three levels of the tower galleries has a lively display of works by diners and artists.

Repertorio Espanol presents big theater in a compact space. Productions are often not only intense but sprawling in their content. The trick of compacting large stories in a small space is one of the company’s specialties. Eva Luna, Caridad Svich’s apt dramatization of Isabel Allende's big third novel, gives ample opportunity to display these skills.

First annual Bousquet Fazz Festival is free. Thursday June 30 at the base of Bousquet Ski slopes in Pittsfield.

A powerful production of "The Year of Magical Thinking" is running through June 26 at GableStage in Coral Gables (suburban Miami). In "The Year of Magical Thinking," author and journalist Joan Didion recounts the year following her husband's sudden death. The basis for the play adaptation of "The Year of Magical Thinking" is the award-winning memoir by Joan Didion.