Dave Read

Marge Piercy reading at Berkshire Museum Aug. 15, 2008

The Amy Clampitt Poetry Series presents A Reading with Marge Piercy Friday, August 15 at the Berkshire Museum on South St. in Pittsfield, MA.

Marge Piercy is the author of 17 novels including Gone to Soldiers and the classic Woman on the Edge of Time, 17 volumes of poetry, and the memoir Sleeping with Cats.

Reading from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. Reception and book signing 6:35 to 7:30 p.m. $10 adults ($5 members), $5 students.

The Amy Clampitt Poetry Series is underwritten by the Amy Clampitt Fund. Established in 2001 by the poet’s late husband, Harold Korn, to benefit poetry and the literary arts, the Fund also sponsors six-month residencies for poets and writers at Clampitt’s former home in Stockbridge. The fund is an endowment of the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation. For more information about Amy Clampitt and the Amy Clampitt Fund, please visit www.amyclampitt.org.

2008 Tanglewood schedule – Week 5, Aug. 1 – 7

2008 Tanglewood Season Week 5
Main Festival Schedule

Friday, August 1, 6 p.m., Ozawa Hall
MEMBERS OF THE BOSTON SYMPHONY
XIN DING and CATHERINE FRENCH, violins
EDWARD GAZOULEAS and
KAZUKO MATSUSAKA, violas
MIHAEL JOJATU and OWEN YOUNG, cello
Prelude Concert
BRIDGE String Sextet
TCHAIKOVSKY Souvenir de Florence

Friday, August 1, 7 p.m., Shed
“This Week at Tanglewood” with Ira Siff
Friday, August 1, 8:30 p.m., Shed
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
PETER OUNDJIAN, conductor
JOSHUA BELL, violin
RAVEL Alborada del gracioso
CHAUSSON Poème, for violin and orchestra
SAINT-SAËNS Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, for violin and orchestra
MUSSORGSKY (orch. RAVEL) Pictures at an Exhibition

Saturday, August 2, 10:30 a.m., Shed
Open Rehearsal
Sunday program; pre-rehearsal talk at 9:30 a.m.

Saturday, August 2, 8:30 p.m., Shed
TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER ORCHESTRA
SIR ANDREW DAVIS, conductor
RENÉE FLEMING, soprano (Tatyana)
RAMÓN VARGAS, tenor (Lensky)
PETER MATTEI, baritone (Onegin)
EKATERINA SEMENCHUK, mezzo-soprano(Olga)
WENDY WHITE, mezzo-soprano (Larina)
BARBARA DEVER, mezzo-soprano (Filipyevna)
VITALIJ KOWALJOW, bass (Prince Gremin)
TONY STEVENSON, tenor (Triquet)
ALAN DUNBAR (TMC Fellow), bass (Zaretsky)
EVAN BOYER (TMC Fellow), bass (Captain)
TANGLEWOOD FESTIVAL CHORUS, JOHN OLIVER, conductor
The Leonard Bernstein Memorial Concert
TCHAIKOVSKY Eugene Onegin
Concert performance sung in Russian with English supertitles

Sunday, August 3, 2:30 p.m., Shed
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
CARLOS MIGUEL PRIETO, conductor
YO-YO MA, cello
The Serge and Olga Koussevitzky Memorial Concert
ALBÉNIZ (orch. ARBÓS) Suite from Iberia
LALO Cello Concerto
RACHMANINOFF Symphonic Dances

Sunday, August 5, 8:30 p.m., Shed
TANGLEWOOD ON PARADE
KEITH LOCKHART, JOHN WILLIAMS, HANS GRAF, SIR ANDREW DAVIS, and SIR ANDRÉ PREVIN, conductors
Tanglewood on Parade
RESPIGHI Fountains of Rome (GRAF/BSO)
BRITTEN Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes (Davis/TMCO)
BERNSTEIN Three Dance Episodes from On the Town (Keith Lockhart/Boston Pops)
WILLIAMS Elegy, for cello and orchestra (Martha Babcock, cello/John Williams/Boston Pops)
WILLIAMS Olympic Fanfare and Theme (Williams/Boston Pops)
TCHAIKOVSKY 1812 Overture (Previn/BSO/TMCO)
Fireworks follow the concert.

Thursday, August 7, 8 p.m., Ozawa Hall
TASHI:
PETER SERKIN, piano
IDA KAVAFIAN, violin
FRED SHERRY, cello
RICHARD STOLTZMAN, clarinet
JOSQUIN (recomp. WUORINEN) Ave Maria
MORLEY (recomp. WUORINEN) Christes Crosse
TAKEMITSU Quatrain II
MESSIAEN Quartet for the End of Time

TMC Schedule
Saturday, August 2, 2:30 p.m., Ozawa Hall
BOSTON UNIVERSITY TANGLEWOOD INSTITUTE YOUNG ARTISTS CHORUS
SCOTT ALLEN JARRETT, conductor
HONEGGER Le Roi David

Saturday, August 2, 6 p.m., Ozawa Hall
TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER FELLOWS
Prelude Concert
Music of CRUMB and RAN

Sunday, August 3, 10 a.m., Ozawa Hall
TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER FELLOWS
Chamber Music Concert
Music of BACH, BRAHMS, GRIEG, MESSIAEN, and STANLEY

Tuesday, August 5:
TANGLEWOOD ON PARADE
2:30 p.m., Ozawa Hall
TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER FELLOWS
Chamber Music Concert
Music of DRUCKMAN, GANDOLFI, and SCHUBERT
5 p.m., Ozawa Hall
TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER FELLOWS
Music for voice and piano
8 p.m., Shed
TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER FELLOWS
Brass fanfares

STATEMENT FROM THE BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ABOUT JAMES LEVINE

Boston Symphony Orchestra Managing Director, Mark Volpe, reported today that its Music Director, James Levine, was released from the hospital this past weekend. According to Mr. Volpe, Maestro Levine was hospitalized on Tuesday, July 15, for surgery to remove a growth in his kidney.

Tom Levine, James Levine’s brother, reported to Mr. Volpe that doctors “found the growth to be malignant, but it was very small and confined to the central area of his right kidney, which was then removed. Fortunately, as the growth was discovered early enough, it had not spread to the surrounding tissues, blood vessels, or lymph nodes.”

Doctors reported the surgery was completely curative and no further treatment is necessary. Tom Levine also stated that his brother was very relieved by the doctors’ report, is in very good spirits recuperating at home, and looks forward to conducting the opening events of the 2008/2009 seasons of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera in September. Maestro Levine is Music Director of both institutions.

Isamu Noguchi Foundation curator to speak at The Clark Art Institute

Bonnie Rychlak, curator of The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, will trace the career of Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) through his approach to the human figure on Sunday, August 3, at 3 pm, at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Admission to the lecture is free.

In her lecture “Noguchi and the Figure,” Rychlak explores Noguchi’s enduring use of the figure throughout his career to interpret and link his wide-ranging materials, techniques, styles, and concepts. Her examination will detail Noguchi’s use of extended metaphors to express the experiences of the human body and the physical relationship to the earth.

Although his later works in stone are increasingly viewed through his awareness of a Japanese aesthetic and his embracing of Zen principles, Rychlak provides a necessary understanding of Noguchi as an American artist who absorbed the traditions of Western modernism and spent the entirety of his career continually redefining his relationship to figuration.

Rychlak’s discussion will encompass Noguchi’s formative training in the representational tradition, the following decades of experimentation with form and material within the climate of abstraction and biomorphism, and the increasing influence of his work with public projects and spaces for social interaction on his sculpture.

Two figural sculptures by Noguchi, Kyoko-san and Personage I (Ningen I), both from 1984, on loan from the Noguchi Foundation, are on view outside the entrance of the new Stone Hill Center, designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, at the Clark.

The Clark is located at 225 South Street in Williamstown, MA. The galleries are open daily in July and August, 10 am to 5 pm (closed Mondays, September through June). Admission June 1 through October 31 is $12.50 for adults, free for children 18 and under, members, and students with valid ID. Admission is free November through May. For more information, call 413-458-2303 or visit www.clarkart.edu.

Review of The Violet Hour at Barrington Stage Co.

July 20, 2008 performance reviewed by Frances Benn Hall.

The basic idea behind Richard Greenberg’s The Violet Hour now playing at the Berkshire Stage Company is a fascinating one.

The Violet Hour at Barrington Stage Co.;photo:Kevin Sprague.

The action of the play takes place in the incredibly messy office of John (Austin Lysy) just back from WWI (that war they thought would end all wars); the time is April 1919. John’s father is going to back him, minimally, to become a publisher with enough to publish one book. He has advertised for scripts and been deluged with them, stacks and stacks of manuscripts lie everywhere.

Set designer Wilson Chin has not only gone all out on cluttered office, he has created the illusion that the dingy office is high up in a Manhattan loft with the back wall a great slant of windows that look out on the a lofty hotel (the Plaza?) across the street, all giving the feeling of being high above the city.

We soon learn that the deluge of scripts is not what John needs or wants. He already has two scripts he is eager to print. Both are memoirs.

The first is huge, (filling great boxes and obviously far longer than War and Peace.) Its author is Denny, (Brian Avers) best friend from his Princeton days, desperate to have it published because only his success can win for him the woman he loves, the beautiful Rosamund (Heidi Armbruster), a woman whose unusual laugh haunts him.

The second script is a much shorter one, written (she claims without ghostwriter) by the enchanting femme fatale Jesse (Opal Alladin), a gorgeous, mature, black singer with whom John is having an affair. At first glance one would think the play could evolve into a hilarious retake of Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma in which only one of two dying patients can be chosen for the treatment.

However the play is much more complex than that.

The fifth character Gidger (Nat DeWolf) is first aware that something much more significant than John’s difficult choice is going on. Gidger is only the put-upon office menial, but it is he who ultimately alerts John to the dreadful machine that, coming from nowhere, has landed in the outer office and is spewing out typed pages at an alarming rate. This awesome machine is brilliantly brought on-stage by the set, sound, and lighting crew who present it as great shadowed spinning wheels beyond the office door.

This situation and the five characters, all talented and winning actors, wonderfully garbed in 1919 regalia by Jessica Ford, spin about the stage in the first act, one written with witty dialog, strong character roles and a laugh a minute. We learn much about them which will become significantly important in the second act. The play seems to be an hilarious comedy and all is still joyous at intermission. Although put-upon, slighted Gidger is the only one to be sensing danger.

Act two, a longish one, is still to come and in it the hilarity vanishes. That great machine is printing out the future decades, the ways in which these five characters will be remembered in 1990, and the comic tone is gone from the play. The laughs are few or ironic (Gidger’s dog, a marvelous off-stage character who appears only at the beginning of act one, is the subject of many, wrongly attributed, typed pages.)

Thus, the whole tone of the play shifts to darkness – that comes after the violet hour? One becomes confused in this act as to the playwright’s intent. The future is not pretty. Gidger finds himself valiantly singing “Que Sera, sera” and wondering where the song comes from.

The future is not what was planned, not understood by future writers of this 1919 present.

The five actors, still trapped on stage in 1919 but having to face what the century will make of them, could give up, but they don’t. In the end, they are trooping off to see a 1919 play, the lost tickets for which the play began; a play in which they will know the ending when the play begins with the maid coming in to put flowers on the coffee table, but determined to enjoy it anyway.

And they hurry off not to miss the curtain. Herein probably lies the play’s theme.

This has been a difficult play to describe, the mood and tone shift from act one to act two having jolted, as probably the author intended. However, for me, the second act was too cluttered, needing streamlining. The author is talented, having written such moving scripts as Three Days of Rain, and director Barry Edelstein has seen that his actors present the play with grace, agility, even poignancy, as well as all the hilarity.

But the play in the second act tries to give us too much, a bit like the character Denny with his enormous script.

However, it is well worth seeing for its talented cast and excellent staging, but it is not an easy play to untangle despite all the talent that has gone into its making.

Barrington Stage Co. presents SONGS OF A NIGHT OWL

Barrington Stage Company Musical Theatre Lab presents:SONGS OF A NIGHT OWL; Nikos Tsakalakos Cabaret

At STAGE 2/VFW Hall
Thursday, July 24 at 9:30pm
Friday, July 25 at 9:30pm
Saturday, July 26 at 10:00pm
TICKETS $15, $20
413-236-8888
or online at
www.barringtonstageco.org

(PITTSFIELD, MA) SONGS OF A NIGHT OWL, an evening of original songs by the ridiculously talented singer-songwriter Nikos Tsakalakos, will take over BSC’s Stage 2 for a special three-night engagement at Stage 2/VFW Hall (36 Linden Street) on Thursday, July 24 at 9:30pm, Friday, July 25 at 9:30pm, and Saturday, July 26 at 10pm. Tickets are $15 Thursday, with tickets Friday and Saturday at $20.
Niko Tsakalakos inaugurated Barrington Stage Company’s Musical Theatre Lab’s Late Nite series last year with LATE NITE WITH NIKO. Dubbed ‘the Greek Neil Diamond’ by mentor William Finn, SONGS OF A NIGHT OWL features original songs by Nikos Tsakalakos inspired by Finn and songs he co-wrote with others.

SONGS OF A NIGHT OWL with Nikos Tsakalakos, features special guests Heath Calvert, Molly Ephraim, Demond Green and Alsyha Umphress. Jamming onstage with Niko are Music Director Brian Usifer on piano, Jeff Roberts on drums, and Jeff Link on bass.

Nikos Tsakalakos is a singer-songwriter from New Brunswick, NJ, who recently completed his MFA at NYU’s Musical Theatre Writing Program as a composer/lyricist. He received his BA in English Literature from Rutgers University, with an emphasis on creative writing/poetry. As drummer and lead vocalist, his band, Saint Friday, has played the Los Angeles circuit, including venues such as the Viper Room, the Roxy and the Troubadour. In LA, he spent two years at the Academy for New Musical Theatre, where he collaborated with various writers and singers. Niko is a two-time recipient of UCLA Writing Lyrics that Succeed and Endure Scholarship with Marty Panzer.