BerkshireLinks

Dave Read

Tanglewood grounds map

The Tanglewood campus, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center comprises several hundred acres in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge. It is the location of the Koussevitsky Music Shed and Ozawa Hall, where hundreds of thousands attend concerts and a variety of events, including picnics. We always advise new visitors to arrive early and take their daily walking exercise wandering the beautiful Tanglewood grounds.

Getting around the Tanglewood campus

Here is a dynamic map of the Tanglewood grounds, with photos and information for such points of interest as Aaron Copland Library, Highwood Manor House, The Glass House, and The Lion’s Gate.

2016 Tanglewood tickets

Tickets for the 2016 Tanglewood season, $12-$124, go on sale January 24 starting at 10 a.m. through Tanglewood’s website, www.tanglewood.org, SymphonyCharge at 888-266-1200, and at the Symphony Hall Box Office at 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston MA. Tanglewood brochures with complete programs and information on how to order tickets will be available in early February by calling 617-638-9467. For further information, please call the Boston Symphony Orchestra at 617-266-1492 or visit www.tanglewood.org. 2016 Tanglewood schedule – PDF.

Tanglewood schedule Aug. 9, 2015

Nov. 26, 2014 Article by

On Sunday, Aug. 9, 2015, there are two concerts at Tanglewood. At 2:30 PM in the Koussevitzky Music Shed, Charles Dutoit conducts Mussorgsky, Wieniawski and Berlioz featuring violinist Joshua Bell.

  • Charles Dutoit, conductor
  • Joshua Bell, violin
  • MUSSORGSKY Night on Bald Mountain
  • WIENIAWSKI Violin Concerto No. 2
  • BERLIOZ Symphonie fantastique

Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax perform Beethoven Sonatas

Later that evening, the program will be Beethoven’s Complete Sonatas for Cello and Piano featuring Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax. This is a rare opportunity, featuring two of the world’s most celebrated musicians playing the work of perhaps the most important musician of all time!

Tanglewood schedule, brochures and tickets

Find out more about the Tanglewood schedule; brochures with complete programs and information on how to order tickets will be available in early February by calling 617-638-9467. For further information, please call the Boston Symphony Orchestra at 617-266-1492 or visit www.tanglewood.org.

How to get to the Berkshires

Follow this link for Berkshires travel information, including public transportation within Berkshire county and Amtrak and Peter Pan bus schedules.

Tanglewood grounds map

Tanglewood grounds mapHere is a dynamic map of the Tanglewood grounds, with photos and information for such points of interest as Aaron Copland Library, Highwood Manor House, The Glass House, and The Lion’s Gate.

Tanglewood schedule Aug. 12, 2015

Nov. 26, 2014 Article by

Christian Tetzlaff, the esteemed violinist, is scheduled to performs on a 8PM program Aug. 12, 2015 in Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood.

  • YSA?E Sonata in G minor for solo violin, Op. 27, No. 1
  • J.S. BACH Sonata No. 3 in C, BWV 1005
  • KURTÁG Excerpts from Signs, Games and Messages
  • BARTÓK Sonata for Unaccompanied Violin

Tanglewood tickets and 2015 season brochure

Tanglewood brochures with complete programs and information on how to order tickets will be available in early February by calling 617-638-9467. For further information, please call the Boston Symphony Orchestra at 617-266-1492 or visit www.tanglewood.org.

Tanglewood grounds map

Tanglewood grounds mapHere is a dynamic map of the Tanglewood grounds, with photos and information for such points of interest as Aaron Copland Library, Highwood Manor House, The Glass House, and The Lion’s Gate.

How to get to the Berkshires

Follow this link for Berkshires travel information, including public transportation within Berkshire county and Amtrak and Peter Pan bus schedules.

Williamstown Theatre Festival hiring for 2015

Dec. 9, 2014 Article by

Williamstown Theatre Festival is hiring for the 2015 season, announcing opportunities for performers, directors, writers, designers, technicians, and administrators at the celebrated dramatic arts venue in the Berkshires. Each summer roughly 250 aspiring theatre professionals are given a hands-on, fully immersive introduction to the world of professional theatre and work side by side with some of the top professionals in American theatre.

Among the luminaries who started their careers as part of Williamstown Theatre Festival’s training programs: Kate Burton, Dick Cavett, Patricia Clarkson, Jill Clayburgh, John Conklin, Tom Fontana, Jennifer Grey, Michael C. Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kate Hudson, Peter Hunt, Allison Janney, David Korins, Santo Loquasto, Gwyneth Paltrow, David Hyde Pierce, Christopher Reeve, Christian Slater, Kiefer Sutherland, George C. Wolfe, and many more.

Application deadlines are between January 15 and March 15, 2015. For more information and applications, please visit http://wtfestival.org/work-learn/.

Williamstown Theatre Festival tickets and Box office contacts

  • 1000 Main St. – Rt. 2
  • Williamstown, MA 01267
  • Box office – 413-597-3400
  • web: wtfestival.org

Williamstown Theatre Festival driving directions

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Watching Andris Nelsons conduct

Dec. 6, 2014 Article by

Reading the New Yorker is always an entertaining and edifying activity, and sometimes more, such as when I got a rush of sympatico from an article by Alex Ross in the Dec. 1, 2014 issue, Brushfires; Andris Nelsons energizes the Boston Symphony. The caption of the accompanying illustration reads, “On the podium, Nelsons, a galvanic young Latvian, lunges about uninhibitedly.” It remined me of my effort to describe Maestro Nelsons during his first Tanglewood concert since being named BSO Music director, the July 11, 2014 program featuring Anne-Sophie Mutter performing Dvorak’s Violin Concerto.
Anne-Sophie Mutter and Andris Nelsons perform Dvorak's Violin Concerto with the BSO (Hilary Scott)“There was a moment toward the end of the Violin concerto, with Ms. Muter at rest, when he almost stepped off the podium, crouching and reaching toward the violins to draw forth a soft passage. He left footprints and handprints all over the podium, like an animal marking territory.”

lexicon of the music critic

Being totally unschooled in the lexicon of the music critic, I’m pretty much left to write about the appearance of a concert, leaving the cognoscenti to describe how the music sounds in relation to how they think it should sound. Orchestras such as the Boston Symphony project a uniform, practically static image, which makes it easy for the conductor to be the focus of my attention, as he (and sometimes she) articulates his musical directives by way of gestures. And this gesticulation can range from eloquent to akward, from geriatric to gymnastic, from martial to manic.

In his New Yorker article, Ross says that “… Nelsons lunges about uninhibitedly, violating textbook rules about the wisdom of minimizing one’s gestures. I imagine that Boston players have already mastered imitations of his signature moves: the Backward Lean, the Extreme Crouch, the Trapeze Grab, the Across-the-Table Ice-Cream Scoop.”

So it is good to know that a respected music critic deems a conductor’s gesticulations worthy of more than a passing mention, and that the lexicon needn’t be staid. It feels like getting permission to be playful even while writing about highbrow stuff! Thanks to Alex Ross, I’ll take a stab at adding to the lexicon when Nelsons returns to Tanglewood next July.

[bctt tweet=”Watching Andris Nelsons conduct.”]

Christmas 2014 in the Berkshires

Dec. 5, 2014 Article by

The Berkshires at Christmas is something easily imagined, thanks especially to the nostalgia-inducing work of Norman Rockwell and the ubiquity of his painting Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas, which the Stockbridge Chamber of Commerce has appropriated into a destination weekend: December 5, 6 & 7, 2014.

A Christmas Carol at Pittsfield’s Colonial Theatre

A Christmas Carol at The Colonial Theatre, Pittsfield, MA; photo: Christina RileyA Christmas Carol, the Victorian story of Ebeneezer Scrooge by Charles Dickens and adapted by Eric Hill, runs at Pittsfield’s Colonial Theatre between Dec. 14 and Dec. 22. Tickets for A Christmas Carol are: Adults: $37 Children 16 and under: $27. The Christmas 2014 schedule at the Colonial also includes performances of The Nutcracker by the Albany Berkshire Ballet Saturday, December 6, 2014 at 2:30pm & 6:30pm, Sunday, December 7, 2014 at 1:30pm & 4:30pm.

Schedule for A Christmas Carol

  • Sunday, Dec. 14 at 2pm
  • Thursday, Dec. 18 at 7pm
  • Friday, Dec. 19 at 7pm
  • Saturday, Dec, 20 at 2pm and 7pm
  • Sunday, Dec. 21 at 2pm and 7pm
  • Monday, Dec. 22 at 7pm

Berkshire Museum Festival of Trees 2014

This Berkshire Museum’s Festival of Trees 2014, dubbed On Safari, is matches the museum’s current traveling exhibition, Lions & Tigers & Bears: Through the Lens with National Geographic, which features photographs by the magazine’s Michael Nick Nichols, Steve Winter, and Paul Nicklen.The Christmas tree show and Lions & Tigers & Bears will be on view from Saturday, November 15, through Sunday, January 4.

It’s A Wonderful Life at Shakespeare & Co.

At Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox, MA, the Christmas schedule is highlighted by the return of It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play. Running in the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre from December 5 through December 28, 2014, the production, directed by Jenna Ware, is an adaptation by Joe Landry based on the original radio script that was written by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra, and Jo Swerling.

Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center Dec. 2014 schedule

  • Close Encounters with Music – A HOLIDAY CELEBRATION, Best of the Baroque – Saturday, December 6th at 6pm
  • London’s National Theatre in HD: John, Sunday, December 14th at 3pm
  • London’s National Theatre in HD:Broadway’s Of Mice And Men, Saturday, December 20th at 7pm
  • Met Opera Live in HD: Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Sunday, December 21st at 12pm
  • Big Apple Circus in HD:METAMORPHOSIS – Tuesday, December 23rd at 6pm
  • A Holiday Celebration with John Pizzarelli and Jane Monheit, Saturday, December 27th at 8pm
  • Berkshire Bach Society, BACH at NEW YEARS, “A Blast of Brass,” Wednesday, December 31st at 6pm

MASS MoCA Dec. 2014 schedule

  • Sundance Theatre Lab: Throw Me on the Burnpile and Light Me Up, Saturday, December 6, 8pm
  • Hari Kondabolu, Saturday, December 13, 8pm
  • Winter Break at the ArtBar; Saturday, December 26, 2014 – Thursday, January 1, 2015

Clark Art Institute tickets contact information

  • 225 South Street – Williamstown, MA 01267
  • 413-458-2303
  • Galleries open daily – Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.
  • web: clarkart.edu

The Colonial Theatre tickets contact information

Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center tickets contact information

  • 14 Castle Street – Great Barrington, MA 01230
  • Box Office: 413-528-0100
  • Mahaiwe.org

MASS MoCA tickets contact information

  • 87 Marshall St.; North Adams, MA 01247
  • Fall, Winter, Spring Hours: 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. closed Tuesday
  • Phone: 413.MoCA.111
  • Web: massmoca.org

Berkshire Museum tickets contact information

  • 39 South Street, Pittsfield, MA 01201
  • 413-443-7171
  • Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.;Sun. 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.
  • Closed Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day
  • Berkshire Museum

Berkshire Theatre Festival tickets contact information

  • PO Box 797, Stockbridge, MA 01262
  • Box Office – 413-298-5576 ext. 33
  • website: BerkshireTheatre.org

Shakespeare & Company tickets contact information

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