Pittsfield — The Berkshire Concert Choir and Artistic Director Ryan LaBoy will present “Sacred Place” on November 15 and 16 in the Common Room of Zion Lutheran Church in Pittsfield, offering an unusually intimate choral experience centered on ecological reflection, Jewish liturgical structure, and the idea of the Earth as a site of shared belonging. The 103-member ensemble will give three performances each day—at 3, 4:30, and 6 p.m.—with limited seating and a highly immersive staging design.
At the heart of the event is a new concert format that positions the audience inside the performance itself. Listeners will be seated around a labyrinth painted on canvas and invited to walk its pathways during selected portions of the program, aligning physical movement with the musical arc of contemplation, healing, and communal awareness. The approach reflects the guiding principle of “Sacred Place,” that the Earth functions simultaneously as sanctuary, teacher, and mirror and that music can prompt a renewed sense of connection—to land, to memory, and to one another.
The program draws inspiration from Jewish heritage and uses the outline of a Jewish service as its structural backbone, though none of the texts are traditional liturgical Hebrew. Instead, the featured work, Alex Berko’s “Sacred Place,” weaves together poems, letters, and reflections from American environmental writers and thinkers. The six movements—“Opening Prayer,” “Amidah,” “Shema,” “Mi Sheberach,” “Kaddish,” and “Closing Prayer”—are arranged for SATB choir, piano, violin, and cello and shift between meditative stillness and impassioned calls for awareness and care.
Guest artists Jamecyn Morey (violin), Julian Müller (cello), and Aaron Likness (piano) will join the chorus for the performances.
Berko describes the piece as a response to contemporary expressions of ecological anxiety and communal fragility. Rather than setting sacred texts, he combines Wendell Berry’s personal observations of nature, John Muir’s plea to Theodore Roosevelt to protect Yosemite, William Stafford’s poetic urgings to listen to the Earth, and a translated Mi Sheberach, traditionally a prayer for healing. A short line by Rabindranath Tagore anchors the Kaddish, treating sunset as a metaphor for remembrance. The result is a work that links environmental stewardship with spiritual attention, situating grief, responsibility, and renewal within a broadly accessible ritual frame.
Complementing Berko’s score are additional selections chosen to reinforce the evening’s themes of love, memory, and the natural world. These include Eric Whitacre’s settings of love songs, known for their rich harmonic textures, and Stephen Paulus’ “Hymn to the Eternal Flame,” a piece that evokes continuity and transcendence.
Zion Lutheran Church, itself a sacred space with its own history and traditions, becomes the setting for a musical offering built from another faith tradition, creating what LaBoy and the choir describe as a communal act of listening—one that crosses cultural boundaries and encourages personal introspection.
What I wrote about this ensemble a year ago is more appropriate than ever:
In troubled times, art and friendship reveal a healing power you might have missed. Focusing on beauty and clinging to trusted friends gets us through the worst. And when you see art and friendship combined, there is a good chance you are looking at a community of artists like Berkshire Concert Choir …
Zion Lutheran Church is located at 74 First Street in Pittsfield.
Advance tickets are strongly recommended due to limited capacity. More information is available here.
