Aso O. Tavitian of New York City and Stockbridge, Mass., passed away on April 21, 2020 after his courageous battle with cancer, with his loving wife Isabella Meisinger at his side.
Tag: Close Encounters with Music
Bits & Bytes: Du Bois Legacy Festival; ‘Grand Piano Trios’; author talk at Lee Library; ‘Potluck & a Play’
This year, the program centers around Du Bois’ commitment to progressive education.
PREVIEW: Borromeo Quartet Dec. 14 at the Mahaiwe
Reading music notation from a tablet or laptop isn’t terribly unusual. But doing it with handwritten scores? That is something else altogether, especially when you’re trying to decipher Ludwig van Beethoven’s horrific penmanship.
Bits & Bytes: Holiday Handcraft Fair; ‘Under Pressure’ screening; Cedric Watson at Dewey Hall; ‘Three Gentlemen of Vienna’; free children’s books
Created by the class of 2019 at Four Rivers Charter Public School in Greenfield, “Under Pressure” covers the September 2018 Merrimack Valley Columbia Gas explosions and the natural gas industry in Massachusetts and nationally.
Bits & Bytes: Clinton Church restoration kickoff; ‘Kohelet’ at the Mahaiwe; ‘Creative Aging’ on Beacon Hill; STEAM Challenge Night; Red Cross blood drives
Close Encounters With Music will kick off its 2019-20 season Sunday, Oct. 27, with the American premiere of Andre Hajdu’s ‘Kohelet’ for four cellos narrated by film, stage and television actor Sam Waterston.
Bits & Bytes: High Peaks Festival; ‘FRACTURED DREAMS’ debut; ‘Compass: A Horror Play’; ‘Uncertainty’ at the Mahaiwe; Tschabalala Self at Art Omi
WAM Theatre has announced a Berkshire County tour of “FRACTURED DREAMS,” a collaborative devised production between WAM’s new Elder Ensemble and its Teen Ensemble.
A revelatory encounter with family, folk and fantasy: Hanani’s merry band brings Suk and Dvorak to the Mahaiwe
After the excited, powerful statement of the second theme in the Dvorak quintet, the movement took flight as a plane from the runway, and the two violins were as wings lifting the ensemble up and up.
Bits & Bytes: Stockbridge Festival Chorus spring concert; Drucker plays Bach; Ted Rosenthal Trio at Berkshire Museum; Tamar Muskal in Hillsdale; Berkshire Children’s Chorus house concert
Violinist Eugene Drucker will perform the concert on his Stradivarius, which was made in 1686, the year after Bach was born.
Bits & Bytes: American Brass Quintet at The Mahaiwe; ThinkFOOD conference; Jill Soloway at Williams; Bring It to the Light Music Festival
The ThinkFOOD conference’s theme, “Berkshire Pollinators,” embraces the community’s interest in bees and pollination, and will also showcase local food entrepreneurs whose ideas can inspire innovation in other communities.
Bits & Bytes: Troika al la Russe’ at the Mahaiwe; ‘Resisting Repression’ at Mason Library; Race Mountain Spring Banquet; rabies, microchip clinic
The talk is the first sponsored by the W. E. B. Du Bois Legacy Committee as well as the first in a series of lectures by UMass visiting scholars, co-sponsored by the town of Great Barrington and UMass.
Bits & Bytes: ‘Animals of the North’; ‘Haydn Seek’ at Saint James Place; neuroscience lecture at Simon’s Rock; ‘ESCAPE’ art talk; ‘Agriculture as the Heart of Environmentalism’
Three Haydn string quartets, including his “Joke” Quartet, will provide an evening of ambiguous beginnings and fake-out endings, mismatched dialogues between instruments, misunderstandings, musical pratfalls, pretend memory lapses, and digressions.
Bits & Bytes: Festive Frolic; ‘Marzipan and the Trout’; Berkshire Waldorf High School art show; invasive fish talk; 100 Cats for Christmas
A landmark of classical music, Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet weaves a net of enchantment with its catchy melodies and fresh exuberance.
Bits & Bytes: ‘The Sound of the Trumpet’; ‘A Pilgrimage of Hope’; Clark on Haydn; ‘Decision Height’ at Miss Hall’s
In her talk, Caryl Clark will provide a window into the breadth and greatness of Haydn’s work: his music as well as the changing social, cultural and political spheres in which he studied and worked.
REVIEW: A Close Encounter with…Rossini
Close Encounters With Music launches its 2018-19 season with a festive celebration of the Italian composer and great gourmet Rossini.
Bits & Bytes: ‘A Rossini Extravaganza!’; ‘Picture This’ at Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary; ‘Bears in the Berkshires’; senior balance classes
In his 45-minute talk at Dewey Hall, Max Galdos-Shapiro will dive into the natural history and current status of the American black bear.
High Peaks Festival moves to Berkshires, explores ‘The French-Russian Connection’
For the ninth year, an international group of violinists, violists, cellists and pianists will converge for intensive instrumental study and chamber music coaching with distinguished faculty during Close Encounters With Music’s High Peaks Festival, this year being held at Berkshire School in Sheffield, Mass.
Bits & Bytes: Hilltown Open Studio Tour; ‘A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud.’ screening; CEWM solstice party; mill history talk; Greenagers to dedicate garden beds
Using photos of the 19th-century mills and factories, historian John Dickson will reveal the story of the people who harnessed the power of streams and rivers to make a living for their families.
PREVIEW: Close Encounters With Music – Lenny at 100 – June 9, 2018
Saturday’s program is perfect for anyone unfamiliar with Bernstein’s music who looks forward to hearing it at Tanglewood this summer.
REVIEW: Close Encounters With Music: ACRONYM Baroque String Band – May 12, 2018
By sheer force of beauty, ACRONYM makes uninitiated listeners fall in love with music they’ve never heard before and know nothing about.
PREVIEW: ACRONYM Baroque String Band at Close Encounters with Music
The Baroque period inspired many imposters, including composers with sufficient skill to fool some of the most discriminating listeners of their day.
PREVIEW: Trios by Mendelssohn and Smetana (as you’ve never heard them before)
Two extraordinary young prodigies play Mendelssohn and Smetana this Sunday at the Close Encounters concert at the Mahaiwe.
Bits & Bytes: ‘Cellblock Visions: Prison Art in America’; Lubchenco at Bennington College; ‘Russian and Soviet Film Music’ at the Mount; ‘QWERTY’ at Mixed Company
In her lecture, Lubchenco will draw on her four years as the under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Business Briefs: High Peaks Festival moves to Berkshires; housing trust offers assistance loans; Williams College appoints new chaplain; Berkshire Children & Families promotes two; BTCF spring grant deadlines
Less than a year after its formation, the Great Barrington Affordable Housing Trust Fund now has a total of $50,000 to lend to qualified first-time homebuyers.
Bits & Bytes: ‘Love Triangles’ at the Mahaiwe; Jacob’s Pillow Fellowship; Berkshire Grown Spring Supper; Morgan Jerkins at Bennington College
Berkshire Grown’s Spring Supper features the talents of chefs from around the world who have made their homes in the Berkshire region.
REVIEW: Close Encounters with Music: Baroque at Saint James Place
The main draw for this show was countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, who delivered exactly what the crowd had come to hear: a vocal sound of inexplicable beauty combined with equally remarkable interpretive skill.
Bits & Bytes: W.E.B. Du Bois 150th anniversary celebration; ‘A Close EnCountertenor’; community poetry night; ‘The Global Impact of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony’
UMass professor Whitney Battle-Baptiste and Du Bois’ great-grandson Jeffrey Peck will emcee the event, which will also include a short film of the dedication of the W.E.B. Du Bois National Historic Site, a spoken-word performance and a dance piece.
PREVIEW: Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen – February 24, 2018
A countertenor’s full-bodied vocal timbre is distinctive and immediately recognizable even if you don’t know what to call it.
Bits & Bytes: ‘Souvenir de Florence;’ ‘St. Ann Sings!”; HeatSmart at GB Green Drinks; David Scribner at Lenox Library; Berkshire Highlanders open house
HeatSmart Mass, a community-based education and group-purchasing program for clean heating and cooling technologies, will offer bulk discounts on renewable heating and cooling technologies.
Bits & Bytes: Bach cantata concert; ‘The Politics of Opera;’ Mae Jemison at Williams; Holiday Handcraft Fair
Mitchell Cohen’s talk ‘The Politics of Opera’ will underscore the political dimensions of libretti and ideological elements of opera.
REVIEW: Schumann, Brahms piano quintets: Truly titanic performances at Close Encounters with Music
It’s safe to say that if these quintets are not major pinnacles of chamber music, then Beethoven was a Saint Bernard, and Schubert is a frozen dessert.
Bits & Bytes: BHS’ 25th birthday bash; ‘The Titans’ at the Mahaiwe; ‘Real Talk Time for Parents;’ Berkshire opioid prayer pilgrimage and Narcan training; household hazardous waste collection
The faith communities of Berkshire County will gather for a public training on the opioid overdose reversal medication Narcan (naloxone) Tuesday, Oct. 17, at 10:30 a.m. at Trinity Church in Lenox.
REVIEW: Close Encounters With Music — Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman
Titled “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman,” the program celebrated the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in New York but included pieces that predate the American suffrage movement by many decades.