The Rogovoy Report 7.1.24

From around the corner to around the globe...

Jun 30, 2024

You Might Be a Late Bloomer

(The Atlantic) - Today we live in a society structured to promote early bloomers. Our school system has sorted people by the time they are 18, using grades and SAT scores. Some of these people zoom to prestigious academic launching pads while others get left behind. Many of our most prominent models of success made it big while young — Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Taylor Swift, Michael Jordan. Magazines publish lists with headlines like “30 Under 30” to glamorize youthful superstars on the rise. Age discrimination is a fact of life. But for many people, the talents that bloom later in life are more consequential than the ones that bloom early. Why do some people hit their peak later than others?

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Vocalist-musician Basya Schechter will perform at Yidstock 2024

Yidstock Music Festival Finds Old Music Appealing to New Generations, Onstage and Off

(ArtsFuse) AMHERST, Mass. - A few months ago, New England Conservatory professor Hankus Netsky, who was a pioneer of the Eastern European klezmer music revival in 1980 when he founded Boston’s Klezmer Conservatory Band, attended a rollicking performance of Jewish music at the Somerville Armory. Looking around at the enraptured crowd of people the ages of his grown daughters, he turned to Judy Bressler, KCB’s original vocalist, and joked, “It’s a shame there aren’t any old people who are into Yiddish anymore.” While the joke was hyperbole, the perception is illuminating: Yiddish music is no longer primarily a touchstone for an immigrant generation and people who grew up speaking, or at least understanding, Yiddish in their homes. The klezmer torch has been taken up by a rising generation who both treasure the canonical klezmer, folk, Yiddish theatre and Yiddish cabaret repertoire, and invest themselves in new musical expressions of their heritage. Klezmer, for many of the Jews descended from Ashkenazi emigres, remains haimish, a music rich with a sense of belonging. On July 11-14, the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst hosts the 12th edition of Yidstock, its festival of new Yiddish music. The four-day event is an array of concerts, workshops, talks, and a special film screening at the book center’s beautiful, evocative complex set on an apple orchard at the edge of the Hampshire College campus.

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Tanglewood’s BSO season opens July 5 with all-Beethoven program; violinist Gil Shaham replaces injured Hilary Hahn as guest soloist (Berkshire Edge)

For James Taylor, Tanglewood’s highest honor is ‘extraordinary’ (Berkshire Eagle)

Grammy-winner Jason Mraz to bring ‘my super bad band and 60 other musicians’ to Tanglewood on July 2 (Boston Globe)

Lenox Bookstore's Matt Tannenbaum makes a case to visit a brick-and-mortar bookstore (B Eagle)

‘Keep The Bookloft aloft’: 50-year-old Berkshires bookstore turns to GoFundMe to stay afloat (Boston.com)

‘Abe Lincoln in Illinois’ engrossing at Berkshire Theatre Group (ATU)

At Williamstown Theatre Festival, Sara Porkalob plays her 'Dragon Mama' in one-woman show (B Eagle)

Berkshire Pulse hires first executive director (iBerkshires)

At Bard’s Fisher Center, a ‘Ulysses’ that squeezes Bloomsday into 2 hours, 40 minutes (NYT)

2024 Art Omi season includes new sculptures by Kiyan Williams, Beom Jun Kim, Riley Hooker (B Eagle)

Troy Savings Bank Music Hall -- world renowned for its acoustics -- to be renovated (WAMC)

NEWS FROM THE BERKSHIRES

Chad Smith at Tanglewood, where the Boston Symphony’s season starts on July 5. “I want Tanglewood,” he said, “to be the classical music destination for the world.” (photo Lauren Lancaster/NYT)

Can a New Leader Make the Boston Symphony Innovative Again?

(NYT) LENOX, Mass. - “I’m going to sound like such a dork,” Chad Smith said as he drove a golf cart around the grounds of Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s pastoral summer home in the Berkshires. “I love Tanglewood so much.” Smith has big plans for Tanglewood, whose Boston Symphony season begins on July 5, just as he has a long to-do list for the ensemble at home. History would suggest that he isn’t just dreaming: He came to Boston from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where for two decades he played a crucial role in building the orchestra’s reputation as one of the most innovative, important ensembles in the country.

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Pittsfield removes upper limit on marijuana retailers (WAMC)

Wahconah Park Restoration Committee recommends $28M grandstand project (Berkshire Eagle)

With multiple candidates, race for 3rd Berkshire District state representative proving competitive (WAMC)

Transformed Lake Mansfield Recreation Area in Great Barrington opens to public on Monday (B Eagle)

Cancer-linked compound in Housatonic drinking water spiked in February to highest level in two years; data comes with request for rate hike by Housatonic Waterworks (B Eagle)

West Stockbridge Planning Board opts for new sound test in Foundry-Truc dispute (B Edge)

Project to preserve NAACP leader and Harlem Renaissance poet James Weldon Johnson’s Great Barrington writing cabin gets $575K boost (B Eagle)

Four projects will bring affordable housing to Berkshire County (B Eagle)

Gingerbread house at Santarella Gardens in Tyringham getting a new roof (B Eagle)

North Adams Regional still waiting on critical access hospital designation months after ribbon cutting (WAMC)

Berkshirites encouraged to test home internet capability (iBerkshires)

NEWS FROM THE HUDSON VALLEY

Tray Tepper’s handmade bagels now on sale at Circles in Hudson, N.Y.

Bagel Pop-Up Circles Opens Shop in Hudson

(ATU) HUDSON, N.Y. - After working in several fine dining establishments, Tray Tepper left Brooklyn and arrived in Hudson in 2018 looking to work at Lil’ Deb’s Oasis. Tepper, who originally hails from the West Coast, worked his way to lead chef at Lil’ Deb’s. But missing New York City-style bagels and pizza during the pandemic, Tepper began kneading his future with a gifted sourdough starter from Sparrow Bush Bakery, bagel after bagel, pizza after pizza. He left Lil' Deb's but began doing weekend pop-ups with his bagel company Circles, amassing a decent following. Circles was born inside Lil’ Deb’s kitchen and while the influence of the technicolor, LGBTQ-friendly eatery runs deep in its DNA, Tepper now flies solo with the bagel counter that he opened on May 24 on the first floor of 502 Union St. in Hudson. “My family is Jewish, so I grew up eating bagels as a special-occasion type of a thing. It’s a nostalgic food for me,” Tepper said. “When I moved to Hudson, I was craving a certain type of pizza and bagel I didn’t feel I could get around here. So that’s how I became interested in trying to make it myself.”

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Longtime Democratic incumbent Didi Barrett crushes challenger Claire Cousin in race for state assembly seat (WAMC)

Greater Hudson area has one of the oldest populations in the U.S. (ATU)

Columbia County moves ahead with plans for prime space in downtown Hudson despite intense local opposition (GoR)

Laws already exist to keep trucks from using downtown Hudson as a byway to Greenport and points north and east (GoR)

Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado launches political action committee to help elect Democrats in swing districts (Daily Freeman)

Newcomers to the Hudson Valley brought high incomes. What are the consequences? (ATU)

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