The Rogovoy Report: Berkshire & Hudson Valley Cultural Preview

Jun 7-12, 2024

Jun 05, 2024

With so much going on culturally speaking in our greater Berkshires/Hudson Valley region, this is my highly selective, curated snapshot of some of the most promising upcoming events …

Seth Parker Woods (photo Ben Gibbs/courtesy artist)

CELLIST SETH PARKER WOODS UNVEILS THREE WORLD PREMIERES at PS21

Grammy Award-nominated cellist Seth Parker Woods joins the Next Festival of Emerging Artists for a program featuring three world premieres commissioned by the Festival and two other exciting works of 21st-century music at PS21 in Chatham, N.Y., on Friday, June 7, at 7:30pm. Woods has established his reputation as a versatile artist and innovator across multiple genres, having collaborated and worked with musicians and composers including Louis Andriessen, Elliott Carter, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Lou Reed, Shirley Bassey, and Rachael Yamagata. (Fri, Jun 7)

Ian Spencer Bell at Chesterwood (photo Stephanie Zollshan/courtesy Chesterwood)

IAN SPENCER BELL RECREATES ISADORA DUNCAN DANCE at CHESTERWOOD

Dancer, poet, and choreographer Ian Spencer Bell will reconstruct Isadora Duncan’s famous solo The Many Faces of Love with live music by classical pianist Lauren Aloia in the historic gardens at Chesterwood in Stockbridge, Mass., on Saturday, June 8, at 5:30pm. Bell began working on the project two years ago as a dancer-in-residence at Chesterwood, when he learned that sculptor Daniel Chester French and Isadora Duncan not only knew each other but also that Duncan had danced for French in his Studio Garden during the summer of 1898. (Sat, Jun 8)

ISRAELI ENSEMBLE PERFORMS MOZART, BEETHOVEN & MORE in GERMANTOWN

Israeli oboist Roni Gal-Ed will join clarinetist Eli Eban, bassoonist Gili Sharett, horn player Liri Ronen, and pianist Gili Melamed-Lev for a program called Winds of Change, featuring works by Mozart, Silver, Beethoven, and others, at the Tydeman Farm in Germantown, N.Y., on Saturday, June 8, at 4pm. The event, a presentation of Jazz and Classics for Change, will also include Shakespearean readings by Australian actor John McManus and artwork by Brian Shea. (Sat, Jun 8)

SABINA SCIUBBA BRINGS GLOBAL SOUNDS to RACE BROOK LODGE

Italian-German-French singer-actress Sabina Sciubba, perhaps best known as frontwoman of the Grammy Award-nominated electronica band Brazilian Girls, brings her eclectic, cosmopolitan sounds betraying her global, multilingual background and approach to Race Brook Lodge in Sheffield, Mass., on Sunday, June 9, at 8pm. Sciubba appeals to fans of Nico, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Marlene Dietrich, Astrud Gilberto, Yoko Ono, George Harrison, and Lou Reed. (Sun, Jun 9)

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS BRINGS GREAT PIANO QUINTETS to MAHAIWE

Pianist Max Levinson headlines Great Piano Quintets, a program featuring works by Dvořák and Brahms, at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington, Mass., on Sunday, June 9, at 4pm, as part of the Close Encounters with Musicchamber series. The works to be performed include Dvořák’s Piano Quintet in A Major and Brahms’s Piano Quintet in F minor, op. 34. Joining Levinson are Ara Gregorian and Hye-Jin Kim on violin; Jordan Bak on viola, and Close Encounters artistic director Yehuda Hanani on cello. (Sun, Jun 9)

Kim Gordon (photo Danielle Neu/courtesy artist)

KIM GORDON BRINGS POST-PUNK to BASILICA HUDSON

Noise-rock avatar Kim Gordon -- best known as a founding member of the seminal post-punk group Sonic Youth, for which she wrote and sang one of their best-known songs, “Kool Thing” -- brings her latest project, The Collective, to Basilica Hudson in Hudson, N.Y., on Wednesday, June 12, at 7pm. Gordon’s album The Collective was inspired in part by Jennifer Egan’s 2022 novel The Candy House. Bill Nace, part of the duo Body/Head with Gordon, will warm up the crowd for the headliner. (Wed, Jun 12)

Also of note:

Writer-comedian Alison Larkin previews her latest one-woman show, Grief … A Comedy, before embarking on a world tour kicking off at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Mass., from Thursday, June 6, through Sunday, June 9.

The Tiny Glass Tavern ensemble brings its eclectic mix of early, folk, pop and new music to the Adams Theater in Adams, Mass., on Friday, June 7, at 7pm. The ensemble’s repertoire includes arrangements of works by Monteverdi, Connie Converse, Paul Holmes Morton, Fiona Gillespie, Adam Simon, and Florence Price.

Cellist Nicholas Canellakis and pianist Michael Stephen Brown, both longtime artists with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, will perform works by Clara Schumann, Debussy, Grieg, Lukas Foss and Camille Saint-Saëns with a dusting of their own works and lively arrangements of Bulgarian folk music in Ancramdale, N.Y., on Saturday, June 8, at 3pm, as part of Clarion Concerts Spring Gala.

The three-day More Than a Feeling Comedy Fest takes place at Upstate Films’ Orpheum Theatre in Saugerties, N.Y., from Friday, June 7, through Sunday, June 9, featuring all kinds of comedy, including standup, sketch, variety, solo shows, improv, and more. The festival culminates with Our Reservoir Hour Variety Show featuring Beth Lisick and Jodi Lennon on Sunday at 1pm.

Namoli Brennet brings musical settings of poems by the likes of Sappho, A.E. Housman, e.e. Cummings, and Emily Dickinson to the Foundry in West Stockbridge, Mass., on Saturday, June 8, at 7:30pm.

Music for Baroque violin and harpsichord will be on tap when Berkshire Bach Society brings its program A Baroque Spring Posy to Simon’s Rock College in Great Barrington, Mass., on Saturday, June 8, at 4pm. Violinist Laura Lutzke will be joined by harpsichordist Mariken Palmboom to perform chamber music by J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel.

Singer-songwriter Amy Speace brings her rich vocals and her carefully crafted folk-pop compositions to The Linda, WAMC’s Performing Arts Studio, on Saturday, June 8, at 8pm.

Guitarist Chris Forsyth brings his latest project, Basic -- inspired by the aesthetics of American guitarist Robert Quine and the Fred Maher record of the same name -- to the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., on Sunday, June 9, at 5pm. Basic blends the raw energy of rock with the atmospheric depth of electronic experimentation. The group also includes Nick Millevoi on guitar and drum machine and Mikel Patrick Avery from Natural Information Society on percussion and electronics. Erica Dawn Lyle warms up the crowd for Basic.

Broadway singer Joshua Henry performs songs from classic musicals at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Mass., on Sunday, June 9, and Monday, June 10, at 8pm.

Hey, did you like this edition of The Rogovoy Report? If so, please consider clicking on the “LIKE” button at the very end of this message. It matters to the gods of Substack.

The Rogovoy Report