(NEW YORK CITY) – Author and Yiddish music expert Seth Rogovoy is producing an evening of Yiddish music and culture…
(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – Jeff Rodgers has been named executive director of the Berkshire Museum effective April 1, 2019. Rodgers succeeds…
By Seth Rogovoy (Saturday, January 12, 2019) NEW YORK CITY – I go under the knife on Monday morning. More…
by Seth Rogovoy Here’s a list of books I hope to read in the year 2019. Add to this list…
(NEW YORK CITY) – Author and Yiddish music expert Seth Rogovoy is producing an evening of Yiddish music and culture for Carnegie Hall featuring top artists from the classical, Broadway, and Yiddish music worlds, including pianist Evgeny Kissin, violinist Gil Shaham, Tony Award-winning musical actress Katrina Lenk (“The Band’s Visit,” “Indecent”), and clarinetist David Krakauer.…
(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – Jeff Rodgers has been named executive director of the Berkshire Museum effective April 1, 2019. Rodgers succeeds Van Shields — who left the museum amidst the turbulence surrounding the deaccession of the institution’s valuable art collection in favor of a now-defunct “new vision” — in the top post. Rodgers, who has never…
By Seth Rogovoy (Saturday, January 12, 2019) NEW YORK CITY – I go under the knife on Monday morning. More specifically, my right foot will be cut open and bone spurs (the real kind, not the fake kind with which “patriotic” “nationalist” presidents evade the call-up) that are impinging on my first metatarsal joint will…
by Seth Rogovoy Here’s a list of books I hope to read in the year 2019. Add to this list new books that attract my attention via reviews and personal recommendations; books I will need to read for journalism assignments; plus many dozens of books about George Harrison and the Beatles I will read for…
By Seth Rogovoy I am both blessed and cursed in that my work determines to a large extent what I read. Since my work for the most part coincides with my interests, most of my “obligatory” reading or reading for research overlaps with what I might choose to read. On the other hand, my reading…
by Seth Rogovoy Caravan Administrative state Homeland* Base (as in “Trump’s base”) Deep state Where did these words and phrases come from? How did they so quickly and successfully enter common parlance without adequate vetting? How did the mainstream news media fall into a pattern of parroting right-wing political euphemisms as if they…
(TROY, N.Y.) – Matisyahu, the unique singer-songwriter who blends rapping and beatboxing with reggae rhythms, alternative rock, and folk-rock, brings his Jewish-themed and often personal songs to the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall on Thursday, November 1, at 7:30pm. Matisyahu – a dynamic performer skilled at connecting with his audience with or without a band…
(WEST STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.) – The WAM Theatre Fresh Takes Play Reading Series concludes its 2018 season with “Escaped Alone” by Caryl Churchill, at the Old Town Hall on Sunday, September 16, at 3:30 pm. The reading, directed by WAM artistic director Kristen van Ginhoven, marks the first time the play, which premiered two years ago…
(WEST STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.) – New York City dancer-choreographer Gina Bashour returns home to the Berkshires this summer to premiere Unraveled, a site-specific dance work, at TurnPark Art Space on August 25 and 26, at noon and 3pm. With a strong ensemble of performers, the work weaves together themes and imagery from the fable of Rumpelstiltskin with…
(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) — Jon Hamm of “Mad Men” fame makes his North Adams debut in a work-in-progress performance at MASS MoCA on Saturday, December 8, in collaboration with Wilco’s Glenn Kotche and choreographer Danielle Agami. The piece, tentatively titled “Fishing,” is described as “a ravishing piece of multidisciplinary performance that explores the beautiful, simple…
(TIVOLI, N.Y.) – Author and music journalist Seth Rogovoy will join fellow Hudson Valley/Catskills rockers/authors Tony Fletcher, Holly George-Warren, and Robert Burke Warren in “Writers Who Rock: A Panel Discussion,” moderated by rocking writer Peter Aaron, at the Tivoli Free Library on Friday, August 3, at 6pm. A Q&A session will follow the talk. Peter Aaron is the…
(LENOX, Mass.) – WAM’s Girls Ensemble will premiere their new work, “JUSTICE,” at WAM Theatre’s annual Midsummer Cocktail Party Benefit, hosted by author/speaker Ty Allan Jackson, at the Berkshire Equestrian Center in Richmond, Mass., on Wednesday, July 25, at 5:30pm. The evening’s guests will be the first to learn about this year’s beneficiary for WAM’s fall Main Stage…
(LENOX, Mass.) – Scott Barrow’s summer fine art photography show, Tranquility, opens at the Scott Barrow Photography Gallery on Saturday, July 21, with a reception from 5 to 7pm. The exhibit features outdoor images taken in earliest morning, using pre-dawn light and the glow cast by sunrise. “There is a tranquility that comes from experiencing the…
Ani DiFranco With Haley Heynderickx Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center Great Barrington, Mass. June 17, 2018 Review and photos by Seth Rogovoy (GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass., June 18, 2018) – For nearly 30 years, Ani DiFranco has been firing off manifestos-in-song about politics as well as odes to love and heartbreak (and, more recently, reflections on motherhood).…
(GREAT BARRINGTON and PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – The 13thannual Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF) will pay tribute to Academy Award-winning actor Rachel Weisz at its annual Tribute Night at the Mahaiwe on Friday, June 1, at 7pm. As part of the tribute, Weisz will be in conversation with David Edelstein, New York Magazine’s chief film critic, following…
The Orchestra Now Leon Botstein, conductor Peter Serkin, Anna Polonsky, soloists Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium May 3, 2018 Review by Seth Rogovoy (NEW YORK, N.Y., May 4, 2018) – The Orchestra Now (TON), an orchestra of young professionals based at Bard College, presented an adventurous and challenging program of 20th-century music at Carnegie Hall…
(AMHERST, Mass.) – YIDSTOCK: The Festival of New Yiddish Music is emphasizing the “new” in its title this year with a lineup comprised almost entirely of performers new to Yidstock audiences, including David Krakauer, one of the world’s great klezmer clarinetists and bandleaders, and Beyond the Pale, Canada’s premiere Jewish-roots music outfit. Also making their Yidstock…
by Seth Rogovoy (April 20, 2018) – ROME FELT LIKE DISNEYLAND, or at least what I imagine what Disneyland must feel like, never having been. More precisely, perhaps, Rome felt like one of those places my parents took me to when I was a child: Frontier Town in upstate New York, or Colonial Williamsburg…
A selective, curatorial view of the cultural highlights of the upcoming weekend in the greater Hudson, N.Y., region. REVELERS BRING LOUISIANA ‘SWAMP-POP’ to HELSINKI HUDSON (HUDSON, N.Y.) – Grammy-nominated Louisiana supergroup The Revelers brings its mix of “Louisiana jukebox music” and “swamp-pop” to Club Helsinki Hudson on Saturday, March 31, at 9pm. The group’s…
