Jen Chapin
CHAPIN FAMILY REUNION in TWO-NIGHT RESIDENCY at GUTHRIE CENTER
(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) – The Chapin Family Reunion, featuring performances by Tom Chapin, the Jen Chapin Trio, and the Chapin Sisters, will perform two nights at the Guthrie Center on Friday, July 24, and Saturday, July 25, at 8pm each night. The program is in memory of the late singer-songwriter Harry Chapin, Tom’s brother and Jen’s father, who died 34 years ago this summer. Jen Chapin is an urban-folk-soul singer-songwriter who performs often with her bassist husband, Stephan Crump and guitarist Jamie Fox. Tom Chapin is best known as a children’s performer, and also writes grown-up songs. Tom Chapin’s daughters Abigail Chapin and Lily Chapin sing sweet harmonies over partly-twisted lyrics as the Chapin Sisters. They recently recorded an album of songs identified with the Everly Brothers.
The Skivvies
MUSICAL COMEDY DUO THE SKIVVIES BRING ‘UNDIE-ROCK’ to WTF
(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – The Skivvies bring their adult-rated musical comedy act performed almost in the raw to Goodrich Hall on the Williams College campus as part of the Williamstown Theatre Festival on Sunday, July 26, and Monday, July 27, at 7:30pm. Lauren Molina and Nick Cearley aka The Skivvies are back for a second summer to perform stripped-down mashups of pop songs and show tunes in their underwear. They will bare their considerable abs and more with special guests Will Swenson, Randy Harrison, Alison Fraser, and Benjamin Scheuer.
Jason Daniely and Marin Mazzie
MARIN MAZZIE and JASON DANIELEY to PERFORM SHOW TUNES at BARRINGTON STAGE CABARET
(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – Broadway musical stars Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley will perform their favorite songs from the Broadway musicals they’ve starred in along with selections from the so-called Great American Songbook in “Broadway and Beyond” on the mainstage at Barrington Stage Company on Monday, July 27, at 8pm. Tony Award-nominee Marin Mazzie starred in BSC’s 2009 production of “A Streetcar Named Desire.”
Bang on a Can Allstars (photo Peter Serling)
BANG on a CAN BRINGS NEW MUSIC to MASS MoCA
(North Adams, Mass.) – The sounds of new music will resound throughout the campus, galleries, hallways and concert stages of MASS MoCA for the 14th summer in a row, as the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival brings together an all-star lineup of composers, performers, teachers, and fellows. Festival highlights include a performance of Bang on a Can co-founder Michael Gordon’s oratorio “Van Gogh,” performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, on Saturday, July 25, at 8pm, and the festival concluding Bang on a Can Summer Marathon, a six-hour day-night boundary-busting festival finale featuring 50-plus musicians and composers from around the world performing excerpts from Philip Glass’ legendary “Einstein on the Beach,” songs by Meredith Monk, the forceful “Singing in the Dead of Night” by this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Bang on a Can co-founder Julia Wolfe, and more, on Saturday, August 1, starting at 4pm and running at least until 10pm.
Dawn Upshaw (photo Brooke Irish)
(LENOX, Mass.) – Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, soprano Dawn Upshaw, and pianists Ursula Oppens and Peter Serkin will be featured performers in Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary Music, running now through Monday, July 27, in Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood. The festival features programs curated by Oliver Knussen, John Harbison, and Michael Gandolfi; a memoriam tribute concert to Gunther Schuller; and a dozen new works commissioned in honor of the Tanglewood Music Center’s 75th anniversary season.
The festival will feature the world premiere of Gunther Schuller’s “Magical Trumpets,” on a program with several works by composers Schuller championed: Maderna, Carter, Perle, and Wuorinen, on Thursday, July 23, at 8pm. Conductor Jonathan Berman will conduct Schuller’s Magical Trumpets and Concerto da Camera, as well as Maderna’s Serenata 2 and Wourinen’s Megalith for piano and ensemble, featuring Peter Serkin as soloist (a TMC75 commission). Stefan Asbury will lead the TMC Fellows in Carter’s “A Sunbeam’s Architecture.”
On Friday, July 24, at 2:30pm, John Harbison will conduct the Tanglewood Music Center Fellows in a program featuring pianist Ursula Oppens in works by Primosch, Dallapiccola, Harbison, Helen Grime, Shulamit Ran, and Levinson.
The Saturday, July 25 program at 2:30pm, featuring soprano Dawn Upshaw, includes new works by Augusta Read Thomas, Steve Mackey, Bright Sheng, and Michael Gandolfi.
The festival continues on Sunday with two concerts, and concludes on Monday, July 27, at 8pm in Ozawa Hall, with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and the BUTI Chorus in a program of works by Leonard Bernstein, Lukas Foss, Aaron Copland and Charles Ives.
Garazi Perez Oloriz and Eric Gauthier of Gauthier Dance in ‘Two Become Three’ (photo Regina Brocke)
GAUTHIER DANCE MAKES U.S. DEBUT at JACOB’S PILLOW
(BECKET, Mass.) – Gauthier Dance//Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart, the dynamic resident contemporary dance company of the Theaterhaus Stuttgart in Germany, will appear in its full company U.S. debut engagement in the Doris Duke Theatre at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival from Wednesday, July 22, through Sunday, July 26. The program includes music by Dean Martin, cellist Zoë Keating, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, Kate Bush, La Lupe, and others.
Founded in 2007 by dancer, choreographer, and musician Eric Gauthier, the young company is known for its lighthearted and accessible approach to contemporary dance. The “lively, sometimes hilarious Gauthier Dance” (Wendy Perron, Dance Magazine) will perform seven works by international choreographers: artistic director Eric Gauthier, Alexander Ekman, Alejandro Cerrudo, Po Cheng Tsai, Johan Inger, Marco Goecke, and Cayetano Soto.
Ashley Bathgate
CELLIST ASHLEY BATHGATE and ACCORDIONIST GUY KLUCEVSEK in WEEKEND of VIRTUOSO DUOS at PS21
(CHATHAM, N.Y.) –Accordion virtuoso Guy Klucevsek and Bang on a Can cellist Ashley Bathgate perform back-to-back duo concerts at PS21 on Saturday, July 25, at 8pm and on Sunday, July 26, at 2pm, respectively.
Alex Meixner joins Guy Klucevsek for a program of “Accordion Solos and Duos” on Saturday. Klucevsek is one of the world’s most versatile and highly respected accordionists, and is considered a major contributor to the accordion renaissance of the last 25 years. His style and repertoire connects the dots between the ballroom, the beer garden, and the concert hall, fusing elements of regional accordion styles with jazz and avant-garde music.
Ashley Bathgate performs with pianist Karl Larson on Sunday. A native of nearby Saratoga Springs, Bathgate attended Skidmore College, Bard College, and the Yale University School of Music. Bathgate’s concerts draw from a range of musical genres, from traditional compositions from the masters to new music by today’s composers. Her afternoon program will feature works by J.S. Bach, Ken Thomson and Brahms.
Bettye LaVette
BETTYE LAVETTE BRINGS HER DISTINCTIVE SOUL-ROCK to HELSINKI HUDSON
(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Soul singer Bettye LaVette, the self-described “overnight sensation after 50 years in the music business,” brings her impassioned, elastic vocals and her dynamic R&B remakes of pop and rock hits by the likes of the Who, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, the Animals, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Lucinda Williams and Sinead O’Connor to Club Helsinki Hudson on Friday, July 24, at 9pm.
Scene from ‘The Wreckers’
FIRST FULL U.S. STAGING of ETHEL SMYTH’S OPERA ‘THE WRECKERS’ at BARD SUMMERSCAPE
(ANNANDALE-on-HUDSON, N.Y.) – The first fully-staged American production of “The Wreckers” (1902-4) by Dame Ethel Smyth opens in the Fisher Center at Bard College as part of the Bard SummerScape festival on Friday, July 24, and runs for five performances through August 2. As a Victorian-born Englishwoman, and a bisexual suffragette at that, Smyth has been too often marginalized by the classical community. Although she remains the only female composer whose work has ever been produced at the Metropolitan Opera, “The Wreckers” – her greatest contribution to the genre – has yet to be staged in the United States.