Tod Randolph as Dorothy Thompson in "Cassandra Speaks" at Shakepeare & Company (photo Kevin Sprague)

(LENOX, Mass.) –Cassandra Speaks by Norman Plotkin, a one-woman show starring Tod Randolph about Dorothy Thompson, the “First Lady of American Journalism,” will receive its world premiere at Shakespeare & Company beginning on Friday, May 25, 2012. The play runs through September 2 in the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre.

Dorothy Thompson was heralded by many as the “First Lady of American Journalism.” Time magazine once called her the most influential woman in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt. She was Michael Kanin’s inspiration for Katherine Hepburn’s character in the 1942 comedy Woman of the Year. The first American correspondent to be expelled from Nazi Germany on the personal order of Adolf Hitler, Dorothy Thompson was a journalistic icon; provocative and complex as she was brilliant and courageous.

Cassandra Speaks takes place on a hot June day in 1943. Before she walks down the aisle for a third time, the audience witnesses Dorothy Thompson reflect on her past failures and triumphs as she struggles to create her own, personal revolution. Through her struggles, we begin to see the woman detach from the myth, and a universal story begins to emerge. In this funny, passionate tell-all tale, and amidst the chaos of last-minute wedding day preparations, the charismatic Thompson continues to captivate and surprise her audience.

“I first met Norman Plotkin on the corner of Bank St. and Hudson Avenue in the spring of 1985,” said Tod Randolph, reflecting on her first encounter with the playwright.  “I remember that we got into an impassioned dispute about the underlying causes of human suffering, and that it went on for almost an hour until I finally surrendered the field, unconvinced, but realizing I was way out of my league. Our friendship gradually blossomed over the next few years, during which time I graduated from Julliard and entered into the actor’s agonizing rite of passage known as ’pounding the pavement,’ while he worked at various jobs and struggled to complete his play, Jackson Blume.”

Tod Randolph

The friendship between Randolph and Plotkin gradually became a collaborative one. In fact, it was Randolph’s suggestion that Plotkin write about Thompson. “Ten years later, I had moved to 366 West 11th St., and we’d often meet for coffee at the little bakery on Bleecker, across from the Biography Bookshop, where one day we saw in the window Peter Kurth’s American Cassandra: The Life of Dorothy Thompson. By this time we were well acquainted with one another’s professional frustrations, and he said to me, you know what you should do, you should hire a writer to write a one-woman show for you about her. I said, I know a writer – and just like that, this project was born.

“He always believed that to write a great play, you need a great character. I always knew that the marriage of Norman’s talent with Dorothy’s story was truly made in heaven. This playwright’s political sensibility, his wit and brilliance, his passionate heart, and his argumentative, unapologetic nature would have delighted Dorothy, had their paths ever crossed, as much as they delighted me, and all who were lucky enough to call him friend.”

At a June 1937 commencement address for her alma mater, Syracuse University – the first by any woman in its 66-year history – Dorothy Thompson told the assemblage, “there is only one effective revolution and that is the old evangelical idea of conversion; that men see where they have been wrong; that a light dawns upon them; and that they change their ways.”

Tod Randolph, who takes on the role of Thompson, played Jacques in last summer’s critically acclaimed production of As You Like It. The production is directed by Nicole Ricciardi, a newcomer to Shakespeare & Company, whose directing credits include Stephen Schwartz’ Working (revised 2011 version), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), Shining City, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Bird and the Two-Ton Weight, and two original pieces, The Juliet and Romeo Project and Roasting Alice.

Cassandra Speaks runs from Friday, May 25 through September 2 in Shakespeare &Company’s Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre.

Tickets are $15-$50, and S&Co. offers a wide range of discount options, including discounts for groups, students, senior citizens, military, teachers and our very popular 40% Berkshire Resident Discount. To view a complete schedule, receive a brochure, or inquire about discounts, call the Box Office at 413.637.3353 or visit Shakespeare & Company.

Seth Rogovoy

(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – Seth Rogovoy is the featured reader at yBar on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, at 8 pm (291 North St.) in Pittsfield as part of the Tuesday Night Writers Room series, a project of the WordXWord Festival hosted by Emily Pulfer-Terino and Gabriel Squailia. Best known for his award-winning writing about music and his books about Bob Dylan and klezmer, Rogovoy will shift gears for his yBar appearance and read from “How Many Great-Grandparents’ Divorce Saved My Life,” a work-in-progress about his family, mostly focusing on the life and times of his recently deceased grandmother, most of whose relatives were murdered in the Holocaust. He may also read a few poems he wrote for the recent April 30/30 Poetry Challenge, and something about the role that height – or lack of such – plays in the E Street Band.

Seth Rogovoy is the author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet, a full-length analysis of Bob Dylan’s life and work, and The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lover’s Guide to Jewish Roots and Soul Music, the all-time bestselling guide to klezmer music. Seth is editor and publisher of The Rogovoy Report – an online magazine of cultural and critical news and observations — and BerkshireDaily – an e-newsletter aggregating news, features, and commentary from around the corner and around the globe. His weekly cultural commentary is heard on WAMC Northeast Public Radio Network.

On the first Tuesday of each month, host Gabriel Squailia reads from his novel, Dead Boys. On the second Tuesday of each month, yBar hosts an open mic for poetry, prose or creative non-fiction. The third Tuesday of each month is OPP – other people’s prose or poetry night. On the fourth Tuesday of each month, yBar features guest readers, curated by the Writers Room hosts. Previous readers in the series have included poet Marie-Elizabeth Mali, cultural journalist Jeremy D. Goodwin, and poet/essayist Leigh Strimbeck.

Composer Paola Prestini

(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) – MASS MoCA will present a work-in-progress showing of Paola Prestini’s new multimedia opera Oceanic Verses in the Hunter Center on Friday, May 18, 2012, at 8 p.m. Set against the backdrop of the Mediterranean Sea, Oceanic Verses is about people who flee and people who stay, people who sail to escape and people who sail to arrive.

Oceanic Verses musically paints a picture of Italy as it once was, a cross-section of cultures expressed through song. By examining and researching the Salento region which maintains many ancient traditions and still speaks Griko, a much forgotten language, Prestini creates a work that illuminates the complex ethnic mosaic that has shaped her cultural heritage. The story is derived from the texts of the songs chosen and intermittent poems from a variety of Italian poets through time coloring the work with the various influences of Salento region.

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DAEDALUS QUARTET to PLAY BEETHOVEN, SCHUBERT AND BERG at MAHAIWE

The Daedalus Quartet is Matilda Kaul, violin; Jessica Thompson, viola; Min-Young Kim, violin; Thomas Kraines, cello (photo Lisa-Marie Mazzucco)

(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) – As part of the Close Encounters With Music series, the Daedalus Quartet will perform an all-Viennese program at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center on Saturday, May 19, 2012, at 6 pm. Selections include Schubert’s Quartettsatz, Beethoven’s majestic Razumovsky, Opus 59, No.1; and Alban Berg’s Quartet Opus 3, completing a musical journey through Imperial Vienna to the era of Klimt and Freud.

Recognized as one of the leading quartets on the scene today, members of the Daedalus are Min-Young Kim, violin; Matilda Kaul, violin; Jessica Thompson, viola; and Thomas Kraines, cello.

The program reflects how composers inspire each other across time, and, in this instance, also across town. Schubert took inspiration from his hero, Beethoven, and especially from the almost symphonic Razumovsky Quartet, and ran with it. The results are evident in the two-movement Quartettsatz, foreshadowing Schubert’s later chamber music masterpieces.

READ MORE….

SOUL-R&B OUTFIT RETURNS to CLUB HELSINKI

Tre Williams

(HUDSON, N.Y.) – The Revelations featuring Tré Williams returns to Club Helsinki Hudson on Saturday, May 19, 2012, at 9pm. The group’s sound marries the grit of the streets to the midnight blues of the rural South, the rawness of Stax and propulsive drive of Motown. The Revelations’ live shows have been compared to the live revues of James Brown or Ike and Tina Turner.

Ever since Tré Williams left the South for New York City, his searing baritone has enraptured those from Harlem’s Amateur Night at the Apollo to rap’s seasoned veterans. His silk and gravel tone recalls that of David Ruffin and Johnnie Taylor. Williams’s soul-shaking sound landed him a record contract with hip-hop icon Nas, and then he was the first R&B male singer signed to Roc-a-fella Records.

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EXHIBITION CHRONICLES FACES from CENTRAL ASIA to WESTERN EUROPE

(LENOX, Mass.) – Afghanistan To France; 6,000 Miles of Portraits, an exhibition of photographs by Molly and Aurélien de St André taken on a road trip in a vintage 1960s Volkswagen van from war-torn Central Asia to present-day France, is on display at LOCAL beginning Friday, May 19, 2012, and running through June 22. There will be an opening reception with the artists on Saturday, May 19, at 5pm at LOCAL.

Molly and Aurélien de St André are artists who own Moho Designs, a local screen printing and design company. Molly, a Berkshire native and Simon’s Rock graduate, has spent five years teaching and making art in central Asia. Aurélien, a painter and graphic designer from La Rochelle, France, who has worked in exotic places such as Kabul, Istanbul, and Reunion Island off of Madagascar, has just survived his second Berkshire winter.

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WAGNER’S ‘RING CYCLE’ at THE MET GETS ENCORE SCREENING at THE CLARK AND MAHAIWE

Deborah Voigt is Brünnhilde in the Met's 'Ring Cycle'

(WILLIAMSTOWN and GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) – The ever-popular Met Live in HD broadcasts in the region turn their gaze toward Robert Lepage’s innovative, high-tech staging of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring Cycle) in coming days, where the performances can be seen at The Clark in Williamstown and the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington.

The Ring Cycle encore series continues with Siegfried (May 16 at Mahaiwe; May 17 at The Clark), and Götterdämmerung (May 18 at The Clark, May 20 at Mahaiwe).

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CHORAL GROUP TO TACKLE JENKINS’S ‘REQUIEM’

Berkshire Lyric

(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – Berkshire Lyric, a choral performance and education organization that will celebrate a half-century next year, will present Karl Jenkins’s iconic choral powerhouse, Requiem, on Sunday, May 20, at 3 p.m., at St. Joseph’s Church on North Street.

Requiem is one of the 21st century’s most recognizable choral pieces, and also one of its most unique. In addition to traditional Latin commonly encountered in a Requiem Mass, the piece also incorporates movements featuring Japanese haiku poetry and the sounds of Asian instruments. Requiem was written in 2005 by Jenkins, a composer with a background in film music. It is a very popular work in Britain, and this will reportedly be its first performance in western Massachusetts.

Berkshire Lyric’s performance will include full orchestration with strings, harp, flute, French horn and percussion, as well as both the Berkshire Lyric Chorus and the Blafield Children’s Chorus, an addition not commonly seen in performances of Requiem.

READ MORE….

SETH ROGOVOY to READ at YBAR in PITTSFIELD, MASS., on TUESDAY, MAY 22

Seth Rogovoy

(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – Seth Rogovoy is the featured reader at yBar on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, at 8 pm (291 North St.) in Pittsfield as part of the Tuesday Night Writers Room series, a project of the WordXWord Festival hosted by Emily Pulfer-Terino and Gabriel Squailia. Best known for his award-winning writing about music and his books about Bob Dylan and klezmer, Rogovoy will shift gears for his yBar appearance and read from “How Many Great-Grandparents’ Divorce Saved My Life,” a work-in-progress about his family, mostly focusing on the life and times of his recently deceased grandmother, most of whose relatives were murdered in the Holocaust. He may also read a few poems he wrote for the recent April 30/30 Poetry Challenge, and something about the role that height – or lack of such – plays in the E Street Band.

READ MORE….

Tre Williams

(HUDSON, N.Y.) – The Revelations featuring Tré Williams returns to Club Helsinki Hudson on Saturday, May 19, 2012, at 9pm. The group’s sound marries the grit of the streets to the midnight blues of the rural South, the rawness of Stax and propulsive drive of Motown. The Revelations’ live shows have been compared to the live revues of James Brown or Ike and Tina Turner.

Ever since Tré Williams left the South for New York City, his searing baritone has enraptured those from Harlem’s Amateur Night at the Apollo to rap’s seasoned veterans. His silk and gravel tone recalls that of David Ruffin and Johnnie Taylor. Williams’s soul-shaking sound landed him a record contract with hip-hop icon Nas, and then he was the first R&B male singer signed to Roc-a-fella Records.

The Revelations also features bandmate Rell Gaddis, who has worked with a virtual who’s who of urban music, including Mary J. Blige, Kanye West, and Dr. Dre. Rell also released a few singles of his own, including the club anthem “Love For Free,” and wrote the title track to Usher’s Here I Stand. Rell has now combined forces with Williams to lend his tenor baritone and proven pen to The Revelations.

The Revelations band includes guitarist Wes Mingus (Leela James), drummer Gintas Janusonis (Erykah Badu), bassist Josh Werner (Matisyahu), keyboardist Borahm Lee (Lauryn Hill) and legendary arranger and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Adams.

A scene from 'Oceanic Verses'

(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) – MASS MoCA will present a work-in-progress showing of Paola Prestini’s new multimedia opera Oceanic Verses in the Hunter Center on Friday, May 18, 2012, at 8 p.m. Set against the backdrop of the Mediterranean Sea, Oceanic Verses is about people who flee and people who stay, people who sail to escape and people who sail to arrive.

Oceanic Verses musically paints a picture of Italy as it once was, a cross-section of cultures expressed through song. By examining and researching the Salento region which maintains many ancient traditions and still speaks Griko, a much forgotten language, Prestini creates a work that illuminates the complex ethnic mosaic that has shaped her cultural heritage. The story is derived from the texts of the songs chosen and intermittent poems from a variety of Italian poets through time coloring the work with the various influences of Salento region.

Oceanic Verses is sung in various dialects including Griko, Genoese, and Sardinian, coloring the work with various ethnic influences. Librettist Donna Di Novelli is expanding the current text by thirty-forty minutes to create circa a seventy five minute work, and we are working together closely to develop the stories, music and visual elements as an organic whole. Di Novelli sees the piece as part archeology, part oceanography. The opera simultaneously sifts through the sediments of centuries and journeys on the top of Mediterranean currents that bring immigrants, and conquerors to each others’ shores. The opera juxtaposes death and life in every utterance, reminding us through its characters of the fragility of all life, including our common globe.

Paola Prestini, composer of 'Oceanic Verses'

Rather than a linear narrative, Oceanic Verses follows the arcs of four characters: a Sailor (folk singer Claudio Prima) who searches for lost songs; a Scholar (improviser Helga Davis) investigating immigration who loses a suitcase filled with research; a Peasant (soprano Nancy Allen Lundy) who seeks a better life for her future children; and a Soldier (Christopher Burchett) who crawls over land to bury what he loves.

The characters are united by a yearning to uncover a fading past in southern Italy. Ed Yim of the New York City Opera said the VOX 2011 performance of the oratorio of Oceanic Verses “made the hair on the back of my neck stand up for the sheer visceral pleasure of the musical language.”

Each of the four characters in Oceanic Verses has a double — an abstraction of his/her essence or inner life — who appears in an accompanying film backdrop by Ali Hossaini, projected throughout the performance on a triptych screen. In the film, the celebrated Italian dancer Emio Greco plays the Soldier, and actors from the Salento region of Italy play the Peasant. Prima and Davis play both the on-screen and on-stage versions of their characters.

Ali Hossaini’s visual world is an immersive video environment that recreates the atmosphere of the Mediterranean while offering a canvas where we can tap the expressive potential of the performers as actors. Using a technique of undulating video, Hossaini creates a visual music that presents the inner lives of the characters on an ultrawide screen that curves around the stage. Players and audience are immersed in the folkloric landscape that inspired Oceanic Verses. Rather than tell a story in the manner of cinema, Hossaini directs the performers to act in short abstract sequences that he juxtaposes as poetic counterpoint to the musical stagecraft. This video environment amplifies the presence of the main characters while giving Oceanic Verses a sense of place that is impossible with a traditional set.

Oceanic Verses combines fragments of music that date as far back as 3000 BCE, field samples from research in the Salento region, and Prestini’s original music. Di Novelli created the libretto by weaving her own original work together with a selection of archetypal Italian texts from songs and poems written by Vittoria Colonna, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Dante Alighieri, and Aleandro Aleardi. The songs are in dialects spoken throughout history in Italy, including Byzantine Greek, Arab, Sephardic Jewish Hebrew, and Bourbon Spanish.

Prestini and director Kevin Newbury, plus singers Claudio Prima, Helga Davis (The Love Show, 2011, MASS MoCA), Nancy Allen Lundy, and Christopher Burchett, as well as filmmaker Ali Hossaini, librettist Donna Di Novelli, and producer Beth Morrison (69 South, 2007, and Maya Beiser’s cello opera Elsewhere, 2011, MASS MoCA) present the work-in-progress after a week-long residency in which they will continue to expand the piece from an oratorio to an evening-length production. Designers include Vita Tzykun, scenic and costumes; S. Katy Tucker, projections; and Bruce Steinberg, lighting.

As is customary with MASS MoCA’s work-in-progress showings, the audience is invited to become part of the creative process by offering feedback and asking questions of the artists during a Q&A after the showing. This presentation is part of a series of work-in-progress showings. The next showing, from June 21 – 24, will be Here Lies Love, a workshop of an immersive theater piece unlike any other, combining dance, song, narrative, and video montages, with music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim. Here Lies Love is presented with support from Williamstown Theater Festival and The Public Theater.

Oceanic Verses is commissioned by VisionIntoArt, produced by Beth Morrison Projects, and is a VisionIntoArt and Beth Morrison Projects world premiere.

Paola Prestini is the director of the nonprofit multimedia collective VisionIntoArt, which has commissioned countless emerging artists and has performed worldwide since 1999. Named one of the “top 100 composers in the world under 40” by NPR, Prestini has created a body of work celebrated by critics and fellow artists. Terry Riley has said that her music “speaks from the heart and inspires.” Prestini has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Kronos Quartet, MATA, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the New York City Opera (VOX). Helga Davis, Rinde Eckert, and Hila Plitmann are among the numerous esteemed soloists who have performed her work, which has been presented in prestigious venues worldwide, including Zankel Hall, The Kitchen, The Whitney Museum, Le Poisson Rouge, PS 122, and the Stone in New York; Etnafest, Milano’s Teatro Manzoni, and Sound Res in Italy; and BEMUS in Belgrade, Serbia. Recent projects include works at BAM, the Kennedy Center, the Barbican Centre, the Harare International Festival, and the Krannert Center. She has collaborated with artists Maya Beiser, Erika Harrsch, Cornelius Dufallo, Gabriel Kahane, and Julian Crouch.

Oceanic Verses will be presented as a work-in-progress on Friday, May 18, at 8 PM in MASS MoCA’s Hunter Center. Drinks from the MASS MoCA bar and dinner and snacks from Lickety Split are available before the show. Tickets for Oceanic Verses are $15 and $10 for students. Tickets are available through the MASS MoCA Box Office located off Marshall Street in North Adams, open from 11 AM – 5 PM closed Tuesdays. Tickets can also be charged by phone by calling 413.662.2111 during Box Office hours, or purchased online at www.massmoca.org.

MASS MoCA, the largest center for contemporary visual and performing arts in the United States, is located off Marshall Street in North Adams on a 13-acre campus of renovated 19th-century factory buildings. MASS MoCA is an independent 501(c)(3) whose operations and programming are funded through admissions and commercial lease revenue, corporate and foundation grants, and individual philanthropy. Except for an initial construction grant from the Commonwealth and competitive program and operations grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, MASS MoCA is privately funded: 90% of annual operating revenues are from earned revenues, membership support, and private gifts and grants.

Berkshire Lyric

(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – Berkshire Lyric, a choral performance and education organization that will celebrate a half-century next year, will present Karl Jenkins’s iconic choral powerhouse, Requiem, on Sunday, May 20, at 3 p.m., at St. Joseph’s Church on North Street.

Requiem is one of the 21st century’s most recognizable choral pieces, and also one of its most unique. In addition to traditional Latin commonly encountered in a Requiem Mass, the piece also incorporates movements featuring Japanese haiku poetry and the sounds of Asian instruments. Requiem was written in 2005 by Jenkins, a composer with a background in film music. It is a very popular work in Britain, and this will reportedly be its first performance in western Massachusetts.

Berkshire Lyric’s performance will include full orchestration with strings, harp, flute, French horn and percussion, as well as both the Berkshire Lyric Chorus and the Blafield Children’s Chorus, an addition not commonly seen in performances of Requiem.

Berkshire Lyric

Timothy Passetto, baritone, Miles Herr, tenor, and Deborah Rentz-Moore, mezzo-soprano, will be featured soloists. Passetto and Herr are both past winners of the Berkshire Lyric Young Singers competition; Passetto recently graduated from the North Carolina School for the Arts and is attending the Boston Conservatory of Music this fall. Herr is currently a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Rentz-Moore, a frequent soloist in the Northeast, will be returning to her native Berkshires to perform.

The program will be rounded off with shorter English masterpieces by Tallis, Purcell and Holst.

Tickets are $25, and children may attend free with adult.

Karl Jenkins is a Welsh composer and musician whose career has straddled the worlds of jazz, rock, and classical music, including a stint as a member of the progressive-rock group Soft Machine.

Among the most-performed living composers in the world, Jenkins made his mark writing commercial music for Levi’s, British Airways, Renault, Tag Heuer, Pepsi, De Beers and Delta Airlines. For Delta, he wrote the famous song, “Adiemus,” that accompanies jets in flight. “Adiemus” combined classical with ethnic vocal sounds and percussion with an invented language and topped classical and “pop” charts around the world. His Armed Man: A Mass For Peace has been performed nearly 1,000 times in 20 different countries since the CD was released, and his recorded output has resulted in seventeen gold and platinum disc awards.

In addition to presenting concerts, Berkshire Lyric supports a wide range of music education projects in Berkshire County including the annual Young Musician’s Scholarship Program, the Berkshire Lyric Choral Scholars Program and a tuition-free summer Choral Camp for children.

Berkshire Lyric has been a fixture in the Berkshire musical landscape for 49 years. Berkshire Lyric started as a lyric theatre performance group and has since grown to be the only multi-generational performance and educational group in the Berkshires, providing scholarships, tuition-free education, and quality performance opportunities to Berkshire residents of all ages. As a non-profit, federally tax exempt charitable organization, Berkshire Lyric is supported in part by grants from local Massachusetts Cultural Councils, local corporations and gifts from individual contributors.

The Daedalus Quartet is Min-Young Kim, violin; Thomas Kraines, cello; Matilda Kaul, violin; Jessica Thompson, viola (photo Lisa-Marie Mazzucco)

(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) – As part of the Close Encounters With Music series, the Daedalus Quartet will perform an all-Viennese program at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center on Saturday, May 19, 2012, at 6 pm. Selections include Schubert’s Quartettsatz, Beethoven’s majestic Razumovsky, Opus 59, No.1; and Alban Berg’s Quartet Opus 3, completing a musical journey through Imperial Vienna to the era of Klimt and Freud.

Recognized as one of the leading quartets on the scene today, members of the Daedalus are Min-Young Kim, violin; Matilda Kaul, violin; Jessica Thompson, viola; and Thomas Kraines, cello.

The program reflects how composers inspire each other across time, and, in this instance, also across town. Schubert took inspiration from his hero, Beethoven, and especially from the almost symphonic Razumovsky Quartet, and ran with it. The results are evident in the two-movement Quartettsatz, foreshadowing Schubert’s later chamber music masterpieces.

The first string quartet of Alban Berg was completed in 1910, when he was twenty-five years old. The emotional power of the Opus 3 takes its cue from Mahler, his mentor and a great source of his inspiration – and another denizen of Vienna. It was Berg’s first great success.

Tickets are $40 (Orchestra and Mezzanine) and $30 (Balcony) and include the post-performance audience reception on stage provided by Guido’s Fresh Marketplace and Domaney’s Fine Wines & Liquors. They are available at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center box office, 14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, 413.528.0100 or at online at Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center. For further information contact Close Encounters With Music or 800-843-0778.

The Daedalus Quartet is Matilda Kaul, violin; Jessica Thompson, viola; Min-Young Kim, violin; Thomas Kraines, cello (photo Lisa-Marie Mazzucco)

Praised by the New Yorker as “a fresh and vital young participant in what is a golden age of American string quartets,” the Daedalus Quartet has established itself as a leader among the new generation of string ensembles. In the eleven years of its existence the Daedalus Quartet has received plaudits from critics and listeners alike for the security, technical finish, interpretive unity, and sheer gusto of its performances.

Since its founding the Daedalus Quartet has performed in many of the world’s leading musical venues; in the United States and Canada these include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center (Great Performers series), the Library of Congress, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., and Boston’s Gardner Museum, as well as on major series in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. Abroad the ensemble has been heard in such famed locations as the Musikverein in Vienna, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, and in leading venues in Japan.

The Daedalus Quartet has won plaudits for its adventurous exploration of contemporary music, most notably the compositions of Elliott Carter, George Perle, György Kurtág and György Ligeti. Among the works the ensemble has premiered is David Horne’s Flight from the Labyrinth, commissioned for the Quartet by the Caramoor Festival; Fred Lerdahl’s Third String Quartet, commissioned by Chamber Music America; and Lawrence Dillion’s String Quartet No. 4, commissioned by the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts.

To date the Quartet has forged associations with some of America’s leading classical music and educational institutions including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. The Daedalus Quartet has been Columbia University’s Quartet-in-Residence since 2005, and has served as Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania since 2006. In 2007, the Quartet was awarded Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award. The Quartet won Chamber Music America’s Guarneri String Quartet Award, which funded a three-year residency in Suffolk County, Long Island from 2007-2010. The award-winning members of the Daedalus Quartet hold degrees from the Juilliard School, Curtis Institute, Cleveland Institute, and Harvard University.

'Yiddish' by Simon Kogan

(AMHERST, Mass.) – Yiddish, a commissioned work by sculptor Simon Kogan, was installed at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., on April 29, 2012. The 4,000 pound, Cor-Ten steel work is a permanent installation in the center’s Miller Sculpture Garden. The sculpture spells out the word “Yiddish,” and etched into the steel are verses from Yiddish poet Avrom Sutzkever’s “Di blayene platn fun Roms drukeray” (The Lead Plates at the Rom Press).

An internationally recognized sculptor, Kogan was born in Russia, where he received 13 years of classical academic training in Moscow and a Master of Fine Arts degree. He apprenticed under renowned sculptor Isaac Brodsky before immigrating to the United States in 1991.

Kogan’s work, which has been described as “monumental to miniature, reflecting a bold, yet poetic pursuit of the archetypal while rendering an ethereal quality highly resonant with the viewer,” is included in public and private collections around the world. His public works include the WWII Memorial (Olympia, Wash.), Tetris (Moscow Museum of History Figures), Cezanne (Aix-en-Provence, France), and the Holocaust Memorial (Spokane, Wash.).

Simon Kogan

The work was commissioned by the Center’s Sculpture Committee members Lee Hutt and Lief D. Rosenblatt. They reviewed the work of several sculptors before deciding on Kogan. “His work has a European esthetic and a historic humanity about it,” says Lee Hutt. “His choice of Cor-Ten steel, which rusts but does not decay, speaks to the idea and the strength of Yiddish and the Yiddish Book Center.”

Yiddish, a monumental non-figurative work, was conceived for the space it now occupies. In designing the sculpture, Kogan considered the center’s heymish-modern shtetl architecture, the landscape, and the mission of the center. The work is 11 feet long, 4.5 feet deep, and 4 feet high.

The sculpture was a gift of Lief D. Rosenblatt, a board member and chair emeritus of the Yiddish Book Center.

Since its founding in 1980, the Yiddish Book Center has rescued a million endangered Yiddish books, strengthened collections of more than 600 libraries around the world, digitized and posted 11,000 Yiddish books online, and offered a range of innovative programs to advance knowledge of Yiddish language, literature, and culture. The Yiddish Book Center’s distinctive headquarters in Amherst, Mass., features exhibitions, concerts, performances, films, and lectures

Laurie Anderson

(TROY, N.Y.) – Groundbreaking performance artist Laurie Anderson has been named the inaugural distinguished artist-in-residence at the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) for a three-year term beginning in 2012. The residency provides Anderson with wide access to space, technology, and support for creative experimentation, but as important, brings the artist into ongoing dialogue with students and faculty at the nation’s oldest technology university.

As one of America’s foremost contemporary artists; a persistent experimenter at the intersection of performance, media, and technology; and an inventor of tools and instruments, Anderson and EMPAC’s exceptional research and production environment for adventurous new work are an ideal match.

Anderson first came to EMPAC as a resident artist in 2009 to complete work on Delusion, a complex series of stories about longing, memory, and identity commissioned by the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad. At EMPAC, she found the ideal working environment to try new ideas and integrate the diverse, multidisciplinary elements of the work, including music, visuals, altered voices, and electronic puppetry.

Based on the success of the extensive working relationship between Anderson and EMPAC, founding Time-Based Arts Curator Kathleen Forde and Director Johannes Goebel proposed this new opportunity. “It’s such a great honor to be the first EMPAC distinguished artist- in-residence,” says Anderson. “Working with the crack technical and production teams and having access to EMPAC’s spectacular spaces and resources is such a dream. I’m incredibly grateful for this opportunity.”

Laurie Anderson

One of America’s most renowned performance artists, Laurie Anderson’s genre-crossing work encompasses performance, film, music, installation, writing, photography, and sculpture. She is widely known for her multimedia presentations and musical recordings and has numerous major works to her credit, including United States I-V (1983), Empty Places (1990), Stories from the Nerve Bible (1993), Songs and Stories for Moby Dick (1999), and Life on a String (2001), among others. She has had countless collaborations with an array of artists, from Jonathan Demme and Brian Eno to Bill T. Jones and Peter Gabriel.

Anderson has invented several technological devices for use in her recordings and performance art shows, including voice filters, a tape-bow violin, and a talking stick. In 2002, she was appointed NASA’s first artist-in-residence, and she was also part of the team that created the opening ceremony for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. She has published six books, produced numerous videos, films, radio pieces, and original scores for dance and film. In 2007, she received the prestigious Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for her outstanding contribution to the arts. She lives in New York City.

The distinguished artist-in-residence is an expansion of EMPAC’s extensive project-based residency program, which supports the creation of new works and research. It marks the first time an artist has been invited for an extended time unrelated to a specific project, with the express goal of sharing the artist’s creative practice with a technology-focused campus and the community through lectures, work in progress demonstrations, web documentation, workshops, and more.

Goebel sees a unique opportunity in this collaboration: “With EMPAC, Rensselaer has made an incredible commitment to bridge new technology with new artistic development and to bring together the engineering and scientific world with the experiential and creative approaches of the arts. Laurie Anderson will bring her deeply rooted experience in using technological tools in her artistic work to the campus community.”

Since 2005, EMPAC has provided residencies to more than 100 projects with over 400 participating artists, both established and emerging, creating ambitious experimental, time-based work that crosses artistic disciplines and often intersects with the sciences and humanities. Resident artists benefit from advanced facilities; expert staff in audio, video, IT, and stage technologies; and opportunities for collaboration with Rensselaer’s faculty and researchers.

Past resident artists have included the Wooster Group, Chris Doyle, Brent Green, Graham Parker, Ensemble Signal, Nora Chipaumire, Wayne McGregor/Random Dance, The OpenEnded Group, Sean Griffin, International Contemporary Ensemble, Anti VJ, Jennifer Tipton, and MaryAnne Amacher; among others.

Susie Essman

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – Six Feet Under’s Lili Taylor, Cagney and Lacey’s Tyne Daly, and Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Susie Essman are among a host of Williamstown Theatre Festival veterans and talented newcomers who will be straddling the boards at the ’62 Center in Williamstown this summer, along with Becky Ann Baker, Marylouise Burke, Brandon Victor Dixon, Alison Fraser, Heather Lind, Amy Spanger, and Jeremy Strong, during the festival’s 58th Season, its second under the command of artistic director Jenny Gersten.

As previously announced, the complete 2012 Williamstown Theatre Festival season runs from June 26 – August 19, 2012, and includes Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, a preview production of the new musical Far From Heaven, based on the film of the same name, and a new translation of Ivan Turgenev’s A Month in the Country on the Main Stage, plus Lucy Boyle’s The Blue Deep, Neil Simon’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Bernard Pomerance’s The Elephant Man, and Katori Hall’s WHADDABLOODCLOT!!! on the Nikos Stage. The season will also include a special workshop production of David Byrne’s Here Lies Love, which will play at nearby MASS MoCA.

The season’s first Main Stage production, the David Hyde Pierce-directed production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (playing June 26 – July 14, 2012), will feature Drama Desk Award-winner Marylouise Burke (Fuddy Meers), Louis Cancelmi (former WTF Act I Member), Sean Cullen, Emmy and Tony Award-winner Tyne Daly (Cagney and Lacey, Gypsy), Glenn Fitzgerald, Paul McGrane, Amy Spanger and Henry Stram (WTF’s R Shomon).

Lili Taylor

The preview production of the new musical Far From Heaven (based on the 2002 movie), which plays the Main Stage from July 19 – 29, 2012, will feature a cast that includes JB Adams as ‘Morris Farnsworth’ (the same role he played in the film version), Nancy Anderson, Quincy Tyler Bernstine (WTF’s Tough Titty), Brandon Victor Dixon, Sarah Jane Everman, Alison Fraser, Chris Hoch, Mary Stout and Tony Yazbeck. They join previously announced four-time Tony Award-nominee Kelli O’Hara (currently starring on Broadway in Nice Work If You Can Get It).

The final Main Stage show, a new translation of Ivan Turgenev’s A Month in the Country, will play from August 1 – 19, 2012 and will feature Louis Cancelmi, Jessica Collins, Sean Cullen, Kate Kearney-Patch, Paul McGrane, Jeremy Strong (former WTF Non-Equity Company) and Elisabeth Waterston (former WTF Non-Equity Company).

The Nikos Stage season begins with the World Premiere production of Lucy Boyle’s play The Blue Deep (June 27 – July 8, 2012), directed by Bob Balaban with a cast that includes Emmy Award-winner Blythe Danner (Showtime’s Huff), as previously announced. Danner will be joined by WTF veterans Becky Ann Baker (WTF’s Our Town), Jack Gilpin (WTF’s Design for Living), Boardwalk Empire regular Heather Lind (former WTF Non-Equity Company) and Finn Wittrock (Broadway’s Death of a Salesman).

In Neil Simon’s The Last of the Red Hot Lovers (July 11 – 22, 2012), Jessica Stone directs a cast that includes Tony Award nominee Brooks Ashmanskas (Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me), Susie Essman (Curb Your Enthusiasm), and Screen Actors Guild Award-winner Lili Taylor (Six Feet Under), both returning to WTF after having performed there last summer (in She Stoops to Conquer and A Doll’s House, respectively).

Tyne Daly

The Nikos Stage season closes with the World Premiere production of Katori Hall’s WHADDABLOODCLOT, from August 8 – 19, 2012.  The cast of WHADDABLOODCLOT will include Tina Benko, Aaron Costa Ganis, Bryan Tyree Henry, Greta Lee, Andres Muner, and Kathy Searle.

As previously announced, Williamstown Theatre Festival will present a workshop of Here Lies Love, a new theatrical event written by David Byrne with music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim and directed by Alex Timbers.

The complete cast for Here Lies Love is: Renee Albulario, Carol Angeli, Joyelle Cabato, Joshua Dela Cruz, Debralee Daco, Evan D’Angeles. Jose Llana, Ruthie Ann Miles, Maria-Christina Oliveras, Conrad Ricamora, Janelle Velasquez, and Zach Villa.

Here Lies Love is a collaboration with WTF’s artistic neighbor, MASS MoCA, and The Public Theater in New York City. The Public will present the World Premiere of Here Lies Love in the spring of 2013. After a three week rehearsal residency at MASS MoCA, Here Lies Love will play five workshop performances over four days, from June 21-24, 2012, at the Hunter Center for the Performing Arts at MASS MoCA (87 Marshall Street, North Adams, MA).  Tickets are available through the MASS MoCA box office or by calling 413.662.2111.

Advance ticket orders for the 2012 Williamstown Theatre Festival season may be placed through the Festival’s website or by mail order using the season brochure (call 413-597-3400 to join the mailing list).  Advance ticket orders will be processed in late May.  At that time, ticket orders from Festival donors will be given priority and will be filled by descending donor level.  All other advance ticket orders received by May 25, 2012 will be filled in order of date received.

The Festival’s Nikos Stage is an intimate 173-seat venue that regularly sells out in advance from within the pool of Festival donors.

The Williamstown Theatre Festival Box Office will open on June 5th, 2012 at which point tickets may be purchased online, by phone at 413-597-3400, or in person at the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance Box Office at 1000 Main St (Route 2), Williamstown, MA 02167.

Since 1955, the Williamstown Theatre Festival has brought America’s finest actors, directors, designers, and playwrights to the Berkshires, engaging a loyal audience of both residents and summer visitors. Each WTF season is designed to present unique opportunities for artists and audience alike, revisiting classic plays with innovative productions, developing and nurturing bold new plays and musicals, and offering a rich array of accompanying cultural events including Free Theatre, Late-Night Cabarets, readings, workshops, and educational programs. While best known for our acclaimed productions, WTF is also home to one of the nation’s top training and professional development programs for new generations of aspiring theatre artists and administrators. Now under the leadership of Artistic Director Jenny Gersten, WTF was honored with the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre in 2002 and the Commonwealth Award for Achievement in 2011.  The Festival takes place on the idyllic New England campus of Williams College.