SIMONE FELICE to PLAY HELSINKI HUDSON
Simone Felice (photo John Huba)
(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Rock singer-songwriter Simone Felice, formerly a member of the popular upstate New York roots-rock band the Felice Brothers, will perform a solo show at Club Helsinki Hudson on Friday, December 7, 2012, at 9pm. His brother and former bandmate, James Felice, is expected to join Simone, adding vocal harmonies and accordion to the mix. At a recent show by the Felice Brothers at Helsinki, Simone joined the band for a number and nearly stole the show. Simone Felice is a celebrated songwriter, author, and poet born in Palenville, N.Y., a small working-class hamlet in the Catskill Mountains. In 2004 and then 2005, Simone published his first short works of fiction, Goodbye Amelia, a coming of age story about a small-town girl struggling to survive at the dawn of the Reagan era. Felice’s first novel, Black Jesus, was recently bought by award-winning publisher Allen & Unwin (Atlantic Books/Faber&Faber) and Random House, which will release a German translation in spring 2012.
EARLY MUSIC ENSEMBLE PLAYS BAROQUE HOLIDAY CONCERT at MAHAIWE
Tragicomedia
(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) — The drama and emotion of the Italian cantata takes center stage when the early-music ensemble Tragicomedia performs a holiday concert featuring works by Handel and Italian Baroque composers on December 9, 2012, at 6pm, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, as part of the Close Encounters With Music series. “Tragicomedia: A Baroque Holiday Celebration” features a soprano and bass-baritone accompanied by rarely heard Baroque instruments such as the mandolin, lirone, chitarrone and viola de gamba. The program includes 17th- and early 18th-century cantatas by George Frideric Handel — whose compositions represent the pinnacle of the cantata form — as well as Barbara Strozzi, Francisco Guerau, Agostino Steffani and Carlo Arrigon.
Berkshire Lyric Holiday Concert in Stockbridge, Mass., 2009
BERKSHIRE LYRIC KICKS OFF 50TH SEASON WITH HOLIDAY CONCERTS
(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – Berkshire Lyric, one of the Berkshire’s longest running community arts organizations, kicks off its 50th anniversary season with a series of holiday concerts, including “Deck the Halls, The Christmas Concert,” on Sunday, December 9, 2012, at 3pm at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in downtown Pittsfield. On Saturday, December 8, at 11am, the Berkshire Singers, the teenage chorus of Berkshire Lyric, will be featured in a special concert at the Berkshire Museum. And on Saturday, December 29, at 3pm, Berkshire Lyric will present Handel’s Messiah as a community sing at the First United Methodist Church.
Heather Maloney
DARLINGSIDE and HEATHER MALONEY to PLAY WILLIAMS, DREAM AWAY
(WILLIAMSTOWN and BECKET, Mass.) – Indie folk-rock group Darlingside and singer-songwriter Heather Maloney bring their “Extreme Folk” tour to the Log at Williams College on Wednesday, December 5, 2012, at 7:30pm, and to Dream Away Lodge in Becket on Thursday, December 6, at 8:30 pm. Darlingside just released its debut full-length album, Pilot Machines. Maloney just signed a record deal with Massachusetts-based indie record label Signature Sounds.