(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – Unconventional music in unconventional venues could be the theme of a series of concerts planned for three indoor and outdoor sites owned by The Trustees of Reservations, beginning this Sunday, July 13, at 4:30pm at Field Farm with a performance by Wintergreen Trio, a Lanesboro-based folk ensemble. The gardens and ruins of Ashintully, set in the countryside town of Tyringham in the southern Berkshires, will also play host to two intimate concerts in the famed music studio of composer John McLennan, whose grand piano graces the space, while at Naumkeag in Stockbridge, jazz lovers can bask in the early evening rays during the Naumkeag at Night series, which blends pastel Berkshire sunsets and Gilded Age-style with weekly jazz concerts, drinks and guest lectures on Thursdays in July and August from 5 to 8pm.

Subsequent Second Sundays concerts at Field Farm will include the intricately intertwined guitar-work of the upstate New York duo Rosary Beard, on August 10, renowned for painting dramatic soundscapes as they explore the sonic differences of unique performance venues. And on September 14, Dan Kennedy & Stephan Katz of Northampton will offer a mesmerizing summer evening with sophisticated and eclectic compositions on piano and cello.

Modern jazz musicians will invoke the musical heritage at Ashintully on July 27 when the Alex Snydman Trio will perform original compositions by its members. The following month, solo pianist Dan Kennedy will delight audiences with his New Age-style solo piano performance on August 24.

 

Performers at Naumkeag will include David Reed, Paul Green, Joe Belmont and Duo Fusion, and Allen Livermore & the Limb Shakers Jazz Band. Naumkeag is a rare surviving example of a gilded-age Berkshire “Cottage” and a National Historic Landmark. The house along with its fourteen magnificent gardens is visited by thousands of garden, landscape and history enthusiasts from around the world each year. The product of 30 years of collaborative work by the former owner, Mable Choate, and the noted Landscape Architect Fletcher Steele, Naumkeag’s gardens are currently in the process of a transformative and fascinating restoration, and remain one of only a few Steele designs still open to the public, as well as one of his most famous works. The cost for each evening is $10 with cash bar available.

“Artists have always explored landscapes in different light and different seasons.” explains Joanna Ballantine, Regional Director for The Trustees serving the Berkshires, Pioneer Valley and Central Mass. “Music interacting with its surroundings, though a combination of sight and sound can reveal new ways to experience the beloved places we think we already know.”

The classic landscape at Field Farm offers an exceptional opportunity to take a second look—or listen.

As one of the northern Berkshires’ most significant cultural landscapes, Field Farm  connects two mid-century architectural structures, The Guest House and the Folly (New England’s youngest historic house museum), with 316 sublime acres of conserved meadows, woods and wetlands. Crisscrossed with trails and framed by sweeping views of Mt. Greylock, Massachusetts’ highest mountain, the property provides an idyllic setting for the Where Modern Meets Nature summer culture series, which exemplifies mid-century modernism’s reverence for the beauty and genius of the natural world.
Free guided nature walks of Field Farm precede each Second Sundays concert at 3pm.  On July 13th, the Trustees are delighted to have biologist and scientific illustrator Elizabeth Farnsworth to lead visitors around the exquisite property. Farnsworth is co-author of the updated edition of the Peterson Field Guide to Ferns of Northeastern and Central North America, and is illustrating the forthcoming Flora of New England for the New England Wild Flower Society.
Concert tickets are available at the door for $10 for Trustees members and $15 for Nonmembers; children welcome for free. Guests are encouraged to bring lawn chairs, blankets, and a picnic dinner.  Post- concert tours of the post- modern Folly house will also be available, along with a wine and beer cash bar during the concert. Concerts will move under an outdoor tent in the event of rain.
Music in Gardens & Ruins: Jazz Concert Offerings
Ashintully Gardens, Tyringham
Ashintully itself is the 30-year creation of McLennan, who blended the haunting ruins of the Marble Palace estate with several natural features into an ordered arrangement with both formal and informal beauty. McLennan’s expressed his emphasis on elegant form and proportion in music through his garden design, which helped Ashintully earn the Hunnewell Medal from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Tickets at the door are $10 for Trustees Members and $15 for Nonmembers. Children are free.   The grounds offer an ideal setting for a picnic dinner and strolls around the property before or after the concerts.

 

Naumkeag, Stockbridge
At Naumkeag, jazz lovers can bask in the early evening rays during the Naumkeag at Night series, which blends pastel Berkshire sunsets and gilded-age style with weekly jazz concerts, drinks and guest lectures on Thursdays in July and August from 5 to 8pm. Performers will include David Reed, Paul Green, Joe Belmont and Duo Fusion, and Allen Livermore & the Limb Shakers Jazz Band. Naumkeag is a rare surviving example of a gilded-age Berkshire “Cottage” and a National Historic Landmark. The house along with its fourteen magnificent gardens is visited by thousands of garden, landscape and history enthusiasts from around the world each year. The product of 30 years of collaborative work by the former owner, Mable Choate, and the noted Landscape Architect Fletcher Steele, Naumkeag’s gardens are currently in the process of a transformative and fascinating restoration, and remain one of only a few Steele designs still open to the public, as well as one of his most famous works. The cost for each evening is $10 with cash bar available.

 

 

About the Trustees of Reservations: About The Trustees of Reservations: The Trustees of Reservations (The Trustees) “hold in trust” and care for properties, or “reservations,” of irreplaceable scenic, cultural, and natural significance for the general public to enjoy. Founded by open space visionary Charles Eliot in 1891, The Trustees is the world’s oldest land trust and one of Massachusetts’ largest conservation and preservation non profits. Supported by more than 100,000 members and donors and thousands of volunteers, The Trustees own and manage 112 spectacular reservations including working farms, historic homesteads and landscaped gardens, community parks, barrier beaches, mountain vistas and woodland trials located on more than 26,000 acres throughout the Commonwealth. An established leader in the conservation and preservation movement and worldwide, The Trustees have also worked with community partners to protect an additional 34,000 acres. With hundreds of outreach programs, workshops, camps, concerts and events annually designed to engage all ages in its mission, The Trustees invite you to Find Your Place and get out and experience the natural beauty and culture our state has to offer.