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Rogovoy Report For April 11, 2014

This weekend in the greater Berkshire region you can hear a string quartet, a jazz quintet, a world-pop ensemble, a retro-funk outfit, art songs, and a Brahms symphony, among many other cultural attractions.

Banda Magda is the brainchild of Athens-born accordionist, vocalist and musical polymath Magda Giannikou. Her group brings its multicultural world-pop sounds that incorporate more than a half-dozen languages while winding their way through Brazilian baião, Gypsy jazz, Greek dance rhythms, samba beats and French chansons to Club B-10 at MASS MoCA in North Adams, on Saturday at 8pm. The group’s most recent recording, “Amour, T'es Là?”, was named one of NPR’s "10 Favorite World Music Albums of 2013.”

The Borromeo String Quartet will perform works by Bela Bartok in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall on the Williams College campus on tonight at 8p.m. The ensemble will play three of the Hungarian composer’s string quartets: No. 2, 4, and 6. The concert is free and open to the public.

Pianist Armen Donelian and saxophonist Kris Allen will perform in concerts being presented around the region as part of the celebration of national Jazz Appreciation Month presented by Berkshires Jazz. The April programming spans Berkshire County, and includes performances of student musicians in both Lee and Pittsfield, and a Jazz Crawl in downtown Pittsfield. The April jazz events kick off on Saturday at 1pm, when the Williams College Jazz Quintet, featuring alto saxophonist Kris Allen, performs at the First Congregational Church on Park Square in Lee. The program also includes Nico Wohl and Friends, featuring the 13-year-old guitar prodigy who has been wowing audiences all over the Berkshires.

Meanwhile, over in Hudson, the retro-funk outfit the Budos Band lays down its classic, horn-inflected grooves at Club Helsinki Hudson on tonight at 9pm. The group's self-styled "Staten Island instrumental Afro-soul" reminds listeners of the classic 1970s funk of Isaac Hayes and Average White Band, with forays into Henry Mancini, Black Sabbath and hip-hop territory.

Les chemins de l'amour, a program of romantic love songs featuring works in French, Italian, German and English, will be performed by baritone Wheelock Whitney, accompanied by Edward Cremo on piano, at the Hudson Opera House on Saturday at 7pm. The program takes its title from the valse chantee of that name written in 1940 by Francis Poulenc for the celebrated actress and singer Yvonne Printemps. In addition to Poulenc, the program includes songs by Erik Satie, Reynaldo Hahn, Marc Blitzstein and Noel Coward.

And finally, the American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leon Botstein, will perform works by Johann Strauss Jr., Julius Conus, and Johannes Brahms at the Fisher Center at Bard College tonight and tomorrow night at 8 p.m. The program includes Strauss Jr.’s Emperor Waltz, Julius Conus’s Violin Concerto, featuring Zhi Ma ’15, violin; and Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 2.

I’m Seth Rogovoy, and that’s the Rogovoy Report for this weekend.

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