The cultural highlights in our region this weekend include three pianists improvising on the classics; an orchestra performing romantic, modern, and contemporary works; a chamber group celebrating the first family of Baroque music; a pop/avant garde all-star collective reviving forgotten masterpieces of countercultural cinema; an original commercial illustrator from the “Mad Men” era; the return of a hometown jazz-soul-world music ensemble, and a whole lot more…
Three pianists from the classical and jazz world join forces for the world premiere of “Improv Cubed: From Bach to the Great American Songbook,” a musical journey spanning 300 years and featuring variations on works by Bach, Scarlatti, Schubert, and music from ragtime, Brazilian choro, and the so-called Great American Songbook, in the Fisher Center at Bard College on Saturday at 8pm.
The Hudson Valley Philharmonic will perform works by Stravinsky, Brahms, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon, and the East Coast premiere of “Borealis” by John Estacio, featuring projected images of the Northern Lights by José Francisco Salgado, at the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie on Saturday at 8pm.
Works by or associated with the illustrious Bach family will be featured in “J.S. Bach and Sons — Legitimate and Otherwise,” at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington, on Saturday at 6pm, in a chamber concert in the Close Encounters With Music series. The program includes music by Johann Sebastian Bach’s uncle Heinrich and his sons Johann Christoph Friedrich, Wilhelm Friedemann, and Carl Philipp Emanuel; his so-called illegitimate son P.D.Q. Bach, also known as Peter Schickele; and the master himself, in a rendition of “Brandenburg Concerto” No. 3, as performed by ACRONYM, a self-described 12-piece Baroque “string band.”
Mikael Jorgensen of Wilco; art historian and curator James Merle Thomas, performer and composer Nick Hallett; and guitarist William Tyler, launch a new project called The Trimbin Band, blending intergalactic sonic waves with folk fingerpicking and found images from the archive of Los Angeles-based 1960s cult filmmaker Fred Engelberg, in the Hunter Center at MASS MoCA in North Adams, on Saturday at 8pm.
Mac Conner, whose work as a prominent illustrator in advertising and magazines in the mid-1950s and 1960s helped shape the aesthetic and tone of the “Mad Men” era, is the subject of an exhibition of more than 70 original works by the New York City-based artist at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, opening Saturday and on view through June 19.
And finally, jazzy soul-funk outfit Lady Moon & the Eclipse returns to Club Helsinki Hudson tonight at 9pm, to preview songs from their debut EP, “Believe,” due out next week. Lady Moon & the Eclipse is a multicultural seven-piece band based in Brooklyn, N.Y, led by vocalist NgondaBadila aka Lady Moon. Ngonda and her two sisters, also in the group, grew up in a creative, artistic, and very musical family in Hudson, where they were well known and beloved by the community.
Seth Rogovoy is editor of Berkishire Daily and the Rogovoy Report, available online at rogovoyreport.com