The cultural highlights in our region this weekend include a jazz-funk party; chamber music, Gypsy punk; an orchestral concert; new art exhibitions, and a whole lot more.
Grammy Award-winner Steven Bernstein, the jazz wizard-genius who knows as well as anyone how to combine cutting-edge jazz, funk, and pop music – brings his Universal Melody Brass Band to the Hunter Center at MASS MoCA in North Adams on Saturday at 8pm, in a ticketed event culminating MASS MoCA’s annual Free Day.
Trumpeter/bandleader Bernstein presides over consciousness-expanding arrangements from Sly and the Family Stone, Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, Allen Toussaint, The Band, and more, accompanied by a wicked horn section featuring stalwarts of the downtown avant-garde, including tubist Ben Stapp, trombonist Curtis Fowlkes, saxophonists Oscar Noriega and Erik Lawrence, and slide trombone master Art Baron. Superstar drummer Billy Martin of Medeski Martin & Wood drives the band.
The Williams Chamber Players will play works by Thea Musgrave, Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and a world premiere by Williams faculty member and pianist Zachary Wadsworth in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall at Williams College tonight at 8pm. This free event is open to the public. The concert opens with “Five Love Songs” by contemporary composer Thea Musgrave, performed by soprano Erin Nafziger and guitarist Robert Phelps. Next, the ensemble presents Sonata in F Major, op. 99 for Cello and Piano by Johannes Brahms featuring Nathaniel Parke, cello, and Elizabeth Wright, piano.
The Pioneer Valley-based Gypsy-punk ensemble Bella’s Bartok crosses state lines to bring its fusion of Gypsy swing, Balkan brass, Bohemian punk and pop sensibilities to Club Helsinki Hudson tonight at 9pm. Bella’s Bartok is a brassy, theatrical six-piece ensemble that melds Gypsy swing, Balkan brass, and Bohemian punk with pop sensibilities. Their sound moves way beyond labels, pushing the envelope towards the darker side of Eastern and Central European music, blended with the sounds of vaudeville and the downtown avant-garde. The group will appeal to fans of Beirut, Gogol Bordello, Howard Fishman, and the Klezmatics.
First Fridays Artswalk kicks off with a dozen art shows featuring over twenty accomplished regional artists in downtown Pittsfield with opening receptions this evening from 5 to 8 pm. “10 Spot: Photography,” a collaborative exhibition with the Lichtenstein Center for the Arts and Sohn Fine Art Gallery in Lenox, will feature artists Bob Avakian, Zachary Burns, Ken Dreyfack, Susan Evans Grove, Ralph Mercer, Rebecca Moseman, Carl Rubino, and Denise Tarantino, among others.
Over in Hudson, N.Y., “Americana” is a new exhibit that stages concrete and abstract symbols of American values in a striking selection of ballpoint pen drawings, wood and cardboard constructions, paintings, and photographs. The artworks recall contemporary “artifacts” relating to American history, culture, and tradition defined by previous centuries, and is on view at Carrie Haddad Gallery now through Sunday, March 12.
And down in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., at Bard College, The Orchestra Now, under the baton of Federico Cortese, performs works by Debussy, Barber, and Franck at the Fisher Center at Bard on Saturday at 8pm, and Sunday at 2pm, in the Sosnoff Theater. The Orchestra Now will perform an orchestral elegy, three symphonic sketches on the sea, and a full symphony. Works include Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Debussy’s La mer, and Cesar Franck’s Symphony in D minor.
Seth Rogovoy is editor of Berkishire Daily and the Rogovoy Report, available online at rogovoyreport.com