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Rogovoy Report 5/19/17

The cultural highlights in our region this weekend include a museum exhibition showcasing the guitar; a play about a radical defense lawyer; early music; classical music; Bob Dylan; and a whole lot more.

The guitar in both its acoustic and electric incarnations is being celebrated at Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Mass., in a new exhibition called GUITAR: The Instrument That Rocked the World. The fully immersive exhibition that lets museumgoers explore all aspects of the guitar, inside and out, to be heard and to be played, opens on Saturday. The museum is holding a debut party for the exhibit tonight from 5:30 to 7:30, including – what else – live guitar music.

“Kunstler,” a play by Jeffrey Sweet based on the self-described “radical lawyer” and civil rights activist William Kunstler, of Chicago Seven and Attica fame, is at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield now through Saturday, June 10. The two-character play imagines the colorful, perpetually rumpled defense lawyer in a battle of wits with a young student who challenges him on many levels.

Early European vocal music will be showcased in Renaissance Treasures Unearthed at St. James Place in Great Barrington, Mass., this evening at 6pm, and at Trinity Lime Rock in Lakeville, Conn., on Sunday at 4pm, as part of the Crescendo music series. Crescendo’s Vocal Ensemble and period instrument specialists will perform works by early Italian and German composers.

Barbara Bonner, author of the award-winning book, Inspiring Generosity, will be signing copies of her new book, Inspiring Courage, at the Millbrook Literary Festival on Saturday and at the Chatham Bookstore on Sunday at 2pm. Inspiring Courage is a timely call to action that offers readers the opportunity to feel the transformative power of their own inner courage. As Bonner so aptly reminds us, “courage” comes from the Latin cor, meaning heart. Courage doesn’t mean recklessness or fearlessness in the face of danger; rather, it means confronting challenges with an open heart – even, perhaps, with love.

Speaking of love, Violinist Tim Fain headlines First Loves and Fresh Ink, a program featuring works by Philip Glass, Bach, Kreisler, and Tchaikovsky, among others, at Hudson Hall in Hudson N.Y., on Saturday at 7pm, as part of the Classics on Hudson series. Fain will be accompanied by pianist Roman Rabinovich and flutist Eugenia Zukerman.

And finally, if I may be so bold, on Monday night at 7pm at Congregation Knesset Israel in Pittsfield, yours truly will be talking about Nobel Prize-winning rock poet Bob Dylan, paying particular attention to the Jewish themes in his life and work, in a multimedia presentation called “The Kabbalah of Bob Dylan.”

Seth Rogovoy is editor of Berkishire Daily and the Rogovoy Report, available online at rogovoyreport.com