And let there be music in the Hudson Valley! Pop-rock group Orleans performs tonight at the Paramount Hudson Valley Theater in Peekskill, N.Y. , at 8pm. The Robby Krieger Band, featuring Doors guitarist Robby Krieger, performs at Sugar Loaf Performing Arts Center in Chester, N.Y., on Saturday at 7pm. The Mavericks bring their blend of country roots music to the Tarrytown Music Hall for two shows this weekend, Saturday at 8 and Sunday at 7.
The cultural highlights for our region this weekend include musical theater, theater of the absurd, garage-rock, early music, orchestral music, folk-rock … plus a whole lot more.
While the summer theater season in the Berkshires is now a distant memory, there are still opportunities for theater lovers to catch a show. Shakespeare & Company’s production of The Chairs by Eugène Ionesco brings the curtain down on Shakespeare’s 2021 season with performances in Lenox tonight through Sunday. Ionesco, of course, was a leading light of the French avant-garde and a pioneer of the so-called Theater of the Absurd, in which he combined modern feelings of alienation and the impossibility and futility of communication with surreal comic force, parodying the conformism of the bourgeoisie and conventional theatrical forms. In short, my kind of theater.
The curtain also comes down this weekend on Billy Crystal and his new musical, “Mr Saturday Night,” at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Mass. The musical, which plays tonight and tomorrow night, is based on the 1992 Billy Crystal film of the same name.
Noir girl-group Habibi brings its unique blend of Detroit garage-band rock, Persian-influenced melodies, and the escapism of dance club rhythms to Hi Lo in North Adams, Mass., tonight at 8pm. British folk-rock singer-songwriter James Maddock, whose mystique and dramatic narratives have made him something of a cult figure and drawn comparisons to the likes of Neil Young, Sam Cooke, Roy Orbison, Bruce Hornsby, and Bill Withers, returns to the Egremont Barn in South Egremont, Mass., tonight at 8.
And just because Tanglewood is closed for the winter doesn’t mean the end of orchestral concerts in the Berkshires until next summer. In fact, the Berkshire Symphony performs works by Respighi, Haydn, and Brahms in a free concert tonight at 7:30 in Chapin Hall on the Williams College campus.
Early music ensemble Crescendo presents two concerts in our region this weekend, both devoted to the famous Baroque solo concertos from Rome, Bologna, Venice and London. Works by Torelli, Corelli, Vivaldi and Handel, many featuring trumpet, will be performed tonight at 7:30 at Saint James Place in Great Barrington, Mass., and Saturday at 4 at Trinity Church in Lakeville, Conn.
The Hudson Valley Philharmonic presents The Exile’s Journey, featuring guest conductor Tong Chen, performing works by Viet Cuong, Felix Mendelssohn, Leonard Bernstein and others, at the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie on Saturday at 8pm.
Speaking of Baroque, Western Mass. folk-rock ensemble Darlingside brings its literary-minded, baroque folk-pop and superpower harmonies to the Egg in Albany tonight at 8.
Seth Rogovoy is editor of the Rogovoy Report, available at rogovoyreport.com