The cultural highlights in our region this weekend include jazz, chamber music, World music, roots music … plus a whole lot more.
Berkshires Jazz brings the Ted Rosenthal Trio to the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield on Saturday at 7:30pm, in a concert called Ten by Tin Pan Alley, featuring jazz interpretations of New York City-themed songs. The trio will perform old and new numbers, Broadway favorites, jazz standards, and obscure tunes that pay tribute to the Big Apple and its musical legacy. The world-acclaimed pianist Rosenthal will be joined by a Berkshire-bred all-star rhythm section of Marty Jaffe on bass and Conor Meehan on drums. (February 26)
Close Encounters With Music presents Folk and Baroque, an eclectic program ranging from High Baroque to village dances, South American indigenous flavors to ethereal liturgical music, and from the jig to the tango, at Saint James Place in Great Barrington, Mass., on Saturday at 6pm. Composers include Bach, Scarlatti, Villa Lobos, Schubert, and Stephen Foster, among others. Performers include guitarist Eliot Fisk, vocalist Emily Marvosh, and cellist Yehuda Hanani, artistic director of CEWM. (February 26)
Rolston String Quartet, a young ensemble from Canada, performs in Daniel Arts Center at Simon's Rock College in Great Barrington, Mass., on Sunday at 3pm, as part of the South Berkshire Concert Series. The Rolston will perform a program of works by Haydn, Mendelssohn, and the contemporary Peruvian-American composer Gabriela Lena Frank. (February 27)
Pan-Latin ensemble Sol y Canto brings its award-winning fusion of classic and contemporary Latin tunes to Dewey Hall in Sheffield, Mass., tonight at 7. Featuring Rosi Amador's crystalline vocals and Brian Amador’s lush Spanish guitar and inventive compositions, Sol y Canto’s original songs are distinguished by poetic, often quirky lyrics, intricate guitar playing, and driving rhythms. (February 25)
Barrington Stage Company's annual 10x10 New Play Festival, featuring 10 new 10-minute plays, kicks off this weekend and runs through March 13 at the theater’s MainStage on Union Street in Pittsfield, Mass. (February 25-27)
Woodstock-based singer-songwriter Amy Helm is in residence at the Egremont Barn in South Egremont, Mass., this weekend, where her duo will perform on Saturday at 8 and again on Sunday at 3pm. Helm, the daughter of the late, beloved Levon Helm, drummer-vocalist of The Band, will be featuring songs from her soulful, rootsy new album, What the Flood Leaves Behind. (February 26-27)
Brooklyn-based vocalist and composer Charles Turner, pianist/composer Sean Mason, and playwright Marcus Scott, return to Catskill, N.Y.’s Bridge Street Theatre on Sunday at 2pm, for a “A Charles Turner Tasting,” featuring songs and selections from a new musical theatre piece they have all been developing together. This new musical is self-described as a “postmodern coming of age rom-com that explores modern love through the prism of black bourgeois culture.” (February 27)
Venerable folk-rock singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn brings his politically charged lyrics to the Egg in Albany tonight at 7:30, as part of his 50th anniversary solo acoustic tour. Cockburn is best known for songs including “Wonderin’ Where the Lions Are,” “Lovers in a Dangerous Time,” and “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” – songs that unfortunately are still as relevant and as urgent today as they were when Cockburn first wrote them decades ago. (February 25)
At The Falcon in Marlboro, N.Y., on Thursday, March 3, at 7pm, Hudson Valley-based singer, songwriter and pianist Sarah Perrotta celebrates the release of her terrific new album, Blue to Gold. Perrotta’s atmospheric, piano-driven songs and emotive voice draw from an eclectic blend of classical, jazz, rock and experimental music. Perrotta should appeal to fans of Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos, Aimee Mann and Paula Cole. (March 3)
Seth Rogovoy is editor of the Rogovoy Report, available at rogovoyreport.com
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