The cultural highlights in our region this weekend include chamber music, Baroque music, jazz, theater … plus a whole lot more.
Improvisation in music did not begin with jazz. Crescendo Music presents a program called “The Art of the Improvisation: Extemporaneous Dialogues,” featuring Italian and English Renaissance and Early Baroque works for two keyboards and lute, twice in our region this weekend, first tonight at 6pm at Trinity Church in Lakeville, Conn., and again on Sunday at 4pm at St James Place in Great Barrington, Mass. The centerpiece of the concert are four sonatas for two keyboards by Bernardo Pasquini, which consist only of a harmonic road map by the composer, who left it to the players to decide what notes to play. (June 10, 12)
A landmark exhibition called Imprinted: Illustrating Race, opens at the Norman Rockwell Museum on Saturday and runs through October 30. The exhibition examines the role of published images in shaping attitudes toward race and culture. More than 150 works of art and artifacts of widely circulated illustrated imagery produced from 1590 to today will be on view. (June 11-October 30, 2022)
The premiere of Will LeBow’s one-man show, “The Bard The Beat The Blues,” begins it run as part of the Great Barrington Public Theater Solo Fest at Simon’s Rock College in Great Barrington, Mass., this weekend and running through June 26. Actor-musician LeBow takes the audience on a voyage beginning in the Jewish ghetto of Vilna, Lithuania, to Brooklyn, where his grandfather acted in Yiddish theater, to growing up in the 1950s, heading off to City College, discovering Shakespeare, being introduced to nightlife in the heyday of Greenwich Village, the poetry of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and other influences that led him to a lifelong career on stage. (June 8-June 26)
The West Stockbridge Historical Society kicks off this summer’s Jazz at the Old Town Hall Series with the Daryl Lowry Quartet on Saturday at 8pm. Lowry has recorded and or performed with such notables as Dizzy Gillespie, Jackie Byard, and Ran Blake and for over two decades was a member of Al Kooper’s band. (Saturday, June 11)
Goth-folk duo Charming Disaster will bring their theatrical, playfully dark songs inspired by death, crime, and the occult to the Foundry in West Stockbridge, Mass., tonight at 7:30. The duo’s latest album, Our Lady of Radium, is a song-cycle inspired by pioneering scientist Marie Curie. (Friday, June 10)
Half Waif, also known as singer-songwriter and producer Nandi Rose, a native of Williamstown, Mass., returns to the Race Brook Lodge in Sheffield, Mass., on Saturday at 7pm. Half Waif blends pop, folk, and electronic styles into a layered, unique sound. (June 11)
Latin American and Spanish folklore and rhythm will be onstage at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington on Sunday at 4pm, when classical Spanish and flamenco dancer and choreographer Irene Rodriguez headlines “Musica Latina,” presented by Close Encounters With Music. In addition to a new dance work specifically choreographed for Close Encounters, Rodriguez will be joined by a quartet performing works by a range of Spanish, Cuban, and Argentine composers. (Sunday, June 12)
Jazz at Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Sean Mason brings his quintet to PS21 in Chatham, N.Y., tonight at 7pm. Sean’s quartet will perform selections from three of his compositions: “The Southern Suite,” “The Migration Suite,” and “The Recovery Suite.” (June 10)
Jazz and Classics for Change presents a quintet including Eugene Drucker on violin, Gili Melamed-Lev on piano, and mezzo-soprano Susannah Woodruff at Tydeman Farm in Germantown, N.Y., on Saturday at 4pm, performing works by Beethoven and Schumann and Eugene Drucker’s song-cycle entitled “Of Troubled Times.” (June 11)
Pianist Mishka Rushdie Momen brings her Champions of Salon Music program to the Stissing Center in Pine Plains, N.Y., on Sunday at 4pm. Mishka will perform works by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, and a sampling of Fanny Mendelssohn’s under-represented compositions. (June 12)
And finally, on Sunday, the Jewish Community Federation of the Mohawk Valley will host “JEWTICA,” the first ever public celebration of the cultural heritage of Jews in the Utica, N.Y., region. Highlighting the festival is a performance by New York City-based Isle of Klezbos, an all-women sextet playing traditional klezmer with a contemporary twist. Writer and Jewish food historian Jeffery Yoskowitz, co-author of The Gefilte Manifesto cookbook, will be on hand to demonstrate how to make kosher-style dill pickles and cheese blintzes. Did someone just say “cheese blintzes”? Yum. (Sunday, June 12)
Seth Rogovoy is editor of the Rogovoy Report, available at rogovoyreport.com
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