The Berkshire Bach Society returns with its annual Bach at New Year’s concert, this year with nine-time Grammy Award winning violinist Eugene Drucker leading the Berkshire Bach Ensemble in three holiday concerts of Baroque masterworks: at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington, Mass., on Saturday at 6 p.m.; at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Troy, N.Y., on Sunday at 3 p.m.; and at the Academy of Music in Northampton, Mass., on Monday at 3 p.m. The program includes music by Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, and Telemann, four giants of the Baroque era. Works include Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins, with Drucker and Emily Daggett Smith as soloists; the Concerto for Violin and Oboe, the Harpsichord Concerto in F minor, a triple concerto from Telemann’s Tafelmusik, and Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 2, showcasing the beautiful tones of Berkshire Bach’s longtime flutist, Judith Mendenhall. (Sat-Mon, Dec 31-Jan 2)
Upstate New York reggae and ska sensations the Big Takeover provide music for ushering in the New Year at the Falcon in Marlboro, N.Y., on Saturday at 8 p.m. Fronted by the charismatic Jamaican-born singer and songwriter Nee Nee Rushie, the seven-piece, horn-heavy Hudson Valley band plays original music that is rooted in and reverent toward the genres and rhythms of Jamaican pop: reggae, rocksteady, ska, with touches of soul and Motown. (Sat, Dec 31)
Over at Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, N.Y., the late drummer’s daughter Amy Helm will front the Midnight Ramble Band for a special New Year’s Eve concert of music associated with Helm’s group, The Band. Also on hand will be legendary roots-music artist Cindy Cashdollar with her band, the Syncopators, on Saturday at 9 p.m. (Sat, Dec 31)
The Teri Roiger Quartet, featuring bassist John Menegon, vibraphonist Bill Ware, and drummer Matt Garrity, rings out the old and rings in the new at Lydia’s Cafe in Stone Ridge, N.Y., on Saturday from 7 to 10 p.m. (Sat, Dec 31)
And looking ahead, the Crescendo music series presents A Story of Hope in the Voice of the New World, vocal and instrumental Renaissance music from colonial-era Latin America, featuring four soloists from Latin America, Europe, and the U.S., and an ensemble of period and folk instrument players. Concerts are at Trinity Church in Lakeville, Conn, on Saturday, January 7, at 5:30 p.m., and at Saint James Place, in Great Barrington, Mass., on Sunday, January 8, at 4 p.m. The music is a mixture of native folk music and Western European-style compositions, likely by indigenous composers. Performers are sopranos Rebecca Palmer from Vienna, Austria, and Jayne Segedy from Barcelona, tenor José Ignacio Lagos from Barcelona, and baritone José Sacín from Peru, with period violinist and percussionist Job Salazar, from Boston and Mexico, charango, ronroco and viola player Carlos Boltes from Chile by way of Hartford, Conn., period harpist Christa Patton of New York City, all directed by Crescendo’s founding artistic director Christine Gevert on historic keyboards. (Sat-Sun, Jan 7-8)
Seth Rogovoy is editor of the Rogovoy Report, available at rogovoyreport.com.
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