The weekend’s cultural highlights in the region include cutting-edge dance; new and old music; a musical revival getting rave reviews; comedy; opera, and a whole lot more.
Famed former principal New York City Ballet dancer Wendy Whelan and modern dance choreographer Brian Brooks join forces with avant-garde string quartet Brooklyn Rider in “Some of a Thousand Words,” at Jacob’s Pillow in Becket, Mass., tonight through Sunday. The program is a suite of intimate solos and duets accompanied by a score featuring works by contemporary composers, including Philip Glass and the quartet’s own Colin Jacobsen.
The 15th annual Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass., concludes on Saturday, as always, with a six-hour Bang on a Can Summer Marathon concert from 4 to 10pm, featuring works by special guest composer John Luther Adams, as well as music by Steve Reich, George Crumb, Louis Andriessen, and Bang on a Can cofounders (and Pulitzer Prize winners) Julia Wolfe and David Lang.
The Howard Fishman Quintet brings its original blend of New Orleans, country, and gospel music and narrative-driven songs to PS21 in Chatham, N.Y., on Saturday at 8pm. The band combines the exuberance and spontaneity of jazz with a storyteller’s sense of drama, emotional depth, and play, and includes an all-star cast of musical talent.
Boston Symphony Orchestra music director Andris Nelsons takes the baton at Tanglewood in Lenox for the first of his two weekends of programs this season, conducting works by Mozart, Mahler, Sibelius, Brahms, and John Corigliano, tonight through Sunday. On Sunday evening in Ozawa Hall, the Chick Corea Trio, featuring bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade, celebrate Corea’s 75th birthday.
Rave reviews for Barrington Stage Company’s revival of Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance” are pouring in from major metropolitan media, including critics from the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Albany Times Union. The musical, currently in a limited run at BSC’s mainstage in Pittsfield through Saturday, August 13, is directed by Tony Award-winner John Rando and choreographed by Emmy Award-winner Joshua Bergasse, the same team behind the acclaimed, Tony Award-nominated Broadway revival of “On the Town” that originated at Barrington Stage. You can connect the dots.
Comedian Rita Rudner, who emerged in the comedy boom of the 1980s through appearances on HBO and late-night TV talk shows after a career as a Broadway dancer, brings her standup act to the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield tonight at 8pm.
A new, fully staged production of the rarely produced 1898 opera “Iris” by Puccini’s close contemporary, Pietro Mascagni, concludes its run in the Fisher Center at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., as part of Bard SummerScape, this weekend.
Seth Rogovoy is editor of Berkishire Daily and the Rogovoy Report, available online at rogovoyreport.com
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.