The weekend’s cultural highlights in the region include several chamber music concerts, vintage jazz, roots music, soul music, and a whole lot more.
Tonight, vintage jazz group The Hot Sardines brings its early-20th-century sounds to the Fisher Center at Bard College at 8pm, for a “Holiday Stomp” program, infusing yuletide classics with a unique twist on New York, Paris, and New Orleans jazz from the era of Prohibition and beyond.
In the talented hands of the New York-based ensemble, music first made famous decades ago comes alive through brassy horn arrangements, rollicking piano melodies, and cool vocals from a chanteuse who transports listeners to a different era with the mere lilt of her voice. The program includes beloved chestnuts like “White Christmas” and “Please Come Home for Christmas” as well as lesser-known gems such as Edith Piaf's “Le Noël de La Rue,” Ella Fitzgerald's “Santa Claus Got Stuck in My Chimney,” and even “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” — with plenty of other surprises along the way.
The West Stockbridge Chamber Players will perform works by Brahms and Dohnanyi at the West Stockbridge Congregational Church in Massachusetts on Thursday, December 29, at 6pm. A reception will follow the concert.
The West Stockbridge Chamber Players are a world class-ensemble that is made up of Boston- and Berkshire-based musicians who regularly perform with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, Spoleto Festival, and Portland Symphony, and who teach at the Tanglewood Music Center. The group includes clarinetist Catherine Hudgins, horn player Jason Snider, violinist Sheila Fiekowsky, violist Mary Ferrillo, cellist Jennifer Lucht, and pianist Sayuri Miyamoto. The concert will feature Johannes Brahms’ Horn Trio, Op. 40 (for horn, violin, and piano); and Erno Dohnanyi’s Sextet, Op. 37 (for clarinet, horn, violin, viola, cello, and piano).
The Berkshire Bach Ensemble will ring out the old and ring in the new with its annual Bach at New Year’s program featuring all six Brandenburg Concerti at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington, Mass., on Saturday, December 31, at 6:30pm. The program – featuring violinist Eugene Drucker, a cofounder of the Emerson String Quartet - will also take place at the Academy of Music in Northampton, Mass., on Friday, December 30, at 7:30pm, and at the Troy [N.Y.] Savings Bank Music Hall on Sunday, January 1, at 3pm.
And also looking ahead to next weekend, Grammy Award-nominated Texas singer-songwriter Hayes Carll brings his roots-oriented original songs to Club Helsinki Hudson on Thursday, December 29, at 8pm. Carll is equally known for his outspoken politically-infused rockers and his self-described “degenerate love songs.” His most recent album, “Lovers and Leavers,” came out earlier this year. Singer-songwriter Allison Moorer will warm up the crowd for Carll with her gorgeous, country-inflected brand of folk-rock.
And on New Year’s Eve, soul-rocker Simi Stone, classic rocker Pearl Aday – the daughter of Meat Loaf, thrash-rock pioneer Scott Ian, and prog-rock singer Lisa Green will help the crowd ring out the old and ring in the new at Club Helsinki Hudson starting at 9pm.
Seth Rogovoy is editor of Berkishire Daily and the Rogovoy Report, available online at rogovoyreport.com