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Rogovoy Report 10/25/19

The highlights of the cultural weekend in our region include indie-jazz, theater, chamber music, chamber opera, Irish fiddle tunes … plus a whole lot more.

Violinist Jenny Scheinman and drummer Allison Miller bring their new co-writing collaboration and band, Parlour Game, to Club B10 at MASS MoCA in North Adams on Saturday at 8 p.m. Scheinman and Miller are two of the indie-jazz scene’s most exciting instrumentalists. With Parlour Game, which also boasts pianist Carmen Staaf and acoustic bassist Tony Scherr, they do for jazz what Wilco does for rock – they redefine it by connecting to a host of Americana-derived musical styles and accents.

"Pipeline," first presented by WAM Theatre as a Fresh Takes reading in August 2018, returns as a WAM MainStage performance, having in the meantime garnered an Obie Award for its Tony-nominated playwright Dominique Morisseau. The play -- a powerful and thought-provoking examination of race, class, and the American education system -- opens this weekend at Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox and runs through Nov 9.

Close Encounters with Music kicks off its 2019-2020 season with the American premiere of Andre Hajdu’s Kohelet for four cellos, narrated by actor Sam Waterston, at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington on Sunday at 5 p.m. The Biblical book of Kohelet is more widely known by its Latin name, Ecclesiastes. One of the most unusual books of scripture, Kohelet declares that all is futile. Its exploration of the meaning of life and mortality has inspired creative works for hundreds if not thousands of years. Bob Dylan’s song “It’s All Right Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” for example, draws heavily on imagery and themes from Kohelet. Andre Hajdu’s musical and textual take on Kohelet are strongly influenced by Samuel Beckett and Bela Bartók, as well as the French composers Milhaud and Messiaen. Sam Waterston plays the role of the philosopher king, traversing the proverbs, aphorisms and familiar passages from Ecclesiastes that have entered our collective lexicon. It’s all right ma, it’s life and life only.

Fans of chamber music may also want to check out the Williams Chamber Players performing works by Mozart, Schubert, Kancheli and Carro tonight at 7:30 at Williams College, and the Clark’s resident chamber ensemble performing works by Schubert, Janá?ek, Dvo?ák, and Fauré on Sunday at 3 p.m.

Or if your taste runs to fiddle instead of violin, you may want to check out traditional Irish fiddler Frankie Gavin performing at Dewey Hall in Sheffield, Mass., tonight at 7:30.

A unique program comes to Hudson Hall Saturday night at 7, when mezzo-soprano Hai-Ting Chinn performs her one-hour opera Science Fair – featuring real science experiments. Science Fair is the final concert of the Leaf Peeper's 2019 season produced by Clarion Concerts. An opera singer’s love-song to science, the program, featuring pianist and music director Erika Switzer, uses physical demonstrations and experiments, a libretto created from the words of scientists, and original music to illuminate our current understanding of the natural world.

Seth Rogovoy is editor of Berkishire Daily and the Rogovoy Report, available at rogovoyreport.com