The cultural highlights in our region this weekend include chamber music, virtual theater, a site-specific sound installation, jazz fusion … plus a whole lot more…
Good intentions collide with absurd assumptions in "The Thanksgiving Play" by MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Larissa FastHorse, being creatively designed as a virtual play available for streaming today through Sunday evening by WAM Theatre in Lenox, Mass. In the play, a troupe of white liberal teaching artists scramble to devise a grade school theatre performance that somehow manages to celebrate turkey day, while also honoring Native American Heritage Month. Visit wamtheatre.com for more info.
The West Stockbridge Chamber Players play Prokofiev and Brahms in a virtual harvest concert streaming today through Sunday from the stage of the Old Town Hall in West Stockbridge, featuring works by Prokofiev and Brahms. Artistic director Catherine Hudgins on clarinet will be joined by Sheila Fiekowsky on violin, Lisa Kim on violin, Daniel Getz on viola, and Adam Esbensen on cello, in a program that features Prokofiev’s Sonata for Two Violins in C Major, op 56, and Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115. Visit www.weststockbridgehistory.org for more information.
Shakespeare & Company’s virtual reading series continues this weekend with Smart People by Lydia R. Diamond, in which it is the eve of Obama's first election, and four of Harvard University's brightest – a surgeon, an actress, a psychologist, and a neuro-psychiatrist – are all interested in different aspects of the brain, particularly how it responds to race. But, like all smart people, they are also searching for love, success, and identity in their own lives. The play streams tonight through Sunday evening at 7:30 p.m.; visit Shakespeare.org for more info.
The genre-less trio Son Lux continues its run in Auditory After Hours, a new series giving visitors to MASS MoCA in North Adams a chance to engage with art while listening to a bespoke experience curated by cutting-edge musicians. Included in the program is a special preview of Son Lux’s upcoming album Tomorrows II, arranged specifically for MASS MoCA’s galleries, a sort of site-specific musical installation. Time slots are Saturday night at 7, 7:30, and 8. Upcoming artists in the series include Sylvan Esso and Kaki King.
On Saturday at 5 p.m., Clarion Concerts is streaming a Conversation with Black Leaders in Classical Music. Featuring conductor and commentator Brandon Keith Brown, bassoonist and radio host Garrett McQueen, and composer and violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama, the panel promises to be a frank, no-holds-barred conversation about race and racism in the Classical Music world. Visit clarionconcerts.org for more info.
On Saturday at 7 p.m., guitarist Mike Stern brings his progressive jazz sound to the Falcon in Marlboro, NY. After playing with Blood, Sweat & Tears, he worked with drummer Billy Cobham and then with trumpeter Miles Davis from 1981 to 1983 and again in 1985. Stern then began a solo career, releasing more than a dozen albums, and establishing himself as a leading instrumental voice in jazz fusion.
Seth Rogovoy is editor of the Rogovoy Report, available at rogovoyreport.com
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