The cultural highlights for our region this weekend include chamber music, orchestral music, virtual theater performances, a blues concert … plus a whole lot more.
In a unique partnership with City Winery in New York City, the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington presents a livestream concert by multiple-Grammy Award-winning blues musician Keb’ Mo’ next Wednesday, May 5 at 7 p.m. and Thursday, May 6 at 9:30. Keb’ Mo’, who performed live on the Mahaiwe stage in 2012, has garnered five Grammy Awards, including one for his most recent album, Oklahoma, which won in the Best Americana Album category. Kevin Moore’s dozen Grammy nominations include three for his 2014 self-produced album, BLUESAmericana, and a producer/engineer/artist Grammy Certificate for his track on the 2001 Country Album of the Year, “Hank Williams Tribute – Timeless.” Visit mahaiwe.org for more info.
MASS MoCA's innovative new series, Auditory After Hours, continues for the next three Saturday nights at the cultural laboratory in North Adams with a sound installation curated by Tune-Yards, a critically acclaimed duo churning out endlessly danceable and inventive indie-pop tracks. For their Auditory After Hours soundtrack, the duo recorded an all-new vocals-heavy set incorporating sounds from their recent album that recontextualize the art in MASS MoCA’s galleries. Timed tickets are available for the event at massmoca.org.
WAM Theatre in Lenox is streaming “THE LIGHT” by Loy A. Webb now through Sunday. The 70-minute, real-time rollercoaster ride of laughter, romance, and despair uncovers how the power of radical love can be a healing beacon of light. WAM’s reading of THE LIGHT features real-life couple Elle Borders and Brandon G. Green, who will be portraying Genesis and Rashad, right from their own living room in Boston. For further details visit wamtheatre.com.
Great Barrington Public Theater opens the 2021 season with a play-length series of brand-new monologues by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet. "Four American Women" delivers voices and stories in the words of two famous and two anonymous women. This entertaining evening of razor-sharp monologues, riveting stories and insights stars Rebecca Pidgeon, Heidi Sulzman, and Yolonda Ross, taking Mamet’s precision with language to new places and bringing intrinsically American personalities and mindsets to life. The production can be viewed online now through May 9, with streaming available on many platforms. Visit greatbarringtonpublictheater.org for more details and to make reservations.
The Orchestra Now, under the baton of Leon Botstein, presents its last public performance of the season, the Belated Beethoven Birthday Celebration, on Saturday at 8 p.m. This virtual concert presents the composer’s beloved 5th and 7th Symphonies, as well as his Triple Concerto in C Major, Op. 56 for violin, cello, and piano, featuring Adele Anthony, Peter Wiley, and Shai Wosner, respectively. Find more details at theorchestranow.org.
This weekend, the final episode of the 2020–21 BSO Now streaming season concludes with the third segment of Pathways of Romanticism, in which BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons leads an all-Strauss program, including Serenade in E-flat for Thirteen Wind Instruments and four Interludes from the opera Intermezzo; plus a chamber music performance featuring Jennifer Higdon’s Autumn Music for wind quintet. For more details visit bso.org/now.
Seth Rogovoy is editor of the Rogovoy Report, available at rogovoyreport.com
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