The weekend’s cultural highlights in our region include roots music, folk-rock, contemporary classical, comedy, the songs of Rodgers & Hammerstein, plus a whole lot more.
Country-folk singer-songwriter Bobby Sweet brings his award-winning, Berkshire-bred brand of folk-rock to the Unicorn Theatre Patio on the Stockbridge campus of Berkshire Theatre Group on Saturday at 7pm, as part of Bobbie’s Summer Series. Sweet will be joined by fellow musicians Pete Adams and Abe Guthrie for this program, called “The Grace of a Song.”
The Hills Are Alive with Rodgers & Hammerstein, featuring the most-beloved songs by songwriting duo Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, will be presented by Barrington Stage Company at the Tartell Family Outdoor Stage at the former Polish Community Club in downtown Pittsfield tonight through Saturday, August 29. The concert features songs from Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music.
Roots musicians Erika Ludwig and Jon Ahmadjian will perform at Dewey Hall in Sheffield, Mass., tonight at 7pm, as part of the Dewey Sessions Friday night outdoor concert series. Ludwig and Ahmadjian’s concert will include energetic fiddle tunes in minor keys, traditional favorites from the U.S. and the U.K, and a few jazz standards.
Comedian Cory Kahaney brings her singular brand of feminist humor to the Foundry in West Stockbridge, Mass., as part of their ongoing outdoor performance series "Patio Productions," on Saturday night at 7:30pm. Kahaney has appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Late Show with David Letterman, as well as CONAN, This Week at the Comedy Cellar, The View, and The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson.
The first Virtual Sankofa Black Arts and Cultural Festival in Hudson takes place now through Monday, August 31. Presenters include Sasha Sierra Allen, an American singer and actress born and raised in Harlem, who has been a backing vocalist for the likes of Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Leona Lewis, and Usher. Also on tap are fitness and health specialist Ayanna Elohim, choreographer/dancer Kyle Marshall, singer-actress-dancer Ariana Debose (Hamilton, So You Think You Can Dance), theater artist and filmmaker Tanisha Christie, performing artist/activist Taja Lindley, cosmic soul singer Lady Moon, Wynton Marsalis sideman Zorkie Nelson’s West African Dancers and Drummers, plus visual artists and more.
Timo Andres, the multi-faceted composer-pianist described by the New Yorker’s Alex Ross as “quietly awesome,” will perform a daring program of three musical responses to violence and exploitation—Aaron Copland’s “Piano Sonata,” Frederic Rzewski’s “Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues,” and Andres's own “Old Ground”—at PS21 in Chatham, N.Y., tonight at 7pm, as part of the Modern Music Fest series. Then tomorrow night at 7, acclaimed pianist Adam Tendler will perform works by a handful of contemporary composers, including Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, Meredith Monk, and John Cage, at PS21 .
Novelist Curtis Sittenfeld will discuss her most recent book, Rodham with author/editor Heidi Pitlor as part of The Mount’s True Conversations series streamed online via Zoom on Monday, August 24, at 4pm. Rodham is a work of speculative fiction that imagines a universe in which Hillary Rodham turned down a marriage proposal from William Jefferson Clinton. The rest, as they say, is history – or in this case, Sittenfeld’s imagination.
Seth Rogovoy is editor of the Rogovoy Report, available at rogovoyreport.com
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