Press Releases

Take Five with Yehuda Hanani

JULY 24, 2020 -- Berkshire High Peaks Festival is a 10-day summer intensive for cellists, violinists, violists and pianists that began 11 years ago as Catskill High Peaks Festival in Hunter, N.Y. and Tannersville, N.Y. Two years ago, this international gathering of music professionals and students relocated to Berkshire School in Sheffield, which had been home of Berkshire Choral Festival (now Berkshire Choral International) for more than three decades, beginning in 1982.

Close Encounters with Music Presents: The French Connection- Saint-Saes, Debussy, Faure

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FEBRUARY 13, 2020 -- The greatest period of creativity among French composers coincides with the emergence of Impressionist art. Attempting to define that French “je ne sais quoi” is as elusive as describing a bottle of Château Petrus. But, as exemplified by the music of Fauré (Piano Quartet No. 1), Debussy (the prophetically daring cello Sonate), Saint-Saëns (Rondo Capriccioso) and Lili Boulanger (D’un matin de printemps), tension between elegance, restraint and intense fervor is a hallmark of the French aesthetic.

Close Encounters with Music Presents: Grand Piano Trios — Schubert and Brahms

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JANUARY 8, 2020 -- Two enduring treasures of the chamber music canon lift us into the realm of the transcendent and channel the Viennese tradition: Schubert’s Trio in B flat Major and Brahms’ in B Major were both written or rewritten towards the end of the composers’ lives. Both display masterful sculpting of heavenly melodies coupled with passion and heady romanticism.

Close Encounters with Music Presents: Great Strings – The Borromeo Quartet

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NOVEMBER 20, 2019 -- Anton Arensky’s Quartet in A Minor for two cellos, a personal tribute to his beloved friend Tchaikovsky, is considered one of the finest Russian string quartets ever written, with the second movement being a set of variations on a Tchaikovsky theme. Meanwhile, in conversations across time, melodies ricochet from Beethoven to Arensky (as well as Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky) as Arensky paraphrases a celebratory Russian folk song associated with the coronation of the Tsar—used by Beethoven in his Quartet Op. 59 No. 2, one of the famous works commissioned by Count Razumovsky.

Close Encounters with Music Presents the American Premiere of Andre Hajdu’s Masterwork “Kohelet” Featuring Sam Waterson as Narrator

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SEPTEMBER 9, 2020 -- Embarking on its 28th year of presenting outstanding chamber music with lively commentary, the Berkshires’ premier chamber music organization Close Encounters With Music, launches 2019-20 with the much anticipated North American premiere of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) for four cellos, narrated by star of film, stage and television Sam Waterston on Sunday, October 27 at 5 PM.

Close Encounters with Music Presents “Tamar Muskal – Composer, Songwriter, Fashionista” the Second Installment of its Conversations with… Series of Intimate and Stimulating Afternoons on Music and Ideas

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APRIL 15, 2019 -- Undaunted by new forms or new frontiers, Tamar Muskal has written everything from pop songs to symphonies to her new opera-in-progress, set in the world of high fashion, that tells the story of Diana Vreeland and Andre Leon Talley and examines the constant rises and falls of the industry.

The Art of the Quartet: The Escher String Quartet Presented by Close Encounters with Music

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APRIL 15, 2019 -- Acclaimed for musical insights and rare tonal beauty, and championed by the Emerson String Quartet, the Escher has toured extensively throughout the U.S., Europe, Australia and Asia. They served as BBC New Generation Artists and gave debuts at the BBC Proms, are winners of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and perform as Artists of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Close Encounters with Music Presents its Season Finale Gala: Like Father-in-Law, Like Son-in-Law: Antonin Dvorak and Josef Suk

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APRIL 15, 2019 -- Czech nationalist composer Antonin Dvořák rose to fame in Prague, paving the way for his favorite student and later son-in-law Josef Suk. There was great closeness and spiritual kinship between them, and both were championed by Brahms (who confessed to envying Dvořák’s melodic gifts!) Dvořák’s Rondo and Suk’s Balada and Pisen Lasky love song are rarely performed gems, and the more familiar Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major by Dvořák is acknowledged as one of the masterpieces in the form, along with those of Schumann and Brahms. In fact, Dvořák assimilated Brahms’ techniques and methods, while his exuberance, earthiness and the warmth of his melodies ennoble Bohemian folklore.