Master Class: Piano with Alexander Shtarkman
2025-07-29 13:30 - 14:30 (America/New_York) | The Kellogg Center at Bard College Simon’s Rock, 84 Alford Road, Great Barrington, 01230, United States
Join us for this piano master class with Alexander Shtarkman (Peabody Conservatory). Berkshire High Peaks Festival offers master classes to its students; they are free and open for the public to attend. These master classes and talks are held at The Kellogg Center at Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
Alexander Shtarkman is a returning faculty member. He performs and gives master classes in Europe, Asia, South and North Americas, and in Russia where he is a frequent guest performer at the prestigious Great and Small Halls of the Moscow Conservatory. Read his full biography here.

SOLD OUT "One World – A Harmonic Convergence" at The Guthrie Center
2025-07-29 19:00 - 21:00 | The Guthrie Center, 2 Van Deusenville Road, Great Barrington, 01230, United States
** SOLD OUT **
Folk and classical traditions come together in a spirited celebration of music without borders. “One World – A Harmonic Convergence!” is a genre-blending performance that reveals how melodies passed down through generations find new life in the concert hall, and how classical music has always drawn strength from the soul of the people. Discover what happens when worlds meet—and resonate as one.
Join the artists of the Berkshire High Peaks Festival and The Guthrie Center on Tuesday, July 29 at 7:00pm for an unforgettable evening where storytelling and song transcend time and place.
Program (order subject to changes):
Warlock – Suite Capriol Suite (12’) – Peter Zazofsky
Gershwin – Three Preludes– Gila Goldstein (7’)
De Falla – Siete Canciones Populares Españolas (2–3 movements)– Returning students Laura + Calvin (piano) (6’)
Chinese Folk Selection (5’)– Vivian Wu + Zoe
Fazil Say – Cleopatra (6’)– Katie
Bloch – Hebrew Prayer (4’)– Yehuda
Coleridge-Taylor – Five Negro Melodies (1 movement plus the last) (6’)
Bragato, Graciela y Buenos Aires– Shiyu + Diego
Woody’s Children – All performers (finale) (5’)
Doors open at 6pm: Tickets for this event are pay as you wish.
All proceeds benefit the Berkshire High Peaks Scholarship Fund & The Guthrie Center.
REGISTER HERE

Master Class: Voice with Danielle Talamantes and Kerry Wilkerson
2025-07-30 13:30 - 14:30 | The Kellogg Center at Bard College Simon’s Rock, 84 Alford Road, Great Barrington, 01230, United States
Join us for this voice master class with Danielle Talamantes (Metropolitan Opera) and Kerry Wilkerson (George Mason Univ.). Berkshire High Peaks Festival offers master classes to its students; they are free and open for the public to attend. These master classes and talks are held at The Kellogg Center at Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
Read their full biographies here.

Moonlight Sonatas Concert
2025-07-30 19:30 - 21:30, 2025-07-31 19:30 - 21:30, 2025-08-01 19:30 - 21:30, 2025-08-02 10:30 - 12:30, 2025-08-02 14:00 - 16:00, 2025-08-02 19:30 - 21:30 | The Kellogg Center at Bard College Simon’s Rock, 84 Alford Road, Great Barrington, 01230, United States
Come experience performances by talented young musicians and renowned faculty members!
Berkshire High Peaks Festival “Moonlight Sonatas” concerts feature talented students and distinguished faculty and are held at The Kellogg Center at Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, MA.
These concerts are free and open to the public as part of the larger festival, which includes masterclasses and other events.
High Peaks residents and faculty perform on these dates:
Monday, July 28 @7:30pm
Wednesday, July 30 @7:30pm
Thursday, July 31 @7:30pm
Friday, August 1 @7:30pm
Saturday, August 2 @10:30am @2:00pm @7:30pm (Farewell Performances)

Master Class: "The Acting Singer" with Jay Lesenger
2025-07-31 13:30 - 14:30 | The Kellogg Center at Bard College Simon’s Rock, 84 Alford Road, Great Barrington, 01230, United States
Join us for a fascinating Master Class “The Acting Singer” with opera director/conductor Jay Lesenger. His Acting Masterclasses for Singers are transformative!
Berkshire High Peaks talks are free and open to the public! All events are at Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. No registration necessary.
Jay Lesenger is a Guest Stage Director at Bard College — Undergraduate Opera Workshop—and is General/Artistic Director Emeritus, Chautauqua Opera, 1994 – 2015. See full bio here.

Berkshire High Peaks Festival in Concert (PRIVATE EVENT)
2025-08-01 15:00 - 17:00 | Tannersville, NY
A vibrant afternoon of music featuring renowned faculty and outstanding young artists of the Berkshire High Peaks Festival. From Renaissance-inspired English dances to sweeping Romanticism and Argentinian soul, the program spans cultures and centuries. Highlights include Peter Warlock’s Capriol Suite, the emotionally charged Adagio from Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata, Mendelssohn’s dramatic Piano Trio in D minor with prize-winning violinist Peter Zazofsky, and tango selections performed by Buenos Aires Philharmonic cellist Diego Fainguersch. Topping off the afternoon is Metropolitan Opera soprano Danielle Talamantes with arias and timeless songs from the American Songbook.

“The Golem” – A Vision in Sound and Cinema with the Avalon Quartet
2025-11-02 16:00 - 18:00 | Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, 14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, MA, 01230, United States
Monsters and magic spells! A masterwork of German expressionist cinema meets a live klezmer-infused score in a vibrant feast for the eyes and ears. Paul Wegener’s 1920 pioneering silent horror film, Der Golem, was so popular on its release that it sold out movie houses in both Germany and America for months, inspired Golem-themed operettas, and was a critical influence on the 1931 cult film Frankenstein. Drawn from a medieval folk legend, Der Golem tells the tale of oppressed Jews in 16th century Prague who create a monster out of clay to protect themselves, only to see it violently turn against them. To harmonize with the atmosphere of the film, Israeli-born composer Betty Olivero takes traditional Yiddish folk-tunes and music from the Jewish liturgy and reimagines them. The resulting score for clarinet and strings is colorful, ominous, and exciting—and the experience of hearing live musicians accompany the action on the big screen promises to be unforgettable.
The Avalon String Quartet: Blaise Magnière, violin; Marie Wang, violin; Anthony Devroye, viola; Cheng-Hou Lee, cello.
Saerom Kim, clarinet; Jonathan Yates, conductor
“The Avalon–an ensemble that invites you—ears, mind, and spirit—into its music.” — Chicago Tribune

Individual Tickets:
Balcony: $35
Orchestra/Mezzanine: $60
Ages 18 – 35: $25
Student tickets are available at the door: $15
Season Subscriptions

Early Bird Subscription Deadline: September 28
Early Bird Subscribers will receive their e-tickets by October 3
Regular Season Subscribers will receive their e-tickets on October 24

Virtual Tickets:
$30 for each concert; $100 for access to complete season. A link to the concert video is emailed one week after performances.
Tickets go on sale September 10.

Vivace Chamber Orchestra: Mozart, Mendelssohn, Britten, Bruch
2025-12-07 16:00 - 18:00 | Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, 14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, MA, 01230, United States
The Vivace players return! This chamber music collective of New York-based musicians share the common aim of performing the greatest works in the chamber repertoire at the highest level. The program is curated to showcase their extraordinary unanimity of rare musicianship. Looking backwards, Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue in C minor employs Bach’s contrapuntal style but carves out daring, unexpected harmonies that sound as though they were composed 100 years later. The result almost resembles an Italian overture. Nothing less than a miracle, Mendelssohn’s String Octet in E-flat major remains one of the favorite works in the canon, bursting with youthful verve, brilliance and perfection. As a 16-year-old, he instructed the double quartets, in the score: “This Octet must be played by all the instruments in symphonic orchestral style.” Britten’s Simple Symphony movements speak to his sense of fun and good spirit. German composer Max Bruch’s adaptation of “Kol Nidrei” is a universal, extraordinarily expressive utterance—beginning with supplication and contrition and ending on notes of promise and redemption!
Vivace Chamber Orchestra
Yehuda Hanani, cello

Individual Tickets:
Balcony: $35
Orchestra/Mezzanine: $60
Ages 18 – 35: $25
Student tickets are available at the door: $15
Season Subscriptions

Early Bird Subscription Deadline: September 28
Early Bird Subscribers will receive their e-tickets by October 3
Regular Season Subscribers will receive their e-tickets on October 24

Virtual Tickets:
$30 for each concert; $100 for access to complete season. A link to the concert video is emailed one week after performances.
Tickets go on sale September 10.

“Endings” – Piano Trios by Shostakovich and Schubert
2026-02-15 16:00 - 18:00 | Saint James Place, 352 Main Street, Great Barrington, MA, 01230, United States
How to end and exit a musical composition—with a bang or a whimper? Will there be the thunderous affirmation of a Beethoven symphony or a whispered adieu à la Mahler’s Song of the Earth, sailing into eternity? A cliffhanger ending leaves the audience on the edge of their seats while a full-circle ending bringing us back to the beginning satisfies human desire for resolution and completeness. Ambiguous endings can evoke many different emotional responses while the happy ending is a classic, satisfying viewers and listeners as they wrap up their experience. Compositional choices will be illuminated by Shostakovich’s haunting, riveting Trio No. 2 and Schubert’s heavenly last work, the Trio No. 2 in E-flat major (the main theme of the slow movement was borrowed from a Swedish song, “The sun has set”), as he turns death and personal tragedy into a triumph—his own personal ending of choice.
Gila Goldstein, piano; Xiao-Dong Wang, violin; Yehuda Hanani, cello

Individual Tickets: Orchestra/Mezzanine: $60
Season Subscriptions

Early Bird Subscription Deadline: September 28
Early Bird Subscribers will receive their e-tickets by October 3
Regular Season Subscribers will receive their e-tickets on October 24

Virtual Tickets:
$30 for each concert; $100 for access to complete season. A link to the concert video is emailed one week after performances.
Tickets go on sale September 10.

Mostly Amadeus—Meet the Mozarts!
2026-03-15 16:00 - 18:00 | Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, 14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, MA, 01230, United States
That the supernatural perfection of Mozart’s music was created by an imperfect child-like person has led many to believe he was a “quill in divine hands.” And the two of his sublime works scheduled (Piano Trio in B-flat KV 502 and Quartet in G minor KV 478) may bring you to the same conclusion. To be reminded of the humanity of the legend, we place him genealogically between his father Leopold, a minor composer who wrote piano exercises for the young Amadeus and his sister Nannerl and shrewdly marketed his “child wonder,” and one of Amadeus’s four sons, Franz Xaver, who, barring the phenomenal virtuosity of his father, would have certainly been noted as a fine composer in his own right. A special attraction will be the world premiere of a Mozart fragment we have discovered under unusual circumstances!
Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė, piano; Hye-Jin Kim, violin; Ara Gregorian, viola; Yehuda Hanani, cello
About Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė:“Powerfully and intricately crafted performances… ‘razor-sharp intelligence and wit,’ and ‘subtle, complex, almost impossibly detailed and riveting in every way.’” — The Washington Post
“…heart-stopping and unrivaled beauty… Hye-Jin Kim’s was supremely musical playing, well thought out, yet of the moment.” – The Strad

Individual Tickets:
Balcony: $35
Orchestra/Mezzanine: $60
Ages 18 – 35: $25
Student tickets are available at the door: $15
Season Subscriptions

Early Bird Subscription Deadline: September 28
Early Bird Subscribers will receive their e-tickets by October 3
Regular Season Subscribers will receive their e-tickets on October 24

Virtual Tickets:
$30 for each concert; $100 for access to complete season. A link to the concert video is emailed one week after performances.
Tickets go on sale September 10.

“On the Wings of Song”—Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Mendelssohn Piano Trio
2026-04-19 16:00 - 18:00 | Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, 14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, MA, 01230, United States
Robert Schumann’s setting of Heinrich Heine’s song cycle, Dichterlibe—A Poet’s Love—is, in a word, spellbinding. The rendering of the age-old theme of love and betrayal is personal and intimate, with barriers between singer and listener removed. It is Romanticism at its most exquisite. Mendelssohn, too, was captivated by Heine’s lyrical genius and wrote music to seven of his poems (“On the Wings of Song” is one)—linking all three giants. His majestic Piano Trio in D minor is an expression of his unwavering belief in the possibility of a harmonious, enlightened world and the triumph of beauty. The charismatic baritone Tyler Duncan injects profound psychological insights into the text to produce a riveting experience together with his long-time artistic collaborator pianist Adam Golka.
Tyler Duncan, baritone; Adam Golka, piano; Miranda Cuckson, violin, Yehuda Hanani, cello
“Miranda Cuckson…a brilliant young performer who plays daunting contemporary music with insight, honesty, and temperament…and standard repertory with beauty and assurance.” — The New York Times
“A pianist with brilliant technique and real emotional depth” — The Washington Post

Individual Tickets:
Balcony: $35
Orchestra/Mezzanine: $60
Ages 18 – 35: $25
Student tickets are available at the door: $15
Season Subscriptions

Early Bird Subscription Deadline: September 28
Early Bird Subscribers will receive their e-tickets by October 3
Regular Season Subscribers will receive their e-tickets on October 24

Virtual Tickets:
$30 for each concert; $100 for access to complete season. A link to the concert video is emailed one week after performances.
Tickets go on sale September 10.

Annual Luncheon Musicale Benefit
2026-05-03 12:00 - 14:30 | Lenox, MA
This event is sold out.
Celebrate the Salon in the Gilded Age elegance at a private Berkshires club. The scintillating atmosphere of the 19th century institution that helped promote artists, painters and musicians as the intelligentsia gathered to exchange ideas, enhanced by gaiety and ambience. Savor a superb lunch and support Close Encounters With Music. La vie est belle!!!

This performance features rising stars of The Juilliard School.
Maude Cloutier, violin
Alex Nam, piano
Téa Bowers, violin
Philip Thompson, cello

Vivace Baroque Orchestra: The Four Seasons—Antonio Vivaldi and Astor Piazzolla
2026-05-17 16:00 - 18:00 | Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, 14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, MA, 01230, United States
Vivaldi’s iconic Four Seasons (for which he also wrote accompanying sonnets) and Piazzolla’s sultry Four Seasons of Buenos Aires share a program where time, place, and style intertwine. From the bright renewal of Vivaldi’s Spring to the tempestuous heat of his Summer, through Autumn and his musical depiction of slipping on the ice in Winter, nature is rendered in Baroque brilliance. One of the earliest examples of program music—music with a narrative element—there are flowing creeks, singing birds, storms, drunken dancers and warm winter fires. Piazzolla’s southern hemisphere take on the cycle of nature, by contrast, pulses with tango rhythms and urban melancholy, reimagining the seasons through the ardent lens of Buenos Aires. Together, these works offer a striking conversation across centuries and continents—earthy, electric, timeless, and dazzlingly played by the Vivace String Orchestra’s fourteen members. Vivace Chamber Orchestra is comprised of fourteen top tier New York musicians who gather for periodic tours.
Artists: Vivace Baroque Orchestra featuring Siwoo Kim, violin soloist.

Individual Tickets:
Balcony: $35
Orchestra/Mezzanine: $60
Ages 18 – 35: $25
Student tickets are available at the door: $15
Virtual Tickets:
$30 for each concert; $100 for access to complete season. A link to the concert video is emailed one week after performances.

Romance of the Romani!—Ravel, Bartok, Liszt, Haydn and Brahms Piano Quartet
2026-06-14 16:00 - 18:00 | Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, 14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, MA, 01230, United States
The season closes with the irresistible fire and passion of music shaped by Roma traditions, which left an indelible mark on European composers. The romance, longing, and sense of freedom in these melodies found their way into some of the most beloved works of the repertoire. Haydn’s Piano Trio No. 39, with its famous “Gypsy” Rondo, dazzles in Hungarian style, while Brahms unleashes unbridled intensity in the torrential finale of his Piano Quartet No. 1. Ravel (Tzigane), Bartók (Romanian Dances), and Liszt (Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2) add their voices to this vibrant tradition. After the performance, join us for a festive reception—complete with a fortune teller to offer a lighthearted glimpse into your future. Our prediction: a brilliant season finale filled with inspired music and extraordinary performers.
Max Levinson, piano; Hye-Jin Kim, violin; Helena Baillie, viola, Yehuda Hanani, cello; Laura Melnicoff, cello.
SPECIAL OFFER AS OF JUNE 9, 2026!
50% off per ticket for one pair of Mezzanine seats! Ticket Limit: 2. Discount Code: ROMANI2
*Discount code is valid online (enter at checkout) or through the Mahaiwe box office.
**Offer excludes Orchestra, Opera Box, and Upper Balcony seating. Offer is not applicable to previously purchased tickets.

Individual Tickets via The Mahaiwe
Balcony: $35
Orchestra/Mezzanine: $60: (Discount Code ROMANI2 for 2 tickets Mezzanine only)
Ages 18 – 35: $25
Student tickets are available at the door: $15
Virtual tickets are $30 for each concert via cewm.org
We hold our annual gala dinner post-concert at a location in Lenox. Please scroll down for ticket packages. Thank you!
Gala Ticket Options:
Post-concert Gala tickets: $175
Premium Concert Seating + Gala: $225
Sponsorship Options:
Gold Sponsorship: $3,000

Concert premium seating and gala tickets for 8
Full page ad in gala playbill
2 tickets reserved for April and May concerts

Silver Sponsorship: $2,000

Concert seating and Gala tickets for 6
1/2-page ad in gala playbill

Bronze Sponsorship: $1,500

Concert seating for 4
1/4 page ad in gala playbill

Questions: Contact Caitlin Marsden McNeill at caitlin@cewm.org or call 800.843.0778.
