**SOLD OUT** Join us on May 15th at 12:00pm for our annual luncheon musicale benefit! Celebrate the Salon, the nineteenth century institution that helped promote artists, painters and musicians as the intellige ntsia gathered to exchange ideas, enhanced by gaiety and ambience. Savor a superb lunch and support Close Encounters With Music in the e […]
A virtual symphony for three musicians, expansive and noble—like the Austrian Archduke who was the dedicatee—the great “Archduke” is more than a trio. It offered Beethoven the perfect vehicle for the development of his compositional techniques and the exploration of instrumental brilliance and virtuosity with three independent, powerful voices. In the “Ghost” Trio, conjuring up […]
Glittering cosmopolitan Berlin and the village of Nelahozeves, Bohemia (now Czech Republic, population 2,200) are the respective places of origin of Felix Mendelssohn and Antonin Dvorak. Mendelssohn’s Trio in C minor offers some of his most exquisitely crafted music, with a magical scherzo right out of Midsummer Night’s Dream. The spirit of Slavic folk music […]
A work in ten movements by Modest Mussorgsky that was inspired by a visit to an art exhibition, "Pictures at an Exhibition" is a showpiece where only the most virtuosic pianists dare to tread! It is also a perfect point from which to explore the common language of music and art, which share not only […]
Bringing a “mellifluous blend of vigorous intensity and dramatic import, performed with enthusiasm, technical facility and impressive balance,” the 13-strong Manhattan Chamber Players make their Close Encounters With Music debut this season. In a program both orchestral (Brandenburg No. 3 and Copland’s iconic Appalachian Spring and reduced to octet for Mendelssohn’s early work (“Its youthful […]
Celebrate the Salon in the Gilded Age elegance of 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. All That Jazz features Jazz pianist Ted Rosenthal at The Lenox Club. RSVP by April […]
The Souvenir de Florence String Sextet takes us on a musical excursion to Italy, where Tchaikovsky spent some of his happiest times— reflected in the unforgettable tunes and warm cantabile style. Assessments of the work’s national style—Italianate or inescapably Russian—differ, but the sextet is quintessential Tchaikovsky, suffused with his characteristic longing and incomparable melodies. Ravel’s […]
** Concert Tickets Still Available! Gala Dinner is Sold Out. ** Two great melodists, two young geniuses in one brilliant evening: Bubbly, like fine Champagne, Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet is one of the most joyous pieces ever written. A landmark of classical music, it weaves a net of enchantment with its catchy melodies and fresh exuberance. […]
The words are intricately related but diverge. Virtuosity: music that glorifies the possibilities of the instrument and the prowess of the performer—that titillates and stuns the audience in the Romantic tradition of Paganini. It’s the violinist tight-rope walking on the strings, performing impossible feats, stretching the capabilities of the instrument, creating pacts with the Devil. […]
Nuances of the night are explored in this multi-faceted program. Release from the brightness of daylight, from consciousness into sleep and dreaminess, the night’s seductive, mysterious potion-like allure has fascinated artists throughout the ages. Lullabies celebrate repose, the restful charm; serenades celebrate love. Other works mark the fear of darkness, the unseen and what may […]
The notable Avalon String Quartet returns with another Berkshire premiere, “For Such a Time as This,” a retelling of the biblical Esther story for string quartet and vocalist, from a feminist perspective. Composer Stacy Garrop’s (recent commissions from the Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Louisiana symphony orchestras) intent is to remind us “we each possess agency […]
In his dance suites, J. S. Bach ventures into Spanish sarabandes, French bourrées and British gigues. He and family members delighted in arranging Celtic and Scottish folk music. They will be joined by Beethoven and Haydn, who also forayed into Irish folk music with their own arrangements. Makaris formed in 2018 to explore the broad […]
The Romans appropriated the entirety of classical Greek culture, and the Renaissance rediscovered and revitalized it. Then came Rodin and Greek Revival in American architectural style. An Egyptomania craze gripped 19th century Europe and found its way into operas (Aida, Samson and Delilah), couture (harem pants as high fashion), architectural idioms, decorative arts, music and […]
Experience the elegance of the Gilded Age Salon at a private Berkshires club! Our Annual Luncheon Musicale Benefit, "Piano Duo, Four Hands," features pianists Anthony Zerpa-Falcon and Jong-Gyung Park performing Mozart, Brahms, and Liszt. Celebrate 24 years of CEWM's Commissioning Program, savor a superb lunch and support Close Encounters With Music. La vie est belle! […]
The imperial “City of Song” has played an essential role as a leading European cultural center, hosting major personalities in the development of music, as well as literature, painting, psychiatry and intellectual thought, from the 16th to 20th centuries. As in the architecture, musical styles that sprang up are a mix of Baroque, Classical, Art […]
Dvořák’s sublime Piano Quintet in A Major occupies a lofty place in the chamber music canon, at the same elevation as Brahms’s Piano Quintet in F minor, op. 34. Simply put, both works are majestic, symphonic in scope, and invite the listener into a lost world of powerful beauty, profundity, and nobility of sentiments, peppered […]
