This Season Spans Centuries, Styles and Continents!
Close Encounters With Music’s 35th season spans centuries, styles and continents—with a world premiere, a Grammy-nominated vocal ensemble, a full orchestra, and a Berlin-to-Paris cabaret—November through June in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
“Saluting the Clarinet” opens the season on November 1 at 4 pm with clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein in Mozart, Beethoven, Bartók and Gershwin — and the season closes in June with the world premiere of Jorge Martín’s “Metamorphosis: Love,” commissioned by CEWM.
Embarking on its 35th year of presenting outstanding chamber music with lively commentary in the Berkshires, Close Encounters With Music marks the milestone with a season titled “Celebration & Discovery” — seven concerts that range from the bedrock of the repertoire to music with the ink barely dry. The season brings pianists Simone Dinnerstein, Anna Polonsky, Michael Chertock, Max Levinson and Daniel Rein; clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein; violinists Miranda Cuckson, Xiao-Dong Wang, Helena Baillie, Hye-Jin Kim and Siwoo Kim; violists Daniel Panner and Luke Fleming; cellists Yehuda Hanani and Hannah Sohn; hornist Rafael Castillo-Halvorssen; baritone Tyler Duncan, tenor Omar Najmi and soprano Dana Varga; percussionists Samuel Solomon and Nancy Zeltsman; the four-time GRAMMY-nominated Skylark Vocal Ensemble; the 26-member Vivace Orchestra under conductor Joshua Gerson; and Israeli singer-actress Yael Rasooly, making her CEWM debut.
The clarinet opens the season, and few instruments cover more ground. It can come on brash and it can come on sensuous — the wolf in “Peter and the Wolf,” the ecstatic lyricism of “The Magic Flute,” the wail at the top of “Rhapsody in Blue.” Alexander Fiterstein is joined by pianist Michael Chertock, violinists Xiao-Dong Wang and Helena Baillie, violist Daniel Panner, and cellist and artistic director Yehuda Hanani for Mozart’s valedictory Clarinet Quintet, Beethoven’s Trio in B-flat major, Op. 11, Gershwin, and Bartók’s “Contrasts” — written for Benny Goodman and Joseph Szigeti, and packed with Hungarian country fiddling, folk fare, jazz and outright clarinet-and-violin pyrotechnics.
The season closes on June 13 with a world premiere: Jorge Martín’s “Metamorphosis: Love,” commissioned by CEWM, in which a tenor protagonist is drawn into dialogue with a soprano Muse over cello, piano, marimba and vibraphone. It shares the program with Tchaikovsky’s great Piano Trio — the composer’s elegy for his teacher Nikolai Rubinstein, played by violinist Hye-Jin Kim with Hanani and pianist Max Levinson — an earlier CEWM commission, Kenji Bunch’s 2015 companion piece for narrator, cello and percussion written to a Shakespeare sonnet of desire and longing, and art songs by Schubert, Brahms, Fauré, Poulenc and Finzi. Loss, remembrance, joyous recollection, metamorphosis and love animate the whole evening.
In between, the season turns in every direction. On December 13, Yael Rasooly brings “Come to the Cabaret! Paris and Weimar Berlin” to the Mahaiwe with pianist Daniel Rein and hornist Rafael Castillo-Halvorssen, channeling Édith Piaf and Marlene Dietrich through the bold, satirical songs of Weimar Berlin and the chansons of interwar Paris — sung, mimed and staged with elaborate costumes and specially created life-size puppets. On February 21, in the intimacy of Saint James Place, Simone Dinnerstein — “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation” — joins Yehuda Hanani and cellist Hannah Sohn for Bach and Handel: two composers born one month and 125 kilometers apart who took opposite roads to immortality.
On March 14, the Skylark Vocal Ensemble returns under artistic director Matthew Guard with Britten’s “Flower Songs,” Benedict Sheehan’s “Songbird Antiphons” and music inspired by gardens, birdsong and the living world. The four-time GRAMMY nominee has been called “exquisite…thrilling…stunning” by Gramophone Magazine and “gripping” by The Times of London. On April 18, Dvořák — who straddled two centuries, two continents and two sensibilities — is heard in the “American” Quartet, the Piano Quintet, and selections from the “Biblical Songs” and “Gypsy Songs” with baritone Tyler Duncan. And on May 16 the Vivace Orchestra — 26 top-tier soloists and chamber musicians under conductor Joshua Gerson, with Siwoo Kim, violin, and Luke Fleming, viola, as soloists — returns with “The Golden Chain of Classical Music”: Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, and Beethoven’s First — after whose premiere Emperor Francis II is said to have remarked, “There is something revolutionary in this music!”
Artistic director Yehuda Hanani is welcoming audience members new to the Berkshires as well as long-time residents to join for intimate programs with outsize talent, in the beautiful landmark Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center and at Saint James Place, “to regain a sense of Community through the inspiring and healing effects of the best music ever penned—from over 300 years ago to almost yesterday, with the ink just drying”!
All audience members are invited to an “Afterglow” reception following each concert to meet the performers and one another!
In addition to offering live in-person concerts, curated online performances will be available to accommodate geographically remote listeners and virtual followers.
THE 2026-2027 SEASON
Unless noted, performances take place at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, 14 Castle Street, Great Barrington.
Sun., Nov. 1, 2026, 4 p.m. — Saluting the Clarinet: Mozart, Beethoven, Bartók and Gershwin Alexander Fiterstein, clarinet; Michael Chertock, piano; Xiao-Dong Wang and Helena Baillie, violins; Daniel Panner, viola; Yehuda Hanani, cello. Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center.
Sun., Dec. 13, 2026, 4 p.m. — Come to the Cabaret! Paris and Weimar Berlin Yael Rasooly, singer, actress, director (CEWM debut); Rafael Castillo-Halvorssen, horn; Daniel Rein, piano. Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center.
Sun., Feb. 21, 2027, 4 p.m. — Bach and Handel Simone Dinnerstein, piano; Yehuda Hanani, cello; Hannah Sohn, cello. Bach’s Fifteen Sinfonias and Gamba Sonata No. 2; Handel’s Violin Sonata in F Major (performed on cello) and Sonata for two cellos and keyboard; Beethoven’s Variations on a theme from Handel’s “Judas Maccabaeus.” Saint James Place, 352 Main Street, Great Barrington.
Sun., Mar. 14, 2027, 4 p.m. — Skylark Vocal Ensemble, Matthew Guard, Artistic Director Britten’s “Flower Songs,” Benedict Sheehan’s “Songbird Antiphons,” and works inspired by gardens, birdsong and the living world. Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center.
Sun., Apr. 18, 2027, 4 p.m. — Dvořák—In the New World and Old World Anna Polonsky, piano; Miranda Cuckson, violin; Xiao-Dong Wang, violin; Helena Baillie, viola; Yehuda Hanani, cello; Tyler Duncan, baritone. Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center.
Sun., May 16, 2027, 4 p.m. — Vivace Orchestra—The Golden Chain of Classical Music Joshua Gerson, conductor; Siwoo Kim, violin solo; Luke Fleming, viola solo. Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 “Surprise,” Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1. Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center.
Sun., June 13, 2027, 4 p.m. — World Premiere—“Metamorphosis: Love” The world premiere of Jorge Martín’s CEWM-commissioned Metamorphosis: Love, with Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio, Kenji Bunch, and art songs by Schubert, Brahms, Fauré, Poulenc and Finzi. Omar Najmi, tenor; Dana Varga, soprano; Hye-Jin Kim, violin; Yehuda Hanani, cello; Max Levinson, piano; Samuel Solomon and Nancy Zeltsman, percussion. Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center.
Beyond the subscription series, CEWM presents its Annual Luncheon Musicale Benefit on Sun., May 2, 2027 at 12 p.m. at a private club in Lenox — a Gilded Age salon afternoon of music and a superb lunch in support of Close Encounters With Music’s Commissioning Program. Tickets go on sale in March.
TICKET INFORMATION
Season subscriptions are available now at cewm.org: Regular $295 (plus processing fee) and Early Bird $265 (plus processing fee) — a $30 savings — for the series of 7 concerts, with guaranteed Orchestra/Mezzanine seating at both the Mahaiwe and Saint James Place. The Early Bird deadline is September 7. A Pick 4 Series, good for any four concerts, is $195. The $15 processing fee is included at every level.
Memberships begin at Patron ($750), which includes two season seats per concert, recognition in the playbill, priority seat selection and CEWM merchandise. Benefactor ($1,000) adds tickets to the gala dinner following the June concert, and Endower ($2,000 and above) includes four season seats per concert and an invitation to Salon-style events.
Single tickets go on sale Friday, August 28: $60 Orchestra, $35 Balcony, Student tickets are $15 at the door. (Saint James Place has no balcony seating.) Virtual tickets are $30 per concert, or $100 for access to the complete season.
Tickets are available at cewm.org, by mail to Close Encounters With Music, P.O. Box 34, Great Barrington, MA 01230, and at the Mahaiwe Box Office, 14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, 413-528-0100. For subscriptions and information, email [email protected] or call 800-843-0778. All Close Encounters With Music events are wheelchair accessible.
ABOUT CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH MUSIC
Founded in 1992 by cellist Yehuda Hanani, Close Encounters With Music is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit presenting outstanding chamber music with lively commentary in the Berkshires, along with the Berkshire High Peaks Festival. More at cewm.org.
MEDIA CONTACT
Caitlin Marsden McNeill, Director of Operations
Close Encounters With Music
917.392.0969 | [email protected]