Close Encounters with Music and Berkshire Museum’s Little Cinema Present Special Screening of “Touching the Sound”

[PITTSFIELD, MA] – Berkshire Museum’s Little Cinema is the site of the presentation of Touching the Sound, a documentary film by Peter Rosen, on Sunday, November 2, at 2 p.m. The filmmaker will be in attendance and will introduce the film. This special event is offered by Close Encounters With Music in collaboration with the Museum. Tickets are $15; light refreshments will be served. For advance reservations, call 800.843.0778 or www.cewm.org. Tickets are available at the Berkshire Museum on the day of the program.

Touching the Sound: The Improbable Journey of Nobuyuki Tsujii documents the life of the extraordinary Japanese pianist, blind from infancy, who triumphs as gold medalist at the 2009 Van Cliburn Piano Competition. From the stages of Texas to New York’s Carnegie Hall, to the concert halls of Tokyo and the tsunami-devastated coastline of Tohoku, his music and seemingly miraculous ability to transcend all obstacles have moved audiences around the world. Peter Rosen has produced and directed more than 100 full-length films and television programs and worked with some of the most important figures in the arts, including Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Martha Graham, Garrison Keillor and I.M. Pei. He is currently completing a pilot for a PBS series on the art of collecting art.

Touching the Sound with Peter Rosen is part of a series of intimate and stimulating conversations about music and ideas, an intrinsic part of the Close Encounters With Music season. “Conversations With…” has presented such notable speakers as writer, editor and Bob Dylan biographer Seth Rogovoy; composer, National Endowment grantee and Guggenheim fellow Judith Zaimont; pianist-authors Walter Ponce and Adam Neiman; Emmy Award-winning animator, illustrator, cartoonist and children’s book author R.O. Blechman; Metropolitan Opera costume designer Charles Caine; art restorer David Bull; Academy Award nominee Daniel Anker; scholar, performer and multimedia artist Robert Winter; former Yankee, author and sportscaster Jim Bouton; and award-winning poet Charles Coe.

About Close Encounters With Music
Close Encounters With Music stands at the intersection of music, art and the vast richness of Western culture. Entertaining, erudite and lively commentary from founder and Artistic Director Yehuda Hanani puts composers and their times in perspective to enrich the concert experience. Since the inception of its Commissioning Project in 2001, CEWM has worked with the most distinguished composers of our time—Lera Auerbach, Robert Beaser, Kenji Bunch, Osvaldo Golijov, John Musto, and Paul Schoenfield among others—to create important new works that have already taken their place in the chamber music canon and on CD. A core of brilliant performers includes pianists James Tocco, Roman Rabinovich, and Jeffrey Swann; violinists Shmuel Ashkenasi, Vadim Gluzman, and Erin Keefe; vocalists Dawn Upshaw, Lucille Beer and Mischa Bouvier; the Vermeer, Amernet, Muir, Manahattan, and Avalon Quartets, and Cuarteto Latinamericano; and guitarist Eliot Fisk. Choreographer David Parsons and actors Richard Chamberlain, Jane Alexander and Sigourney Weaver have also appeared as guests, weaving narration and dance into the fabric of the programs. Close Encounters With Music programs have been presented in cities across the U.S. and Canada—Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Omaha, Cincinnati, Calgary, Detroit, at the Frick Collection and Merkin Hall in New York City, at Tanglewood and in Great Barrington, Mass., as well as in Scottsdale, AZ.

About the Berkshire Museum
Located in downtown Pittsfield, Mass., at 39 South St., the Berkshire Museum, a Smithsonian Affiliate, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $13 adult, $6 child; Museum members and children age 3 and under enjoy free admission. For more information, visit www.berkshiremuseum.org or call 413.443.7171.

In association with the Smithsonian since 2013, Berkshire Museum is part of a select group of museums, cultural, educational, and arts organizations that share the Smithsonian’s resources with the nation. Established by Zenas Crane in 1903, Berkshire Museum integrates art, history, and natural science in a wide range of programs and exhibitions that inspire educational connections between the disciplines. Objectify: A Look into the Permanent Collection is currently on view. Little Cinema is open year-round. Spark!Lab, Feigenbaum Hall of Innovation, Worlds in Miniature, Aquarium, and other exhibits are ongoing.