Two Venues For Brandenburg Concerti12:00AM / Tuesday, December 12, 2006
New Year’s Eve at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center
New Year’s Day at the Colonial Theatre
The Brandenburg Concerti are coming back, and in two deluxe venues!
A program which has become a ‘must-see’ event in the Berkshires for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day is returning this year to its traditional format of all six of J. S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti performed by the virtuosic Berkshire Bach Ensemble under the energetic direction of harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper.
The Society is reaching out to new audiences by locating this program in the newly restored and reopened Colonial Theater in Pittsfield as well as in the recently renovated Mahaiwe Theater in Great Barrington.
Both venues are visual and acoustic jewels, ideal environments for the Brandenburgs whose music ranges from the refined and aristocratic to the earthy and even rambunctious. The performance at the Mahaiwe will take place on New Year’s Eve at 6 p.m., while that at the Colonial will occur on New Year’s Day at 3 p.m..
Tickets to for the Great Barrington performance are $35, 40, 45, and 50; there is a $5 discount for Bach Society members. Tickets are available only from the Mahaiwe Box Office at 413 528-0100.
For New Year's Day in Pittsfield, tickets are $15, 30, and 45; tickets for BBS members are $15, 25, 40. Tickets are available only from the Colonial Theatre Box Office at 413 997-4444. Students are admitted free to all Bach Society events.
The Brandenburg Concerti occupy a unique place in the baroque repertory, being a set of six innovative works, each for a different combination of instruments and using a different strategy to evoke a kaleidoscope of colors unusual for the period.
Although the works have been heard here for many years, each yearly installment offers some surprises generated by the restless inventiveness of Kenneth Cooper, who promises new sounds from the percussion section in the First Concerto, and extra parts for winds in the Third.
The total instrumental ensemble includes flute, oboes, trumpet, horns, viols, timpani (and surprise percussion), and harpsichord, in addition to the standard complement of strings. Of the twenty-one performers taking part, thirteen function as soloists in one work or another.
This year’s roster of soloists include flutist Judith Mendenhall, oboist Marsha Heller, Allan Dean, trumpet, Steve Walt, bassoon, Deborah Buck and Ronald Gorevic, violins, Lucy Bardo and Ben Harms, viola da gambas, and of course Maestro Cooper at the harpsichord. |
