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• Best Bets Best Bets Visit 'Pittsfield's Hidden Heart’ Eight private gardens will be featured in the seventh annual "Concealed City Gardens: Pittsfield's Hidden Heart" self-guided tour to be held Saturday from 10 to 4 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4. This self-guided tour, supported by the Berkshire Community Taconic Foundation, raises money which will be used for enhancement projects in the city of Pittsfield. This year's tour will highlight all new gardens, featuring two neighbors’ gardens shown side by side, a formal garden with pools and fountains as well as a two-tiered waterfall. Cottage gardens bursting with color and high style, natural fences of plume poppies, a multi-level garden with numerous garden "rooms" and much more will inspire the serious gardener as well as those just beginning to think about gardening. All gardens on view have been designed by and are maintained by the homeowners. The headquarters for the tour is at Morningside Community School where one can purchase tickets on the days of the tour, place a bid in an unusual silent auction or purchase a hand-crafted garden ornament, or a specialty orchid. The silent auction will include more than 35 birdhouses which have been built by Bill Jette, a gardener from a previous tour, and hand-decorated by local "celebrities." The hand-decorated birdhouses can be previewed at Legacy Banks, 99 North St., Pittsfield, through tomorrow. The birdhouses are underwritten and sponsored by Legacy Banks. On Saturday a craft and plant exhibit, which is free and open to the public, will be held at Morningside Community School. There will be many crafts and rare plants for sale during this exhibit. No ticket is necessary to attend the craft/plant exhibit or the silent auction. A new addition to this year's tour will be a formal tea in one of the featured gardens. A sit-down tea, with pastries and sweets will be provided by Bellissimo Dolce, will be held on Sunday with seatings at 1, 2 and 3. Tickets are $15 and reservations are required; call Louise at 447-9037. Tickets are $15 and are available at Dr. Lahey's, 1032 South St.; Agway, 537 Dalton Ave.; Jodi’s Seasonal, 717 Crane Ave., Pittsfield and The Bookstore, 11 Housatonic St., Lenox. Tickets can also be purchased on the days of the tour at Morningside Community School beginning at 9:30 a.m. Midori returns to Tanglewood
Midori will make her first Tanglewood appearance since 1994 this week, joining Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Music Director and Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music Director Robert Spano and the Boston Symphony Orchestra on Friday at 8:30 in the Koussevitzky Music Shed as soloist in Dvorák's Violin Concerto. The concert will also feature a work by FCM featured composer George Benjamin, his "Ringed by the Flat Horizon" and two works by Stravinsky: "Fireworks" and the 1919 version of the “Firebird” Suite. The evening will include a prelude concert by members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra at 6 in Ozawa Hall, and at 2:30, Tanglewood Music Center Fellows, with Michael Zaretsky, viola, will perform as part of the Festival of Contemporary Music, at 2:30 in Ozawa Hall. Tickets may be purchased by calling SymphonyCharge at 617-266-1200, or Ticketmaster at 733-2500; or by visiting the Tanglewood Box Office at Tanglewood's Main Gate on West Street in Lenox. Puppet shows for kids The Robbins-Zust Family Marionettes are once again providing wholesome entertainment for kids at their Puppet Theatre in Lenox. They perform their own adaptations of classic tales, using their hand-crafted marionettes. This summer, "Little Red Riding Hood," "Beauty and the Beast," Peter and the Wolf,” “The Emperor's New Clothes,” “Firebird,” “Goldilocks” and “Peter Rabbit” are just a few of the plays on the schedule. Performances are Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11 and 2 through August 28, and on Mondays at 11 and 2 from July 28 through August 18. The air-conditioned Puppet Theatre is located at the Lenox House Shops, Routes 7 and 20, in Lenox. Tickets are $4 at the door. Call 698-2591 or visit www.berkshireweb.com/zust. Berkshire Choral Festival to perform 'Lord Nelson Mass'
Choral masterpieces by British composers two centuries apart will be offered by the Berkshire Choral Festival Saturday. John Alexander, artistic director of the Pacific Chorale, will lead soloists, the 225-voice Berkshire Choral Festival chorus and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra in a performance of the "Lord Nelson Mass" by Haydn and "Belshazzar's Feast" by Sir William Walton. Featured soloists will be soprano Jane Jennings and baritone Timothy Noble. American soprano Jane Jennings has appeared as a soloist with numerous orchestras including Pittsburgh Symphony, the Dallas Symphony and the American Symphony Orchestra at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. Baritone soloist Timothy Noble performs regularly with the opera companies of San Francisco and Dallas. He is professor of voice at the Indiana University School of Music. The concert will be held at 8 p.m. in the open-air Rovensky Concert Shed on the campus of Berkshire School, preceded by a 6:45 lecture by a musicologist Caryl Clark titled "A Feast of Haydn and Walton." Tickets may be purchased by phone at 229-1999 or at the festival's box office at Berkshire School, Route 41, Sheffield. Concert-goers are welcome to picnic on the campus prior to the performance. Pastels on view at Lenox Gallery
Berkshire landscape works in pastel by Stephen Filmus are on view at the Lenox Gallery of Fine Art Tuesday through Aug. 11. Filmus' works place an emphasis on Mt. Greylock and a dozen have been done in the last eight months. A resident of Berkshire County for 30 years, Filmus lives and works in Great Barrington. He has exhibited widely including at the David Findlay Jr. Fine Art and locally at the Berkshire Museum, Clark-Whitney Gallery, Welles Gallery and the Norman Rockwell Museum. The Lenox Gallery of Fine Art, which is open daily, except Wednesday. from noon to 5, is located at 69 Church St. in Lenox. For more information, call 637-2276. Becket Arts Center opens two new exhibits
The Becket Arts Center presents its second installment of exhibitions today through July 28. Opening receptions for both exhibitions will be held Saturday from 1 to 4. New oil paintings, landscapes, etchings, watercolors and children's book illustrations by Bruce MacDonald will be on display along with his signature "social realism" works in the upstairs gallery. MacDonald has been exhibiting his work in the Berkshires for 35 years. The downstairs gallery will feature "Berkshire Landscapes," pastels by local artist Michael Filmus. The Becket Arts Center is located at the corner of Route 8 and Brooker Hill Road in Becket. For more information, call 623-6635. |
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