Social Media Links
Berkshire Lyric Theatre, Inc.
P.O. Box 347 Pittsfield MA 01202
2022 Masterworks Concert
Sunday, May 29 at 3:00
Seiji Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood
Mozart Requiem
Brahms Schicksalslied
Mozart Ave Verum Corpus Mozart Laudate Dominum
The Berkshire Lyric Chorus
The Lyric Orchestra
Jack Brown, Director
Maria Valdes, soprano
Marjorie Dix, mezzo-soprano
Sam Krausz, tenor
John Demler, bass
This annual Masterworks Concert with 85 singers and full orchestra will return for the first time since 2019, having been cancelled during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
Pre Concert Zoom Lecture
Wednesday, May 18 at 7:00
In advance of the May 29 concert, Berkshire Lyric presents a free online Zoom lecture The pre-concert talk will be by Lyric’s long time artistic director Jack Brown from his music studio in Stockbridge. Jack has success during the pandemic with online music lectures through OLLI, Simon’s Rock College and the Hotchkiss School.
The 90 minute lecture will explore the background of this famous last work of Mozart as well as Brahms rarely heard, Song of Destiny, also on the May 29 concert. Please register for the event so that we can have your email address in order to send you the Zoom link. There is no cost.
2022 Young Singers Concert
Sunday, May 22 at 3:00
Stockbridge Congregational Church
The free concert will feature Lyric’s select ensemble for high school girls, Melodious Accord, in a program of choral music for women’s chorus. It will include the premier of two works by
Anson Olds, Lyric’s Composer in Residence.
The program is conducted by Lyric’s director Jack Brown and accompanied by Joe Rose.
The Berkshire Lyric Choral Scholars will be performing several solo songs by composers including Brahms, Schubert, Purcell, Britten, Barber and Marcello.
What is Berkshire Lyric?
Berkshire Lyric is a community of choruses where singers ages six to eighty-three explore the world of beauty through the choral art.
Founded in 1963 and now led by artistic director Jack Brown, Berkshire Lyric continues to explore a wide variety of great music for chorus. We believe that the sung word is the language of the heart and has a unique power to transform both the singer and the listener. We live in a world of great spiritual hunger, and choral music has a unique power to move one's spirit.
While making great music together, we bring people together: young and old, professional and amateur. We try to demystify the great world of classical music, believing that this is music for all of us.
Pandemic Video Projects:
2 videos including
new virtual performances and
music from our archives
We Need a Little Christmas!
Berkshire Lyric celebrated the season in 2020 with a special virtual Christmas concert making its debut in a broadcast on Friday December 18. For the first time in our 57 years, Lyric was unable to give our annual Christmas concerts. We have put together a heartwarming video program featuring music of the season from Berkshire Lyric’s archive as well as performances by our new virtual chorus. With the Berkshire Lyric Chorus, Melodious Accord, and the Lyric Children’s Chorus, directed by Jack Brown, with Joe Rose accompanist, and special theatrical Christmas readings by John Demler.
Concert With a Cause!
Our 45 minute video from August 17, 2020
Thank you to our many donors who supported our efforts to give something back to our local community during this pandemic. Over $3000 was raised and distributed to three Berkshire County food pantries Featuring new virtual recordings by our summer chamber chorus, Ubi Caritas, as well as well as audio and video clips from recent years. The video also includes interviews with a number of Berkshire Lyric singers who are professionally involved in the crisis.C
Concert
Berkshire Lyric Media Links
click below
New England Public Radio Broadcast Story, April 2019
CTSB Interview with Jack Brown, May 2019
WMHT-FM 89.1 Interview with Jack Brown, May 2019
Berkshire Eagle Feature Article May 2018
Lyric Children's Chorus
Our children's chorus continues to be on a pandemic hiatus. We look forward to regathering in the fall. We will be presenting two separate weeks of our long-running tuition free summer choral camp in July and August. Look here in June for details about these great events for children ages 6 to 14.
NEPR Broadcast Story aired April 25 telling Berkshire Lyric story.
New England Public Radio has recently has put together a feature story on Berkshire Lyric. It was broadcast over the NEPR network on April 25, airing both on Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Broadcast journalist Nancy Cohen visited us during an April rehearsal and interviewed director Jack Brown and several chorus members for this story about what makes a great, multifaceted community chorus tick. It has been archived on their website at www.nepr.net. Enjoy!
Acoustic Test Drive of Tanglewood's New Linde Center
On January 27, The Berkshire Lyric Chorus was invited by the BSO to make an acoustic test drive of the brand new Linde Center on the grounds of Tanglewood. We were the first people to have a chance to sing in this amazingly beautiful hall that will open to the public this June. Instead of having our regular Monday rehearsal in Pittsfield, we had a "field trip" to just across the field from our regular spring concert venue of Seiji Ozawa Hall. This amazing space can be acoustically tuned to the music at hand, and we enjoyed singing Schubert, Morton Lauridson and a swinging version of "Moonglow" with our great Joe Rose on their big Steinway. We learned a great deal from working with their acoustician from Kierkegaard Associates. Much fun for all to enjoy this gorgeous new music resource for the Berkshires. Bravo BSO!