Berkshire Lyric continues to suspend our live concerts and rehearsals as the pandemic continues into 2021. We look forward to a return to our full program in the fall of 2021

or as soon as it is safe to do so.

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Winter & Spring 2021 Events 

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Join Lyric's Artistic Director Jack Brown as he explores some of the great choral literature on Monday nights. We will gather on Zoom during the 1st and 3rd Monday evenings of the month beginning February 1 and continuing on until May17. Sessions will start at 7:00 and continue until 8:30.

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Each session will include 

  • vocal warmups & technique building

  • a background lecture on the composer and work at hand,

  • an opportunity to sing along.

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February 1     Mozart Requiem

February 15   Faure Requiem

March 1          Brahms German Requiem

March 15        Haydn Creation

April 5             Mendelssohn Elijah

April 19           Beethoven Mass in C

May 3              Handel Messiah

May 17            Bach Mass in b minor

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No charge for current Berkshire Lyric singers. We ask for a voluntary donation for guests. 

Send us an email to register in advance and to receive a Zoom invite.

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Vocal Scores:

The Youtube version that we will sing with will have a score appearing on screen as we go.

Or you can use your own vocal score.

Or go to this link to find an online PDF of all the works. VOCAL SCORE PDF LINK

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Pandemic Video Projects:

2 videos including

new virtual performances and

music from our archives

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We Need a Little Christmas!

Access the Video

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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!

Watch Here

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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 

2020 Online

Summer Music Workshops 

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Thank you to Jack Brown, Joe Rose and Anson Olds for presenting our summer music workshops. Three nights a week for 6 weeks, they  enabled us to stay connected and learn about music while we are on hiatus. 

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The History and Development of Western Choral Music, Palestrina to Whitacre.

led by Lyric's Artistic Director Jack Brown

 

Music Theory Fundamentals and Sight Singing Workshop

led by Lyric's young Composer in Residence, Anson Olds

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The Home Music Studio: Using the New Technologies for Teaching, Practicing and Recording

led by Lyric's long-time accompanist/arranger and jazz pianist Joe Rose

What is Berkshire Lyric?

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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.

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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, to show that this is music for all of us. 

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!

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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!                                           

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