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Berkshire Lyric Theatre, Inc.
P.O. Box 347 Pittsfield MA 01202
Berkshire Lyric is thrilled to announce the resumption of our live concerts in the fall of 2021.
CHRISTMAS CONCERTS
Friday, December 10 at 7:30
St. Mark's Church
400 West Street, Pittsfield
Sunday, December 12 at 3:00
Saint James Place
352 Main Street, Great Barrington
Two identical concerts with the 65 voice Berkshire Lyric Chorus, our young women's group, Melodious Accord and a chamber orchestra.
The featured work will be Charpentier's "Midnight Mass for Christmas." This charming work from the French baroque is based on popular French Noels and carols. The choruses will also perform popular carols arranged by Alice Parker and contemporary a cappella works by Will Todd, Libby Larsen, Dan Forrest, and Bob Chilcott.
All performers will be fully vaccinated, and we ask that our audience show proof of vaccination at the door.
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, to show 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
Spring 2021 Choral Masterworks Lecture/Sing-a-Longs
Lyric's Artistic Director Jack Brown explored some of the great choral literature on Monday nights.
Each session included
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vocal warmups & technique building
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a background lecture on the composer and work at hand,
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an opportunity to sing along.
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
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
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!