Berkshire Review for the Arts

SECRET CENTURY 
Greylock Arts and Pure Theory, Adams, Massachusetts through August 27th 2009 (0)

SECRET CENTURY 
Greylock Arts and Pure Theory, Adams, Massachusetts through August 27th 2009
(THE DNA-PHOTON PROJECT) RE-ADAPTED FOR SECRET CENTURY statement by Dan Rose:
“WHAT CAN WE HUMANS BECOME?
BOTH THE NOVEL AND THE MACHINE INSTALLATION ARE QUASI-NARRATIVES, A MULTI-GENRE NOVEL WHERE ONE OF THE GENRES IS ASSEMBLED FROM
 GLASS, METAL, AND PLASTIC.”
DAN ROSE
3 MARCH 1998
Secret Century, i.e., [...]

It’s All in the Presentation: A New Look at Schopenhauer (0)

Schopenhauer’s saying that “a man can do as he will, but not will as he will” has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others.

—Albert Einstein, The World as I See It (1940)

The Fall (0)

The Fall (2006) is a multinational blend of people, landscape, architecture and colour. The result is a beautiful motion picture that explores the human imagination and its limitless fancy.

The Saint and Notes on a Trend, Edinburgh (0)

The people behind the Bramble Bar & Lounge have recently opened a restaurant called The Saint on Saint Stephen Street in Stockbridge.

Like Bramble and The Bailie (a fine pub on the western corner of the same street, great for an after-dinner dram), The Saint is located in the underground level of a Georgian building, typical of Edinburgh’s New Town which is renowned for such spaces.

Bloch Festival at Wigmore Hall with Jack Liebeck, violin and Bengt Forsberg, piano (1)

It was pouring rain yesterday evening, forcing me to take one of those cab rides to Wigmore Hall that costs as much as a set lunch. This was my most quixotic concert of the summer. I knew nothing about the rising British violinist, Jack Liebeck, but something told me he would be the real thing. How can you not be intrigued by someone who founded an ensemble known as the Fibonacci Sequence, even among those like me whose math skills barely exceed algebra? Liebeck is a compact young man of 28 who came on stage looking vaguely like a cherubic Clive Owen, and he was dressed de rigueur as one of the men in black. (Can I recall any hip musicians who still wear a white shirt, much less tie and tails?) Following a step behind was his accompanist, the excellent Swedish pianist Bengt Fossberg, best known as the regular partner of the eminent mezzo, Anne Sophie von Otter. A promising pairing, then.

BBC Proms Concert #1: a Strange Hodgepodge of Late Romanticism with a bit of Modern Thrown In (0)

BBC Proms Concert #1
Stravinsky, Fireworks
Chabrier, Ode à la musique
Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No.3 in E flat major
Poulenc, Concerto for two pianos
Elgar, In the South (Alassio)
Brahms, Alto Rhapsody
Bruckner, Psalm 150
Ailish Tynan soprano
Alice Coote mezzo-soprano
Stephen Hough piano
Katia and Marielle Labèque pianos
BBC Symphony Chorus
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Jiří Bělohlávek, conductor
The venerable BBC Proms, savior of summer music in London, began [...]

Irish Travellers, Tinkers No More: Photographs by Alen MacWeeney—An Important Exhibition at Vermont Center for Photography through August 12 (0)

In 1965, well known Irish documentary photographer Alen MacWeeney came upon an encampment of itinerants in a field by the Cherry Orchard Fever Hospital outside Dublin. Then called tinkers, and later known as Travellers, they were living in hard-used but richly colored caravans, ramshackle sheds, and time-worn tents.
MacWeeney was captivated by their independence, individuality, and [...]

Save the old Odeon cinema building on Clerk Street in Edinburgh! (0)

[Courtesy Save the old Odeon Cinema]
First known as the New Victoria, the cinema was built by William Trent in 1930. It houses a magnificent auditorium with Scotland’s largest and grandest proscenium arch. The sidewalls have niches with sculptures of the muses of art, music and drama (designed by the artist Beattie), and the ceiling is [...]

Katona József Theatre, Budapest, at the Lincoln Center Festival: Ivanov by Anton Chekhov (0)

We seem to be enjoying a Chekhov renaissance at the moment. I feel extremely fortunate to have seen all major plays within less than a year, and one of them twice! All of these productions had their flaws and misjudgements, but they were all excellent nonetheless. As a whole, they showed that American and British directors are freeing themselves from tradition and are confident with taking risks in seeking out a harder, more contemporary edge and in exploring Chekhov’s evanescent transformations of tragic and comic moments. It is easier to translate words and sentences, even subtle ones, than it is to bring humor into a foreign idiom.