MARK AUERBACH
Bernstein Blockbuster at Springfield Symphony
Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, best known as “The Age of Anxiety” gets a showcase performance by the Springfield Symphony on March 14. Kevin Rhodes conducts the orchestra in a program which also includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 “Pastoral”. The American virtuoso pianist Sara Davis Beuchner is the soloist for “The Age of Anxiety”.
Bernstein wrote “The Age of Anxiety” between 1948-49, taking its title from a W. H Auden poem. Bernstein dedicated the piece to Serge Koussevitzky, who conducted it first in Boston and then with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood. By the time “The Age of Anxiety” premiered, Bernstein had written the ballet scores “Fancy Free” and “Facsimile”, the Broadway musical “On The Town”, and his first symphony, “Jeremiah”. “Wonderful Town”, “Candide” and “West Side Story” would soon follow.
Sara Davis Beuchner, born David Beuchner in Baltimore, was highly recognized at an early age, having won prizes at the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in 1983, the Gold Medal at the Gina Bachauer Competition the following year, and the Bronze Medal at the International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in 1986. A major international concert and recording career developed.
Sara Davis Beuchner, piano soloist with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra.
When Beuchner came out as transgender in 2002, the concert engagements fizzled, and she moved to Canada to start anew. The New York Times chronicled her journey in a video, “Crossing The Concourse” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0BR-54xzkE) and Beuchner wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times in 2013: “An Evolving Country Begins to Accept Sara, Once David” (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/booming/growing-acceptance-for-the-transgendered.html?_r=0)
With her career back in full-tilt, Beuchner performs in recital, with major symphonies, for film, and for dance.
For tickets: 413-733-2291 or www.springfieldsymphony.org.
Kate Maguire reads from works by Berkshires women at Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn Theatre.(Photo by Eric Korenman)
Berkshire Women Writers
Francis Anne Kemble, Harriett Beecher Stowe, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Sheila Weller and Edith Wharton are just a few of the women writers who were inspired by the Berkshires, as they wrote prolific works, while in residence in western Massachusetts.
A benefit, “Through The Looking Glass: Musings from the Pens of Berkshire Women Writers” at the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn Theatre on the Stockbridge campus, celebrates their words and works on March 23. A talk-back with the cast follows the performance.
The Berkshire women we are honoring exemplify the diversity of women’s writing in the 19th and 20th centuries; we are also honoring the thread that joins these women together—the dilemma of self-realization versus the socially accepted self-sacrifice of the times in which they lived: Desire versus Duty. With the Berkshires as their palette, these women filled their journals, letters and stories with their concern for broad cultural and social issues, as well as issues of particular interest to women. Their individual voices resonate with recognition as we see ourselves in the looking glass of their experience.
“Through The Looking Glass: Musings from the Pens of Berkshire Women Writers” is performed by Karen Allen, Lauren Ambrose, Amber Chand, Hilary Somers Deely, Kate Maguire, Corinna May and Barbara Sims.
Proceeds benefit The Berkshire Festival of Women Writers.
For tickets: 413-997-4444 or www.berkshiretheatregroup.org.
Congratulations!
Massachusetts Cultural Council 2015 Commonwealth Awards honored the best of the Bay State’s arts, humanities, and cultureal organizations. Among the western Massachusetts honorees: Barrington Stage (Pittsfield) for its range of quality programs that introduce children and adolescents to the power and joy of live theater; WGBY, Public TV (Springfield) for placing arts and culture at the core of its television coverage for audiences in western Massachusetts; and The Enchanted Circle Theater, Holyoke and The Hitchcock Center, Amherst, for collaborating to deepen students’ understanding of science and the arts in the Holyoke Public Schools and elsewhere. For details: http://www.massculturalcouncil.org/conference/comawards.asp
Keep in Mind…
***Good Lessons from Bad Women. Dorothy Leeds stars in a one-woman show where a woman wrestles with the concepts of good and bad. The comedy explores what it might be like to be “the bad girl” instead of “the good girl”. A Women’s History Month event at CityStage, Springfield, on March 13 at 12:3 For tickets (which include a box lunch): 413-788-7033 or www.citystage.symphonyhall.com
***The Hartford Symphony Orchestra performs music of Saint-Saens (Concerto No 1. for Violoncello) and Brahms (Symphony No. 2) on March 12-15 at The Bushnell. Father and son conductor Gerard Schwarz and cellist Julian Schwarz are guests. Gerard Schwarz will also offer the world premiere of an original composition. For tickets: 860-987-5900 or www.hartfordsymphony.org
Mark G. Auerbach studied theatre at American University and the Yale School of Drama. He’s worked for arts organizations and reported on theatre for newspapers and radio.
