The Classical 'High Season' Bursts Upon The Scene

It's well known that the Berkshires and environs are a mecca for classical music lovers. With the tourist high season – from late-June through Aug. 31 – concert activity increases exponentially, offering listeners a cornucopia of musical delights, with enough variety to please every taste.

This week, two magnificent presenters share the spotlight, offering fabulous musical pleasures: Tanglewood in Lenox, Mass. and Taconic Music's 8th  Summer Festival in Manchester, Vt.

Tanglewood Music Festival

Tanglewood, among the world's grandest outdoors summer music festivals, is the summer home of the Boston Symphony, and offers outstanding and varied classical performances. Beginning July 6, the Festival will present a wide range of programs that spotlight favorite returning artists and repertoire, while also introducing dynamic new artists, premieres of unfamiliar and new works and diverse styles and genres of programming.

Why go? It's all about the magnitude and the phenomenal diversity of programming. Whether you enjoy the pristine lawns for bring-your-own picnics, or prefer the proximity to gifted musicians in the Shed, Ozawa Hall or in the Linde Center, Tanglewood, in all its incarnations is an informal, yet breathtaking place to relax and enjoy music in the most bucolic setting imaginable.

Here are several upcoming extraordinary concerts you'll want to plan to attend – featuring favorite popular artists and great string quartet chamber music. For tickets to all Tanglewood events, call (888) 266-1200, or go online at tanglewood.org.

The Tanglewood Popular Artist Series features a parade of stars this week and beyond, leading up to James Taylor's July 3 and 4 shows: Jon Batiste (June 28), Trey Anastasio with the Boston Pops (June 29), Brandi Carlile (June 30), and Jason Mraz with the Boston Pops(July 2). Later in July, the Shed will offer An Evening with Pretenders (July 16) and June Beck with the Boston Pops (July 23). 

Late June brings the annual String Quartet Marathon: three distinct free concerts performed by the Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center on June 30 in Ozawa Hall, preceded by a TLI Open Workshop on string quartet performance technique on June 26. 

Taconic Music Summer Festival

With six remaining of seven concerts over three weeks of great programs in this exhilarating music festival, be sure to include Taconic Music on your "not-to-be-missed" concert agenda.

Why go? Based in Manchester, Vermont, co-founders Ariel Rudiakov and Joana Genova will showcase their outstanding festival-resident teaching/performing artists and young artists.

For information, including tickets, and Taconic Music's year-round programs, call (802) 362-7162 or visit online at directors@taconicmusic.org. Chamber Music Saturdays are $30. for adults, free for students and kids. Reservations are recommended. Concerts will also be livestreamed.  

COME EARLY for an informal pre-concert reception on every Chamber Music Saturday, beginning at 6:30, when the box office also opens. Enjoy a glass of wine or Töst, and mingle with friends before the concert begins.

Here's a listing of the Taconic Festival's programming highlights over the next three weeks:

Wednesday, June 26 at 7pm:
MASTERCLASS with Cellist Roberta Cooper
Experience firsthand how chamber music is refined and brought to a whole new level. Roberta Cooper will offer insights and guidance to our Young Artists as they prepare for their July 1 concert.

Saturday, June 29 at 7:30pm:

CHAMBER CONCERT II:  Mozart, Villa-Lobos, Martin?
Evangelia Leontis, soprano; Megan Shumate Beaumont, clarinet; Gili Sharett, bassoon: Wayne du Maine, trumpet; Taconic Strings; Ariel Rudiakov, viola and conductor; Joana Genova, violin; Hannah Holman, cello; Davide Cabassi, piano

Saturday, July 6 at 7:30pm:

AN EVENING OF POPS

Wednesday, July 10 at 7pm:

MASTERCLASS with violinist Eugene Drucker
Experience firsthand how chamber music is refined and brought to a whole new level. Eugene Drucker will offer insights and guidance to our Young Artists as they prepare for their July 15 concert.  

Saturday, July 13 at 7:30pm:

CHAMBER CONCERT III: Brahms and Mendelssohn
Eugene Drucker and Joana Genova, violins; Ariel Rudiakov and Stefanie Taylor, violas; Raman Ramakrishnan and Roberta Cooper, celli; Drew Petersen, Piano

Monday, July 15 at 7pm:

YOUNG ARTISTS CONCERT II
Our 2024 Young Artists perform works for string quartet and quintet, and piano quartet in the final concert of our summer festival.

Look for weekly "Classical Beat" previews and recommended concert and related events programming at Tanglewood, Taconic Music, Sevenars and at other regional venues throughout July and August.

Sheffield Craftsman Offering Workshops on Windsor Chairs

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
10:30AM / Sunday, March 29, 2026

Andrew Jack uses hand tools in his wood working shop. 

SHEFFIELD, Mass. — A new workshop is bringing woodworking classes and handmade items.

Andrew Jack specializes in Windsor chairs and has been making them for almost 20 years.

He recently opened a workshop at 292 South Main St. as a space for people to see his work and learn how to do it.

"This is sort of the next, or latest iteration of a business that I've kind of been limping along for a little while," he said. "I make Windsor chairs from scratch, and this is an effort to have a little bit more of a public-facing space, where people can see the chairs, talk about options, talking about commissions.

"I also am using it as a space to teach workshops, which for the last 10 years or so I've been trying to do out of my own personal workshop at home."

Jack graduated in 2008 from State University of New York at Purchase, and later met woodworker Curtis Buchanan, who inspired him.

"Right after I finished there, I was feeling a little lost. I wasn't sure how to make the next steps and afford a workspace. And the machine tooling that I was used to using in school." he said, "Right after I graduated, I crossed paths with a guy named Curtis Buchanan, and he was demonstrating making really refined Windsor chairs with not much more than some some flea market tools, and I saw that as a great, low overhead way to keep working with wood."

Jack moved into his workshop last month with help from his wife. He is renting the space from the owners of Magic Flute, who he says have been wonderful to work with.

"My wife actually noticed the 'for rent' sign out by the road, and she made the initial call to just see if we get some more information," he said. "It wasn't on my radar, because it felt like kind of a big leap, and sometimes that's how it's been in my life, where I just need other people to believe in me more than I do to, you know, really pull the trigger."

Jack does commissions and while most of his work is Windsor chairs, he also builds desks and tables, and does spoon carving. 

Windsor chairs are different because of the way their backs are attached into the seat instead of being a continuous leg and back frame.

"A lot of the designs that I make are on the traditional side, but I do some contemporary stuff as well. And so usually the legs are turned on a lathe and they have sort of a fancy baluster look to them, or they could be much more simple," he said. "But the solid seat that separates the undercarriage from the backrest and the arms and stuff is sort of one of the defining characteristics of a Windsor."

He hopes to help people learn the craft and says it's rewarding to see the finished product. In the future, he also hopes to host other instructors and add more designs for the workshop.

"The prime impact for the workshops is to give close instruction to people that are interested in working wood with hand tools or developing a new skill. Or seeing what's possible with proper guidance," Jack said. "Chairs are often considered some of the more difficult or complex woodworking endeavors, and maybe less so Windsor chairs, but there is a lot that goes into them, and being able to kind of demystify that, or guide people through the process is quite rewarding."

People can sign up for classes on his website; some classes are over a couple and others a couple of weekends.

"I offer a three-day class for, a much, much more simple, like perch, kind of stool, where most of the parts are kind of pre-made, and students can focus on the joinery that goes into it and the carving of the seat, again, all with hand tools. And then students will leave with their own chair," he said.

"The longer classes run similarly, although there's quite a bit more labor that goes into those. So I provide all the turned parts, legs and stretchers and posts and things, but students will do all the joinery and all the seat carving the assembly. And they'll split and shave and shape their own spindles, and any of the bent parts that go into the chair."

His gallery is open Wednesday through Sunday 10 a.m to 2 p.m., and Monday and Tuesday by appointment.