Lenox Library 2025 Tanglewood Pre-Concert Talks

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LENOX, Mass. Dr. — Jeremy Yudkin returns for his 42nd season of Tanglewood pre-concert talks, presented by the Lenox Library Association.

These free programs will take place in the Lenox Town Hall auditorium, located at 6 Walker Street, from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. on Friday afternoons and Sundays from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The Summer 2025 schedule will be as follows:

Sunday, July 6. All-Beethoven Program.

Why so many Leonore overtures? And: Do you really think you know the Fifth Symphony?

Friday, July 11. Prokofiev on Stage.

How many versions of Romeo and Juliet are there? Shakespeare, Prokofiev, Bernstein...

Sunday, July 13. Sibelius and Smith.

Nature in Finland in 1915 and in California in 2014.

Friday, July 18. Puccini's Tosca.

A masterpiece of Romantic opera or a "shabby little shocker"?

Sunday, July 20. Yuja and Harriet.

Inspiring women now and then: The Fantastical Symphony and Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2.

Friday, July 25. Bach, Mahler, and Mendelssohn.

What do all these works have in common?

Sunday, July 27. Special Guest: Edwin Barker, Retiring Principal Bass of the BSO.

Orchestral playing at its most brilliant. Day of the Dead, French carnivals, and Beethoven's Pastoral.

Friday, August 1. Special Guest: Eugene Drucker, Violinist/Founding Member of the Emerson Quartet.

The Korngold Violin Concerto and Rachmaninov's Second Symphony.

Sunday, August 3. NO LECTURE.

Friday, August 8. Symphony or Concerto?

Lalo's Symphonie espagnole and the "New World."

Sunday, August 10. Another New World.

Pépin, Saint-Saëns, and Mendelssohn in Scotland.

Friday, August 15. Acknowledging the Masters.

Shaw, Tchaikovsky, and Beethoven's Fourth.

Sunday, August 17. Memory and Memorial.

Grant Still and Sibelius. Liszt, Piano Concerto No. 2.

Friday, August 22. Music for the Infinite.

Poulenc's Gloria and Gustav Holst's The Planets.

Sunday, August 24. Special Guest: Carlos Simon, Composer Chair/BSO.

New Look - Old Masterpiece.

?Carlos Simon's new work and Beethoven's Ninth.

The pre-concert talks are free thanks to the Lenox Library Association and Margery and Lewis Steinberg.

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Housing Planned for Former St. Joe's High School

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Nearly a decade after the facility last operated as a high school, the former Saint Joseph's is staged for new life as housing. 

Last week, the Community Development Board determined that subdivision approval was not required for a plan of land the Roman Catholic Bishop of Springfield submitted for 22 Maplewood Ave.

CT Management Group is under contract to purchase the property for conversion into market-rate housing, developer David Carver confirmed on Monday when contacted by iBerkshires. The closing date and related matters are in process. 

In 2017, the then 120-year-old St. Joseph Central High School ceased operations. After the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it sheltered people without homes before The Pearl, a 40-bed downtown shelter, was finished a few years ago. 

Brian Koczela of BEK Associates, who submitted the plan on behalf of the diocese, explained to the board that the diocese is conveying out the former St. Joseph's High School. (The bishop is listed as owner on deeds on behalf of the church.)

The high school is comprised of four parcels with different owner in the middle, he said, and they need to be combined for the conveyance. This refers to the transfer and assignment of a property right or interest from one individual or entity to another. 

"At the very southerly end, at the back of the high school, there's a 66-foot-wide strip, I believe, and that strip goes all the way from North Street to Maplewood, and it includes a rectory," Koczela explained.  

"In essence, what we're really doing is just separating out that small parcel from the rectory."

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