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.

Roberta Harold To Speak At Ventfort Hall

LENOX, Mass. — Roberta Harold, Author of "Portrait of an Unseen Woman: A Novel of Annie Shaw," discusses her novel, set in 1892, that imagines Annie's independent life in Belle Époque Paris, and her struggle to reach a belated coming of age on July 8, at 4 pm 
 
A tea will be served after her presentation.
 
Annie Haggerty spent her honeymoon with Colonel Robert Gould Shaw in May 1863 at her family's summer home, Vent Fort (predecessor to Ventfort Hall), just before Shaw led the Union's first Black regiment on a doomed mission at Fort Wagner, SC. Annie's subsequent life as a widow is largely a mystery. Roberta Harold's novel Portrait of an Unseen Woman: A Novel of Annie Shaw, set in 1892, imagines Annie's independent life in Belle Époque Paris, and her struggle to reach a belated coming-of-age as an artist and full participant in the creative and intellectual circles of the "real" Paris.    
 
Roberta Harold is the author of "Portrait of an Unseen Woman" and two historical mysteries, "Heron Island" and "Murdered Sleep," as well as numerous articles, reviews, short stories, and poems. A native of Scotland and 2001 graduate of the Bread Loaf School of English, where she won its 1999 Poetry Prize, she lives with her husband and cats in Montpelier, Vt.
 
Tickets are $45. Members receive a discount code for $5 off all ticket prices. Students 22 and under are $22. Ticket pricing includes access to the mansion throughout the day of this event from 10 am to 4 pm. Reservations are strongly encouraged as seats are limited. Walk-ins accommodated as space allows. For reservations visit https://gildedage.org/pages/calendar or call (413) 637-3206. All tickets are nonrefundable and non-exchangeable. The historical mansion is located at 104 Walker St. in Lenox.
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