The Classical Beat: A Profusion of Music at Tanglewood and Sevenars

The Bob Sparkman Quartet concludes Sevenars' 57th festival season.

LENOX, Mass. — Come mid-August, classical aficionados are grateful for the cornucopia of extraordinary musical riches the Boston Symphony bestows to rapt audiences within the incomparably bucolic setting that is Tanglewood.

During this busy, penultimate week of the Tanglewood Festival's classical programming, the spotlight will focus on a wide range of audience-favorite orchestral music and solo concertized works by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Sibelius, Liszt and Bartók, where the range of musical expression and stylistic and national diversity is spread far and wide.

For a huge, 180-degree contrast, be sure to check out the cool, refreshing change of pace, with a tincture of jazz to buoy the spirits at the storied Sevenars Festival, in South Worthington.

Tanglewood

• Wednesday, Aug. 13, 8:00 p.m. in Ozawa Hall: The groundbreaking string quartet Brooklyn Rider makes its Ozawa Hall debut with a deft blend of traditional and new repertoire. The quartet is composed of founding violinist Colin Jacobsen, violinist Johnny Gandelsman, violist Nicholas Cords, and cellist Michael Nicolas. Contemporary works by Reena Esmail and Jacobsen combine with Philip Glass's "Third Quartet, "based on music written for the 1985 biopic of the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma closes the concert by joining the Quartet for a performance of Schubert's sublime String Quintet in C Major, which has a part for a second cello.

• Thursday Aug. 14, 8:00 p.m. in Ozawa Hall: Currently celebrating its 45th anniversary, the British vocal ensemble "The Sixteen" makes its Tanglewood debut, joined by founding director and conductor Harry Christophers. The program, entitled "A Deer's Cry," features sacred music by William Byrd, ThomasTallis, and Arvo Pa?rt, includes the Estonian composer's mesmerizing "Nunc dimittis" This performance is in conjunction with the vocal ensemble's weeklong residency with the Tanglewood Music Center, in which members of the group also present a Prelude Concert with music by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and J.S. Bach on Aug. 16.

• Friday, Aug. 15, 8:00 p.m. in the Shed: Audience-favorite maestro Dima Slobodeniouk returns to Tanglewood to conduct three programs over the course of four days, beginning with Caroline Shaw's "Entr'acte," for string orchestra, Tchaikovsky's "Variations on a Rococo Theme" for cello and orchestra, with soloist Jean-Guihen Queyras, and concluding with Beethoven's Symphony No. 4.

• Saturday, Aug. 16, 8:00 p.m. in the Shed: BSO Assistant Conductor Anna Handler makes her Tanglewood and BSO debuts conducting three major works from the stolid classical tradition: Brahms' ‘Tragic' Overture, Schumann's Symphony No. 4, and Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with GRAMMY-winning German-American supremely lyrical violinist Augustin Hadelich.

• Sunday, Aug. 17 2:30 p.m. in the Shed: Maestro Slobodeniouk leads the BSO on a program that also features two works by Sibelius (Valse triste and Symphony No. 3), Liszt (Piano Concerto No. 2, featuring superstar pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet) and "Threnody," an homage to the Finnish Sibelius by the American composer William Grant Still.

• Monday, Aug. 18, 8:00 p.m. in Ozawa Hall: For his final program, Maestro Slobodeniouk will conduct the TMC Orchestra alongside two TMC Conducting Fellows in works inspired by dance: John Adams' "The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra," and Bela Barto?k's "Dance Suite." The concert concludes with Tchaikovsky's tumultuous Symphony No. 4.

Sevenars Music Festival

• Sunday, Aug. 17, 4:00 p.m.: For its season finale, Sevenars is delighted once again to present its traditional festival-concluding favorite, the Bob Sparkman Quartet.

Now in its third season at Sevenars, the sensational Sparky Quartet, formed in tribute to late master clarinetist Bob Sparkman, has long roots at Sevenars starting from Bob's collaborations with treasured pianist and composer Clifton J. "Jerry" Noble,  Jr  With wonderfully versatile bassist Kara Noble, their jazz trio wizardry became a tradition as a Sevenars finale - no season could end without them! In 2023, after Bob left this world, they brought on board the inimitable Chris Devine on violin and flute and the extraordinary  Jon Van Eps on percussion and became officially the Sparky Quartet. Together they make magic! Clifton J. "Jerry" Noble, Jr. is admired as composer and pianist throughout the United States and internationally, both as a classical artist and in jazz improvisation. Kara Noble brings her miraculous gifts on guitar, vocals, and just about everything else. Chris Devine, brilliant violinist/flutist plays in a multitude of styles and instruments (and whose bio includes collaborating with Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple), and rounding off the quartet is John Van Eps, multifaceted marimba virtuoso/composer, and producer

For Sevenars tickets, and general contact information, call: (413) 238-5854 (please leave a message for return call). On the Web: www.sevenars.org. Email: Sevenars@aol.com. Admission is by donation at the door (suggested $20). Refreshments are included. Sevenars Concerts is located at the Academy in South Worthington, Mass., located at 15 Ireland Street, just off Route 112.

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Postscript: As this is the celebratory year of the French composer Maurice Ravel's 150^th birth (1875-1937,) here's my take on explaining his brilliant though eclectic style, in the form of a recipe. The main ingredients are Debussy-an Impressionism, with a dash of Russian exoticism by way of Mussorgsky; then add to the mix a generous amount of Prokofiev's piquant harmonies and child-like playfulness. For good measure, blend in a soupçon of Fauré's neo-classicism and a sprinkling of Gershwin's jazz-inspired  "blue" notes and syncopated Charleston rhythms…and voilà…Ravel! But, morphology aside, I don't mean to imply that Ravel, despite these influences, was not sui generis. We are, each of us, influenced by others. It is always the case that a creative genius is unique, and the resultant art, then, is necessarily original. Maurice Ravel was a Basque-born bon vivant who lived in the world and was of the world. The most humane of composers, his remarkable talent elevated him to a higher and wider plane of creative existence, from which he bountifully bestowed his astonishingly gorgeous music to us. Merci beaucoup, maître Ravel!

Becket Looks to Wind Power for Energy Savings

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
05:17AM / Tuesday, October 20, 2026

The single turbine is a low maintenance and has a 50-year life. The town went with wind power after finding a solar installation would be too difficult. 

BECKET, Mass. — The town unveiled a wind turbine Monday that will reduce electricity costs and show the benefits of renewable energy produced by wind.

Residents, town and state officials gathered outside the Town Hall for the ribbon cutting on a project first conceived nearly a dozen years ago.

The wind turbine stands 100-feet tall next to Town Hall and is from Oklahoma manufacturer Bergey Wind Power. It has a 50-year life and is a direct-drive permanent-magnet design, meaning it has no gearbox, making it low maintenance.

According to Garth Klimchuk, chair of the Becket Energy Committee, the town started discussions about a wind turbine in 2014. The turbine is expected to generate about 36,000 kilowatt-hours. Klimchuk said Town Hall uses about 24,000 kilowatt-hours, with excess power expected to go to the Highway Department. This is expected to save $9,000 annually from the electricity cost.

"This turbine is just going to be such a good thing for the town. It is really incredible. Zero-cost electricity. Zero cost to the town. Carbon free. Just a huge, huge milestone for us," he said.

The town received a grant from the state Department of Energy Resources totaling $139,500. The remaining funding for the project will come from a direct-pay investment tax credit under the federal Inflation Reduction Act. If the town does not receive the funding, voters at the annual town allocated $100,000 just in case, but Klimchuk said the town will only need about $60,000 to $70,000 if necessary.

"It's going to help the community. Hopefully, it'll lower our tax bills. And as we look at everything going around around the world right now, energy volatility has been with us for a long time. It's going to stay with us for a long time," said state Sen. Paul Mark. "So any move we can make as a community, whether as Becket specifically, as Berkshire County as a whole, but anything we can do to bring some of the reliability into our own hands, to produce a bit on our own, and just guarantee that in a renewable, safe way moving into the future, I think is going to pay off dividends."

The town has spent more than a decade reducing municipal energy consumption in a variety of ways including HVAC upgrades and LED street light conversions, bringing it to a Level 2 Green Community status.

While solar had been considered, interconnection constraints and limited grant opportunities made it harder to achieve. But the high elevation of Town Hall and a Small Wind Site evaluation done in 2023 and 2024 found the site was perfect for a turbine with favorably high winds.

State Rep. Leigh Davis praised the project as an example of a small town addressing a larger energy challenge through persistence and collaboration. She stressed that the single turbine represents a practical step toward reducing reliance on fossil fuels and said Becket's effort could serve as a model for communities across the commonwealth. 

"You hear about all these kind of big wind farms and solar farms and all these ways that we're gonna you know create green energy, but at the same time what we're not being sensitive to the landscape, and what I appreciate about this is that this is it's a single turbine, but it represents so much more," she said. "You're right. It's really adding to the ability for this town to contribute to green energy and to bringing our reliance on gasoline fuels back down to solving big problems."

Mark Rabinsky, deputy director of DOER's Green Communities Division, said the state supports municipalities with technical assistance and grants, and that reducing municipal energy costs can leave more resources for other local priorities. He presented the turbine as an example of state support working alongside local knowledge and decision-making. 

"I think that this is a really a great example of what green communities can do," he said. "I'm obviously a really big fan of the green communities program, but I think that connection between the state, what we're doing at the state, and that local level, and relying on the local knowledge here with Becket is a true testament to what we're doing."

Select Board Chair William Elovirta thanked everyone for being here and shared his memories of first coming tp Becket in 1946 before utility electricity arrived. His family and neighbors used small 32-volt generating plants and batteries. He recalled utility workers installing poles and wires by hand around 1947.