BAAMS Fall Classes Starting Sept. 13

10:19AM / Wednesday, August 27, 2025Print Story | Email Story

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Berkshires Academy for Advanced Musical Studies (BAAMS) is now offering registration for its Fall 2025 classes.

Music students of all levels, ages 10 to 18, will have the chance to study Trumpet, Trombone, Saxophones and Woodwinds, Guitar, Bass, and Drums along with Improvisation and Music Composition with a faculty who are also members of the Juilliard School, NBC's "Saturday Night Live" Band, and are multi-Grammy award- winning recording artists.

"BAAMS offers our students a unique music learning experience that teaches our kids not only how to improvise, and compose and record their own original music, but also gives our students the guidance to develop their skills and talents as developing instrumentalists and musicians and having fun at the same time," said Founder and Executive Director Richard Boulger. "No two students learn the same way — we pride ourselves in helping each of our students have success and develop confidence in themselves. While learning from a teaching faculty who are truly committed to helping each student grow, they're also being passed the torch of the American musical legacies of faculty that is second to none, featuring Guitarist Rodney Jones, Bassist Alex Blake, Drummer Tony Lewis, Pianist Dario Boente, Saxophonist and Woodwinds Master Ron Blake, and myself on Trumpet and Trombone."

BAAMS also features special guest masterclasses that have in the past included 7-time Grammy Award winner and Trumpeter Randy Brecker, Saxophonists Ada Rovatti, Alex Foster, Jay Rodriguez, Percussionist Mino Cinelu, Trombonist Steve Davis, Vocalist Abena Koomson-Davis, Guitarist David Gilmore the Allman Brothers Band original founding member and drummer Jaimoe, among others.

Classes at BAAMS begin Saturday September 13 from 10:30am to 3:30pm and after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Click here to register: https://www.berkshiresacademyams.org/class-registration

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North Adams School Project Awards $51M Bid

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff
05:10AM / Friday, February 13, 2026

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The School Building Committee has awarded the Greylock School project to Fontaine Bros. Inc. of Springfield.

Mayor Jennifer Macksey said she could "breathe a little better" with a bid contract that comes in nearly $2 million under budget.

The committee approved a bid of $50,498,544 on Thursday night that includes two alternates — the rebuild of the Appalachian Trail kiosk and the relocation and reconstruction of the baseball field.

"I will say, all in all, for us to have overall the number of bidders that we had interested in our project, and especially to receive the GC bids that we did, the team Colliers and TSKP certainly did a good job attracting people to us," she said. "But this project ... really shows the testament of the good work that Colliers and TSKP and all of you have been doing throughout this process."

Fontaine had the low bid between Brait Builders of Marshfield and J&J Contractors Inc. of North Billerica.

The project had been bid out at $52,250,000 with three alternates: moving the ballfield, the kiosk and vertical geothermal wells.

Committee members asked Timothy Alix of Collier's International, the owner's project manager, about his impressions of the bidders. He was most familiar with Fontaine, having worked with the company on a half-dozen school projects and noted it was the contractor on the Mountain View Elementary School in Easthampton that the Massachusetts School Building Authority has held up as an example school. He also had some of his colleagues call on projects that he had not personally worked on.

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