Pittsfield Inauguration Includes State of the City Address

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — On Monday, a largely similar City Council will be inaugurated, along with an almost completely new School Committee. 

The ceremony kicks off elected officials' two-year terms. City Clerk Michele Benjamin, at-large and ward councilors, and School Committee members will be sworn in at 10 a.m. on Jan. 5 in the council chambers at City Hall. 

Many familiar faces will return to represent Pittsfield constituents, as only two councilors will be new. 

Earl Persip III, Peter White, Alisa Costa, and Kathleen Amuso held their seats as councilors at large during the municipal election on Nov. 4. There were no races for Wards 1, 3, and 4. Patrick Kavey was re-elected to Ward 5 and Dina Lampiasi to Ward 6 over challengers Michael Grady and Walter Powell, respectively. 

Vacancies in the remaining wards were filled by newcomers. Katherine Nagy Moody secured representation of Ward 7 over Anthony Maffuccio, and Cameron Cunningham the Ward 2 seat over Corey Walker.

Brittany Noto did not seek re-election in Ward 2, and Rhonda Serre stepped down from her Ward 7 seat in the fall to work in the Pittsfield Public Schools. 

The School Committee will only see one incumbent, Daniel Elias, on the six-member body. Ciara Batory, Sarah Muil, Katherine Yon, Heather McNeice, and Carolyn Barry were also elected, ousting Jacob Klein, Geoffrey Buerger, and Vicky Smith. 

Musician Brings Music of Terezin Concentration Camp to Tanglewood

By Alan PetrucelliSpecial to iBerkshires
12:28PM / Monday, July 13, 2026

Mark Ludwig founded the Terezin Music Foundation in 1991. The musician and Holocaust scholar will present at Tanglewood this Saturday. 

LENOX, Mass. — One day in 1988, while rummaging through a used book shop in New York City, Mark Ludwig found a biography of 20th-century German rabbi and scholar Leo Baeck. Something caught Ludwig's eye: Baeck, who had survived imprisonment at the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, noted that despite the inhumane conditions, inmates produced an impressive and important output of music.

 

Ludwig, who at the time was a tenured violist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, decided to explore the history of music written (and performed) during the Holocaust.

 

The next time he was in Europe, Ludwig stopped at an archive in Prague, where he was given sheet music written by Terezin inmate Gideon Klein, who had been murdered by the Nazis at 25.

 

"I opened the score and started playing it in my mind's ear," recalls Ludwig. "And the beauty of it was astounding. It opened up a whole new world to me in terms of music."

 

The obsession continues. A car accident stopped Ludwig's career with the BSO, so he devoted his time to Terezin, about 30 miles from Prague.

 

"One door closed, another door opened," said the Boston resident who is founder and executive director of the Terezin Music Foundation. 

 

On July 18, he hosts "I am Alive Because of Music," his fifth presentation at Tanglewood featuring live music from Terezin and World War II. Here, we speak to the Holocaust scholar, who also teaches Jewish Studies at Boston University.