LENOX, Mass. — The Cantilena Chamber Choir will present its season-ending performance on Sunday, May 17, at 3:00 pm at Trinity Church, 88 Walker St. in Lenox.
Cantilena and a full orchestra will be performing Handel's Utrecht Jubilate and Paul Maelor's Stabat Mater. The program will close with the Psalms 86 and 148 for chorus and strings by Gustav Holst.
According to a press release:
The Cantilena Chamber Choir, now in its 22nd season, is comprised of singers of the highest caliber who possess vocal training, excellent sight-reading skills, and considerable choral experience. In the past two decades, it has been able to bring to Berkshire audiences some of the most challenging and rarely heard works in the choral repertoire, from early chant to large choral works with full orchestras, such as the Bach Magnificat, Handel Coronation Anthems, and performances of the Monteverdi 1610 Vespers. The Choir's critically acclaimed showing of Le Passion de Jeanne D'Arc with the original 1928 score for choir, organ, and orchestra was performed live at Trinity Church and the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Its accolades include a multi-year Cultural Portfolio grant award and a covid relief award from the Massachusetts Cultural Council for its annual Martin Luther King program, three Choral Arts New England Alfred Nash Patterson awards
Handel composed the Utrecht Jubilate for the solemn thanksgiving service celebrating the Peace of Utrecht in July 1713, which premiered at St Paul's Cathedral in London. It was his first major sacred work on English texts and is scored for choir, oboes, trumpets, and continuo.
Welsh composer Paul Mealor is among a new generation of composers who have moved away from unresolved dissonance in favor of melody and listener communication. He rose to prominence in England when his motet Ubi Caritas was commissioned by Prince William in 2011 for his marriage to Catherine Middleton. The Stabat Mater for choir, strings, piano, and soprano is "movingly serene and beautiful."
General Admission is $35, $25 for Seniors, and free for children under 18 with ID at Cantilenachoir.org. Trinity Church is at 88 Walker Street in Lenox.
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A Boutique Hotel is Bringing Guests a Luxury Stay in Lenox
By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
LENOX, Mass. — A new Inn is bringing a boutique-style stay for visitors and locals to enjoy.
Owners, Sullivan Capital LLC, purchased the property, located on 135 Main Street, in 2024. After a year or renovations, Garden Gables Inn is open for business.
"Garden Gables started off as one of the many Berkshire cottages, 1790 was the date on that, and it's always operated as an inn," said Hospitality Manager Yvonne Walton. "It's just a great gathering place and relaxation spot for people to come and get the feel of Lenox, and just slow down and enjoy the nature and the surrounding area...get culture and art and see some great concerts. I think it'll be a wonderful place, definitely does more of the upper-scale hospitality."
Owners Niko Giallouis and Eric Sullivan bought the property from the former owner. Sullivan had his eye on Lenox since attending a wedding almost 10 years ago.
"I came to a wedding in Lenox, probably six or seven years ago. Personally, just kind of fell in love with the area, and I guess that's kind of how it got on my radar. So you know from that perspective, as we got into the hotel business out towards an area, it was a place I was kind of monitoring and waiting for the right property to show up."
After purchasing the two underwent a full renovation, a project that cost around $1.5 million. The building, first built in 1780, required some TLC. Sullivan's wife, Jessica, who owns Jessica Sullivan Design, designed the inn.
Sullivan said they installed a new roof, repainted everything, renovated the bathrooms, installed new floors, a new HVAC system, and new plumbing.
"We really touched everything from the outside...I mean, all the aesthetics and layouts changed a bit," he said. "As I said, put about a million and a half into it. All new furniture, fixtures, everything. The design's completely different. It wasn't a full gut, but it was a heavy, heavy renovation."
The two like to collaborate with local businesses, and they make a point to direct visitors to local restaurants, businesses, and attractions.
"If guests are asking for recommendations, our customer service team, our guest services team, will relay that kind of information. Even if we can call and make a reservation for somebody, happy to do it," he said. "We aren't doing breakfast, but what we do is we have partnerships with a lot of the breakfast places downtown. We actually purchase a gift certificates for each person each day, so that they can use that to go downtown."
Sullivan hopes that guests don't see their inn as just a place to sleep and dump their bags, but make it an experience for anyone who stays.
"We really focus on kind of the experience side of things, so again, we want to give you the best experience you can have here...and we want that not just to be the place you put your bag and go do things. It's important to think of everything," he said.
Sullivan said partnerships are important to their business and are a way to connect with locals.
"The local partnerships, I can't stress that enough, because no matter how much and how great the room is, people are still going to want to go do other things," he said. "So, I think it just benefits everybody if we're all working together and so forth, and supporting the community, being neighborly too, because we are surrounded by residential homes...But we really try to put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, a lot of love into the building, all the details, really care about the senses," Sullivan said.
The Inn's check-in and reservations are completely online. When guests arrive, all they have to do is check in online and receive their code that they will use to enter their room. Sullivan hopes this helps create less stress for guests and gets them to their room as fast as possible, especially after a long trip.
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