Grammy Winner Headlines Opening of Williamstown Jazz Festival

08:11AM / Friday, September 04, 2026Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Jazz and R&B vocalist Lisa Fischer and her ensemble, Grand Baton, will take center stage on the opening night of the inaugural Williamstown Jazz Festival.

The performance will take place on Friday, Sept. 11, at 7 p.m. at the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance located on the Williams College campus.

According to a press release:

Fischer, who was a breakout star in the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom (2013), is one of the most inventive contemporary jazz live performers working today. Her 1991 signature solo hit, "How Can I Ease the Pain," won the Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance in 1992.

Over her career, Fischer has collaborated with an extraordinary roster of music royalty, most notably touring for 26 years as the primary female backing vocalist for The Rolling Stones and sharing the stage with rock and pop icons like Tina Turner, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, and Nine Inch Nails. In the realm of R&B, she spent over two decades working closely with Luther Vandross and lent her powerhouse vocals to legendary artists like Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, and Chaka Khan. Today, she continues to expand her genre-defying footprint by collaborating with premier jazz and funk artists like Chris Botti, Bobby McFerrin, and Ranky Tanky, while fronting her own progressive world-rock band, Grand Baton.

Ticketing: Individual tickets and 3-Day Festival Passes can be purchased via Jazz in the Berkshires (jazzintheberkshires.org) or InstantSeats.

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Reminder to Lanesborough, Williamstown Voters: Mount Greylock School Committee a 'Write-In' Election

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
10:03AM / Friday, October 30, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Politicians and pundits in recent years have been preaching patience when it comes to getting election night results.

That usually means places like California, where vote-counting can be complicated or Michigan, where razor thin margins are anticipated.

Add Williamstown and Lanesborough to that list.

It is not a matter of pre-election polling suggesting particularly tight races; there is no such polling. Rather, it is a question of how voters will be making their selections in the race for the Mount Greylock Regional School District Committee.

None of the six candidates who qualified for four seats up for grabs on the panel appear on the ballots that have been mailed out, used in early voting or will be distributed at the polls on Nov. 3.

That means that all votes will be cast as write-ins, and that means it will take significantly longer for election workers to tally up votes in the local election once the polls close at 8 p.m. at Lanesborough Town Hall and Williamstown Elementary School.

As always, voters in both towns vote for all four seats on the ballot: two seats for Lanesborough residents and two for Williamstown residents in this year’s balloting.

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