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Massachusetts

The Berkshires: Tanglewood & Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival

Program No. 14963RJ

Discover the artistic traditions of the Berkshires and feel like a Tanglewood insider, experience the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and enjoy the renowned summer theater performance.

Wishlist

Music Festivals Theater Music Appreciation Dance

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6 days

5 nights

13 meals

5B 4L 4D

Check-in, Registration, Welcome Dinner, Orientation

Central Berkshires - Pittsfield

Edith Wharton's Home, Free Time, Theater Performance

Central Berkshires - Pittsfield

Theater Lecture, Tanglewood, Meet the Makers

Central Berkshires - Pittsfield

Music Class, Dance Class, Jacob's Pillow Performance

Central Berkshires - Pittsfield

BSO Closed Rehearsal, BSO Concert at Tanglewood

Central Berkshires - Pittsfield

Program Concludes

Central Berkshires - Pittsfield

View Full Itinerary

At a Glance

The Berkshires are home to many hidden jewels of theater and the arts in New England — find out what makes this beautiful region of Massachusetts a cultural magnet! After fun classes with local theater experts, musicologists and a choreographer/dancer, feel like an informed insider for performances at some of the area’s most noted venues. Enjoy the rich beauty of the Tanglewood Music Center, attend a production by one of the Berkshires’ renowned summer theater companies, celebrate contemporary dance at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and visit one of the area’s famous art museums.

Activity Level

On Your Feet

Standing and walking up to 2.5 hours, sometimes on uneven terrain.

Best of all, you’ll…

Attend a closed rehearsal by the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, and take an evening BSO concert in The Shed.
Enjoy a performance by one of the area’s widely renowned and reviewed theater companies, such as Barrington Stage Company, Berkshire Theatre Group, Williamstown Theater Company or Shakespeare & Co.
Take in two performances at the world-famous Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and enjoy pre- and post-performance insight from an experienced contemporary dancer.

General Notes

The performance schedule will be available in early spring. Participants interested in attending performances on free Thursday evenings or on nights pre- or post-program, please see Day Four of the Daily Schedule for details about ticketing and transportation.

Featured Expert

All trip experts

Andrea Borak

Andrea Borak is a certified Laban Movement Analyst and a certified Trager Practitioner. While working in New York, she performed with the Eleo Pomare Dance Company and the Phyllis Lamhut Dance Company, and served as the movement specialist at The Little Red School House. Andrea has taught dance at numerous schools including NYU, and since relocating to the Berkshires in 1998, has taught at the Albany/Berkshire Ballet, the Pittsfield public schools and Berkshire Community College.

Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.

Andrea Borak View biography

Andrea Borak is a certified Laban Movement Analyst and a certified Trager Practitioner. While working in New York, she performed with the Eleo Pomare Dance Company and the Phyllis Lamhut Dance Company, and served as the movement specialist at The Little Red School House. Andrea has taught dance at numerous schools including NYU, and since relocating to the Berkshires in 1998, has taught at the Albany/Berkshire Ballet, the Pittsfield public schools and Berkshire Community College.

Michael Goetjen View biography

Michael Goetjen is a lecturer in music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a musicologist, his research focuses on eighteenth-century opera and the music of Mozart, particularly the concert aria and its role in operatic culture outside the theater. A harpsichordist and organist as well as a musicologist, Michael works regularly in both classroom and performance environments, having previously served as director of music at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Berkeley Heights, NJ and interim organist at Hancock Church in Lexington, MA.

Teri Contino View biography

Teri Contino has over two decades' experience leading groups in New England. She was born in Boston, raised in Woodstock, NY, and vacationed on Cape Cod for much of her life. She returned to Boston after receiving an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and now lives in Newburyport, MA. Teri has always loved teaching, learning, travel, history, culture, books, theater, birds, and the ocean. She currently splits her time between travel, stage managing community theater, working in the garden, and staying close to the water.

Suggested Reading List (10 books)

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The Berkshires: Tanglewood & Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival

Program Number: 14963

Cooking with Music: Celebrating the Tastes and Traditions of the Boston Symphony Orchestra

by Boston Symphony Orchestra

Cooking with Music combines favorite recipes of the Boston Symphony Orchestra family and guests, along with historical information about Symphony Hall and the various enterprises of the organization. Recipes vary from quick and easy to slightly complex in a wide variety of types--New England, Southern, International and many more. The concluding section, Tanglewood, presents its recipes in a picnic format, a favorite activity at the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa

by Haruki Murakami

In Absolutely on Music, internationally Haruki Murakami sits down with his friend Seiji Ozawa, the revered former conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, for a series of conversations on their shared passion: music. Over the course of two years, Murakami and Ozawa discuss everything from Brahms to Beethoven, from Leonard Bernstein to Glenn Gould, from Bartók to Mahler, and from pop-up orchestras to opera. They listen to and dissect recordings of some of their favorite performances, and Murakami questions Ozawa about his career conducting orchestras around the world.

Hawthorne's Lenox: The Tanglewood Circle

by Cornelia Brooke Gilder and Julia Conklin Peters

What drew Nathaniel Hawthorne to a remote village deep in the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts in 1850? Slip into the fascinating social scene he encountered in the drawing rooms and on the croquet lawns of Lenox's country retreats.

How Beautiful Upon the Mountain: A History of Jacob's Pillow

by Ted Shawn

The book explores the origins of the festival, which began in the 1930s, and its evolution into one of the most prestigious dance festivals in the world. Shawn, who was a dancer, choreographer, and founder of the festival, provides an insider's perspective on the festival's growth and development. He discusses the various artists who have performed at the festival over the years, including Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, and Twyla Tharp, and the impact they had on the world of dance. The book also delves into the cultural and social significance of the festival, as well as its role in promoting dance as an art form.

Tanglewood: A Group Memoir

by Peggy Daniels

The story of Tanglewood – the summer home of the Boston Symphony since 1935 – as told in first-person accounts by such Tanglewood luminaries as Leonard Bernstein, Serge Koussevitzky, Aaron Copland, Erich Leinsdorf, Phyllis Curtin, Seiji Ozawa, Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, John Harbison, James Levine, and many of the leading musicians, critics, and music professionals who consider Tanglewood a second home.

Boston Symphony Orchestra

by Boston Symphony Orchestra

This captivating book provides an in-depth look at the history and musical legacy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The author chronicles key milestones, from the founding of the orchestra in 1881 to its current position as one of the world's most renowned ensembles. Filled with engaging anecdotes and insights from current and former members of the orchestra, this book is a must-read for anyone who loves classical music.

Ted Shawn: His Life, Writings, and Dances

by Paul A. Scolieri

Ted Shawn: His Life, Writings, and Dances is the first critical biography of the dance legend, offering an in-depth look into Shawn's pioneering role in the formation of the first American modern dance company and school, the first all-male dance company, and Jacob's Pillow, the internationally renowned dance festival and school located in the Berkshires.

A Backward Glance: An Autobiography

by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, vividly reflects on her public and private life in this stunning memoir.

Cement Dust

by J. Peter Bergman

Billy and Feyhe are cousins, both creative artists, whose late friendship blossoms into a caregiver relationship when her manic-depression overwhelms her. How they affect each others lives and careers is at the center of the story, but her illness, and his fear of also having it, influences his choices in life and art. **Now a Silver Medal winner in the 2020 IPPY Awards in the US Northeast Region.

Melville in Love: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick

by Michael Shelden

A new account of Herman Melville and the writing of Moby-Dick, written by a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Biography and based on fresh archival research, which reveals that the anarchic spirit animating Melville’s canonical work was inspired by his great love affair with a shockingly unconventional married woman.

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