Berkshire Symphony

About this event

The Williams College Department of Music presents the Berkshire Symphony with director Andrew J. Kim. This event is free and open to the public. There are no reservations or ticketing. There is a pre-concert talk with Andrew J. Kim at 6:45pm in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall, adjacent to the Chapin Hall lobby.
This concert consists of music that comes from an extra-musical inspiration. Opening the concert is Nico Muhly’s One Line, Two Shapes, inspired by “isolation of the individual in society.” Barber’s Music for a Scene from Shelley was inspired by lines from “Prometheus Unbound” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as the view of Lake Lugano. Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition was inspired by a posthumous exhibition of Russian painter Viktor Hartmann. Mussorgsky depicts not just the paintings themselves, but the walks in between the paintings, creating a museum-going experience for the listeners. Though the three pieces are quite different from each other, they are all testaments to music’s descriptive power.
The Berkshire Symphony is a truly unique model for an orchestra. Consisting of Williams College faculty and other professional musicians sitting side-by-side with auditioned students, the ensemble presents high level performances for the College and the Berkshires community at large while fostering immersive learning experience for the students in a professional setting. The faculty and students are able to develop close mentorships through playing next to each other, and rehearsals become a fertile ground for growth in which students learn nuances of ensemble playing and collaborative music-making.
The orchestra presents four concerts a year, each through four rehearsals on preceding Tuesdays and Thursdays. It aims to share a diverse set of repertoire that represents wide-ranging cultural backgrounds as well as time periods, including music written by living composers. The orchestra also serves as a liaison between the College and its broader community as an important performing arts organization in the Berkshires, helping to connect everyone through music.