Music

Berkshire Opera Festival wraps up its second full season since the COVID-19 pandemic with a fully staged “Don Giovanni,” with Andre Courville as the insatiable seducer, Christian Zaremba as the comic sidekick Leporello, Laura Wilde as Donna Anna and John Cheek as the commendatore.

The final of four concerts by the New Baroque Soloists will be held  in Gordon Hall at Music Mountain in Falls Village, Conn., on Wednesday, Aug. 10, at 5 p.m.

Two outdoor music festivals are offered this summer by the Park and Recreation Commission in Cornwall, Conn. The first was on Friday, July 1, and featured bluegrass music by the Zolla Boys. There was a food truck and an ice cream truck and activities for children.

Out of the ashes of Blues Project — one of the most influential bands of the mid 1960s — rose another amazing and influential band of that era: Blood, Sweat & Tears, started by Blues Project founding members Steve Katz and Al Kooper.

Even during the worst periods of COVID-19, the Music Mountain Summer Festival in Falls Village, Conn., never went “dark” — although the weekly concerts at the venerable hall on Music Mountain were held virtually for one season during the pandemic; and the live concerts were reduced in 2021, with social distancing required for audience members.

The Greek Revival architecture of Smithfield Church in Amenia, N.Y.,  has welcomed worshippers since it was built in 1847, identical in appearance today to when it was erected.

Music Mountain in Falls Village, Conn., opens its 93rd season with a benefit concert on Sunday, June 5, at 3 p.m. that features this summer’s musical theme: The 250th anniversary of Haydn’s “Sun Quartets,” which are said to have given birth to the string quartet medium as we know it today.

Hudson Valley, N.Y., resident and Bard College alumna Natalie Merchant will return to Tivoli, N.Y., for the opening soiree for the 2022 season at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park.