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Mozart Live at the MAC!

Thursday, December 29th at 7PM

Mozart Live features noted clarinetist and Julliard Graduate William A. Hagenah, playing the role of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who travels through time to the present to entertain, awe and inspire his audience.
A noted concert highlight is the unique and engaging “Parade of the Stuffed Animals” led by Hagenah, and designed to let children who attend the concerts become ‘involved in the act’ by participating in an indoor holiday musical parade while carrying their own favorite stuffed animal as a Grand Finale to the Mozart Live performances.
Hagenah, who impersonates Mozart, also humorously recounts his meetings with other great composers like Gershwin, Duke Ellington and Jerome Kern and tries to reconcile himself with the technological changes he experiences along the way. This holiday season, the shows will also feature well known Holiday musical selections intertwined with the Mozart classics and other surprises.

Garbed in a Mozart period costume, not only does Hagenah perform classic Mozart compositions but brings a new twist to select works of some of the composers he meets in his time travels. The show uses a mixture of inspiring virtuoso performances on the clarinet and piano, period costume, wit, humor and tall tale telling which audiences have seen as ‘something of a find’ whenever Hagenah impersonates Mozart.

Concert promoter and local attorney Thomas Abdow noted that “This is not only a great opportunity to hear an amazing, entertaining, humorous and fun classical and contemporary musical performance, along with some great renditions of holiday music, but to also help raise substantial monies for those in need during this holiday season.”

The concert performers have agreed to donate a full one-half of all the gross ticket sales proceeds from the show will go to Minerva Arts Center. “The added fun attraction of the ‘Parade of Stuffed Animals’ in which children attending the Mozart Live concerts can participate, promises to make the concert events quite memorable for all attending,” Abdow added,William Hagenah, whose formal appearances have included classical concerts at New York City’s Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall; as a soloist with the Slovak Philharmonic in Prague (which can be seen on YouTube); in concert at Lincoln Center’s Tully Hall where he was singled out by The New York Times as “one of the bright moments in a week of debuts”, has also performed with the New York Woodwind Quintet, at other orchestral and classical ensemble engagements in Europe, the Northeast U.S., and closer to home at the memorable Stockbridge Chamber Concerts series at Searles Castle in Great Barrington and more recently in ‘Concerts at 7’; began studying the clarinet at 7 years of age. He later studied with Gino Cioffi, former principal clarinetist of the Boston Symphony, with Jerome Bunke at The St. Thomas Choir School, and as a recipient of the S. Cohen Woodwind Scholarship he continued his studies with Leon Russianoff at The Julliard School from which he received both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.
Mr. Hagenah grew up in Stockbridge, MA before moving to Pittsfield and then later relocating to New York City. He was also a child model, along with his sister Helené, and brother Henry for internationally known artist and illustrator Norman Rockwell. Accompanying William Hagenah for the Mozart Live performances will be critically acclaimed international concert pianist Elizabeth Artman Hagenah, who is also an original co-founder of Stockbridge Chamber Concerts. Her concert performances during the more than 60 years of her professional performing career have been worldwide and have included shows with principals and members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and appearances from Manhattan‘s Town Hall to Heidelberg in Germany, the Bavarian Alps and in major cities in the U.S. and Canada. She has also been a faculty member of Boston University’s School for the Arts and at the Eastman School of Music.

General Admission $15

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Minerva Arts Center throws a party

North Adams Transcript

NORTH ADAMS – Minerva Arts Center celebrated the conclusion of its first year of performances with a birthday bash and fundraiser at Noel Field on Saturday and Sunday.

The celebration, the Everything Under the Sun music and arts festival, featured music from local bands coming from as far as Great Barrington and Albany, N.Y., arts workshops, face painting, a bouncy house and food.

“Minerva has always had a tradition of celebrating birthdays with its alumni,” founder Kathleen O’Mara, said.

The arts center had intended to celebrate its first birthday on a field behind its building at 1288 Massachusetts Ave., but when she went to get permission from the city, someone suggested they have it on Noel Field, she said.

“With that, we decided to have a festival celebrating all different music genres,” she said.

In addition, she hopes to make the celebration and fundraiser an annual event.

Jennifer Howard, who spent 12 years with Minerva Stage, said it’s exciting the arts center has made it through its first year.

“It has been great to catch up with the local Minerva community, as well as people like [Ali Mandelbaum], who I don’t get to see that often in the Berkshires,” she said.

Mandelbaum, who has been in Minerva productions, lives in Los Angeles.

The Minerva Arts Center operates under the artistic director of Minerva Stage, which was founded in 1996 by O’Mara, according to the organization’s website.

Mandelbaum said she came to the festival to support O’Mara and the arts center’s Executive Director Edward Cating because they support so many of the arts.
“I think it’s terrific the center has made it to its first birthday,” Mandelbaum said. ” In this economy, being able to support the performing arts, theater and music is extraordinary,” she said. While the festival attracted supporters and participants of the Minerva Arts Center, it was also attended by community members.

Clarksburg resident Allen Arnold was driving by Noel Field when he noticed the bouncy house.

“I drove right home and got the kids,” he said.

His two children, Emma, 5 and Noah, 2, were having a great time between the bouncy house and face painting, he said.

“Just to get outside and have something to do in town is great,” he said.

Adams resident Rick Gallagher said the city should have more celebrations..

“This is an area that needs things like this, and a lot more of them,” he said.