Announcing Berkshire Lyric’s 2026 Fall Season

2026 Christmas Concerts

The 90-voice Berkshire Lyric Chorus and our two choruses for young singers present three traditional Christmas concerts in beautiful spaces. Fresh from their recent monumental performances of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at Ozawa Hall, and Fauré with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood’s Koussevitzky Music Shed, the chorus lavishes their beauty and power on music of the season that is both timely and joyful.

We Hear the Christmas Angels

Two identical concerts, with music of Bach, Bruckner, Walton, Britten, Stopford, and Forrest, as well as traditional carols arranged for chorus. Accompanied by harp, oboe, piano, and pipe organ, with opportunity for the audience to join in for our sing-along on majestic carols.

• December 11, Friday at 7:30 pm at St. Mark’s Church, Pittsfield
• December 13, Sunday at 3:00 pm at Saint James Place, Great Barrington

Make the Season Bright

This concert of traditional and contemporary carols will also include a number of well-known standards from the American holiday songbook. The Lyric Children’s Chorus will welcome a visit from Santa Claus at this old-fashioned holiday event geared for “kids from 1 to 92″, with many opportunities to sing along. This concert is underwritten by the Red Lion Inn, keeping the price of admission low.

• December 19, Saturday at 3:00 pm at Stockbridge Congregational Church

A Look Back at our Spring / Summer 2026 Season

Berkshire Lyric Chorus at Tanglewood w/ Yo-Yo Ma, Samy Rachid & the BSO

On Friday, August 7 at 8:00 pm, the Berkshire Lyric Chorus was honored to perform on stage at the Koussevitzky Music Shed at Tanglewood, Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine, alongside renown cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

From the BSO website:
Yo-Yo Ma joins the BSO in an expression of gratitude, a tribute to the friends that have helped us transcend the dark moments in our past, which we hope will bring us wisdom in this time of fragmentation. The orchestra will be joined by Samy Rachid, Renaud Capuçon and Berkshire neighbors Jack Brown and the Berkshire Lyric Chorus, performing Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine; Brahms’s String Sextet No. 2, a celebration of nature and love; and the Brahms Double Concerto, a musical gift of reconciliation.

Click here for additional information available through the Boston Symphony Orchestra website.

Our 2026 Masterworks performance: Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion

2026 Masterworks: Replay on YouTube

Our 2025-2026 season concluded at Seiji Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood with J.S. Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion. This monumental work represented perhaps the biggest challenge in our six decades of going big – the latest in a long line of larger works at our performances at Seiji Ozawa Hall. Lyric’s long time Artistic Director Jack Brown conducted this annual Masterworks concert with the 90-voice Berkshire Lyric Chorus, the Lyric People’s Chorus, the Lyric Children’s Chorus, a double orchestra, and six internationally renown vocal soloists. Making their debut with Berkshire Lyric were soprano Clara Rottsolk and baritone Jesse Blumberg, with returning soloists Dann Coakwell, Adriana Zabala, Sam Krausz, and Douglas Williams.

The culmination of Bach’s dramatic and poetic power, this stunning piece tells the Passion Week story of betrayal, judgment, sacrifice, and death – above all, a story of the ultimate power of love. Conceived not as a concert work or opera, but a transformative ritual, many believe Bach’s 1727 setting of the Matthew Passion narrative to be the greatest single work of music in the entire Western canon. Visit our Bach St. Matthew Passion page to learn more.

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