Berkshire Choral International: Their Final Season In Sheffield

For the next two weekends, Berkshire Choral International (BCI) — the former Berkshire Choral Festival — goes out with a big bang as it leaves Sheffield, Mass., its longtime permanent home.

But don’t worry, goodbye is not forever. “We will continue to have our administrative offices in Sheffield for at least the next two years,” BCI Executive Director Debi Kennedy said in an interview.

The Berkshire School in Sheffield will no longer be the regular venue for BCI programs, however. Instead, the group is picking up its roots and becoming truly international, performing in a variety of changing locations at home and abroad. “There was a time that people liked the familiar; now they like trying new things and not going to the same place year after year,” Kennedy said. “We’ll move around much more than in the past.”

For 36 summers, BCI has offered programs in which talented amateurs get to sing with some of the finest choral conductors in the world, with orchestral accompaniment from the Springfield Symphony. Each program is a week long and culminates in a weekend concert.

For its last two regularly scheduled concerts at the Berkshire School, BCI will perform two monumental works: Mahler’s gargantuan Symphony No. 8 (July 15), conducted by Kent Tritle, and Verdi’s Requiem (July 22), led by Tom Hall. One couldn’t wish for a more inspiring finale.

The Mahler, frequently referred to as the “Symphony of a Thousand” because of the enormous choral and orchestral forces involved, was composed in 1906 and premiered in 1910. It typically runs to nearly 90 minutes. As scored, it calls for two full choruses, a children’s chorus and eight soloists, as well as a massive orchestra with bells, piano, organ, tamtam, glockenspiel and multiples of strings, woodwinds and brass.

Yes, like most Mahler works, it is sprawling and takes you to glorious and sublime places that no other composer has before or since. 

“It’s not a piece that’s performed very often, even by large city symphonies,” Kennedy said. “To be able to offer this experience to our choristers is very exciting.”

As for the Verdi Requiem, Kennedy said that “it’s kind of symbolic. That was the first work we performed here in Sheffield in 1982, so in a way we’re closing the circle.”

Being Verdi, the Requiem is operatic, not to mention melodramatic. If the first movement, “Requiem and Kyrie,” doesn’t get you with its lush beauty, the second, “Dies Irae” (Day of Wrath), will knock you out of your seat with its pounding bass drum and descending chromatic response from the chorus.

For BCI, the future is ascending as it builds audiences and participation. Programs in 2018 will take place at Goucher College in Baltimore, Md., Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., California State University at Fullerton in Fullerton, Calif., and Durham Cathedral in Durham, England.

Berkshire Choral International’s final Sheffield concerts will be held on July 15 and 22 at the Berkshire School, located at 245 North Undermountain Road in Sheffield, Mass. The concerts will be at 7:30 p.m. with free preconcert lectures at 6:15 p.m. Details on the concerts and auditioning for future choral programs can be found at www.berkshirechoral.org, or by calling 413-229-1999 (box office) or 413-229-1254 (for questions about applying).