Boston Conservatory at Berklee Announces Center Stage Performances for Spring 2024
Boston Conservatory at Berklee is pleased to announce the spring lineup for Center Stage, a curated collection that showcases four extraordinary performances in dance, music, and theater, and spotlights the remarkable talent of the school’s performers. This spring’s Center Stage lineup includes a Black History Month orchestra concert at Symphony Hall (featuring a special guest narrator); a fun and quirky musical; an operatic adaptation of a Shakespeare classic; and notable dance works by renowned choreographers.
The spring series will open on Friday, February 16 with Boston Conservatory Orchestra: Celebrating Black History Month at Symphony Hall. The powerful program will showcase historically important African American composers William Grant Still (“Festive Overture”) and Margaret Bonds (The Montgomery Variations), as well as a recent work by Valerie Coleman (“Seven O‘Clock Shout”) that celebrates the spontaneous outdoor applause that New York City medical professionals received during the COVID-19 pandemic. The concert will also feature a special guest reciting the words of Martin Luther King Jr. in Joseph Schwantner’s “New Morning for the World.” Concluding the program is Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Toussaint L’Ouverture,” which will include previously unperformed long-lost parts specially prepared by conductor and professor Bruce Hangen for this performance.
Boston Conservatory will present the beloved musical comedy Something Rotten from April 11 through 14. The Tony-nominated musical transports audiences back to 1595 and tells the fictitious story of brothers Nick and Nigel Bottom, who are desperate to write a hit play, but find themselves stuck in the shadow of that Renaissance rock star known as “The Bard.” With a book by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O'Farrell, and music and lyrics by Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick, this production will be directed by Boston Conservatory Professor Paul Daigneault, with music direction by Dan Rodriguez and choreography by Taavon Gamble.
From April 18 to 21, Boston Conservatory opera students will perform William Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with the adapted libretto by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, on the Huntington Theatre stage. The story features a quartet of young lovers who find themselves lost in the magical woods, a land ruled by the fairies. Puck, the mischievous fairy, makes two men fall in love with the same woman, and mayhem ensues. Associate Professor Andrew Bisantz will conduct the production, with stage direction from Associate Professor David Gately. A Midsummer Night’s Dream will transform the recently renovated Huntington Theatre Company stage into the woods of a midsummer’s night.
The spring Center Stage season will conclude with the annual spring dance concert, Limitless, from April 25 through 28. This year’s program includes four works: Plod by Dan Wagoner, an exuberant piece set to Prokoviev’s Symphony No. 1 in D major, which will be performed by the Boston Conservatory Orchestra; Lift by Aszure Barton, originally commissioned by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Snatched Back From the Edges by Dwight Rhoden, a tour-de-force contemporary ballet expressing the worry, loss, and loneliness of the COVID-19 lockdown; and The Unsung by José Limón, an undisputed masterpiece of modern dance, honoring Native Americans and performed—for the first time—by a cast of all women dancers.
Tickets are available online at bostonconservatory.berklee.edu/events. Tickets can also be purchased from the Berklee Box Office at 136 Massachusetts Avenue, which is open Monday through Friday from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., with exceptions for holidays and breaks in the academic calendar.