Arts and Culture in Massachusetts

Few states in America have as much to offer in terms of art and culture as Massachusetts. From Cape Cod to Boston to the Berkshire Hills, Massachusetts has bountiful cultural organizations, thousands of talented artists and educators, and an artistic history that predates the landing of the Mayflower. Its cultural history is so rich that it’s difficult to summarize. Massachusetts’ arts and culture stem from its long and deep history as witnessed today by its numerous heritage trails. Through all the changes and the cultural clashes, the state has emerged as a world-class leader in the arts with internationally renowned orchestras, ballets, schools of thought, and architecture. HIGH ARTS The Boston Ballet was founded in 1963 and is considered a major North American ballet company. It performs in the Opera House, a 2,500-seat theater in Boston’s Theater District. The ballet opened the Nervi Festival in Italy in 1979 and it was the first American dance company to perform in the People's Republic of China in 1980. It has commissioned ballets from numerous modern choreographers including Mark Morris, Susan Marshall, Ralph Lemon, Elisa Monte, and Helen Pickett. Boston Ballet School teaches ballet at four locations around eastern Massachusetts. Additionally, the Boston Ballet Center for Dance Education offers educational and outreach programs including teaching adaptive dance together with Children’s Hospital Boston. Opera Boston is on a mission to provide an innovative repertoire and significant but rarely seen operas. It strives to offer Massachusetts original outreach and education programs and to keep opera affordable and available to everyone. Boston Lyric Opera was founded in 1976 and offers three mainstage productions at the Citi Performing Arts Center Shubert Theatre in Boston, as well as an Opera Annex production and an English-language version of an opera for students around New England. BLO’s programs are funded partially by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. The first Boston Symphony Orchestra concert was performed in the Old Boston Music Hall.Symphony Hall, where the BSO plays today, was inaugurated on October 15, 1900. Seiji Ozawa was the BSO's music director for 29 years, starting in 1973. Today the orchestra gives over 250 concerts annually. The Tanglewood Music Festival is held every summer in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. More than 350,000 visitors attend every year. The Boston Symphony Orchestra plays at Tanglewood during the summer, and there are many other kinds of musical concerts put on all summer long. Originally formed to provide work for BSO players who were unemployed six months out of the year, the Boston Pops Orchestra was founded in 1885. In 1900, the name "Pops" (short for "popular") was officially adopted. In 1930, Arthur Fiedler conducted the first Boston Pops Esplanade Concerts on the banks of Boston’s Charles River. Fiedler led the Pops until his death in 1979. John Williams (known for his Hollywood film scores) became conductor in January 1980 and is credited with continuing the popularity of "Evening at Pops" and recording many of the Pops' best-selling records. The famous Fourth of July concert featuring the show-stopping 1812 Overture is broadcast nationally on television. MUSIC Massachusetts offers every kind of music from classical, jazz, and early music to pop and rock and roll. The Bank of America Pavilion on Boston Harbor in South Boston and the Comcast Center in Mansfield are large-scale venues. Gillette Stadium in Foxboro hosts concerts by top-tier musical acts. Massachusetts is also home to several music festivals including the Berkshire Choral Festival, the Tanglewood Music Festival, and the Boston Celtic Music Festival. There are a number of music schools of world renown in Massachusetts. The Boston Conservatory is a private college with programs in music, dance, and theater. It was founded in 1867 as a professional training academy and a community music school. Since its inception, the conservatory accepted women and African Americans into its programs—a rare occurrence for the time. The conservatory was also considered innovative because it included dance and theater training in its program. It was the first professional dance program that emphasized European classical ballet and American modern dance in equal amounts. The Longy School of Music was founded in 1915 and is located in Harvard Square in Cambridge. The school serves over 200 undergraduate and graduate students and nearly 1,000 children and adults from the Greater Boston Area every year. The New England Conservatory offers degrees, continuing education programs, and college preparatory lessons. Its 1,013-seat venue, Jordan Hall, is a National Historic Landmark and enjoys acclaim as a nearly perfect acoustical performance space. Also in Boston, Berklee College of Musicteaches contemporary music and offers practical career preparation for musicians including songwriting, music synthesis, and music business/management. PERFORMING ARTS Founded in 1933, Jacob's Pillow hosts a world famous international dance festival that presents dance every year on three stages. "The Pillow" is the only dance company in the U.S. that is also a National Historic Landmark. Its historic 163-acre site was a family farm in the late 1700s and became a station on the Underground Railroad in the 1800s. The Sanders Theater in Cambridge offers dance performances from around the world. It is also home to several undergraduate choir and orchestral groups and serves as a venue for many professional performance ensembles including Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Chamber Music Society, Christmas Revels, Masterworks Chorale, and Boston Baroque. The American Repertory Theater in Cambridge is a nationally acclaimed company that has presented new American plays, reinterpretations of the classics, and new musical theater since 1980. More than half of the 200 productions ART has performed were premieres of new plays, translations, or adaptations. ART staff teaches undergraduate classes in acting, directing, dramatic literature, dramaturgy, design, and playwriting at Harvard University. Boston University’s Huntington Theater is Boston's largest and most popular theater. It is renowned for creating seven world-class productions each season for an audience of over 130,000. Phylicia Rashad, Kate Burton, Nathan Lane, and John C. Reilly are just a few contemporary names that have performed there. Working with Boston University, the company has helped launch numerous film and TV stars such as Julianne Moore and Michael Chiklis. America’s oldest professional summer theater is the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, on Cape Cod. Western Massachusetts features well-known Hollywood actors every year in its summer playhouses. FILM Every kind of film festival is available across the state of Massachusetts. Boston hosts the Boston Irish Film Festival and the Boston Turkish Film Festival among others, while Cambridge hosts the Boston Bike Film Festival. Newburyport, on the North Coast, hosts the Newburyport Documentary Film Festival, and Cape Cod welcomes the Provincetown International Film Festival each year. Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, two islands off Cape Cod, both host their own festivals. The Pioneer Valley sponsors the Pioneer Valley Jewish Film and Arts Festival. Major films are shot in Massachusetts every year—many using the recognizably unique neighborhoods of Boston and other Massachusetts cities. The Departed; Gone, Baby Gone; and Shutter Island are just a few of the big-budget productions shot there in the past decade. Massachusetts natives Ben Affleckand Matt Damon wrote and starred in the Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting, which was set and filmed in Boston. LITERARY ARTS With so many colleges and universities, museums, and historical places in Massachusetts, it is not surprising how much literary talent has blossomed there. Louisa May Alcott wrote and set her classic novel Little Women in Concord in 1868, and The Scarlet Letter author Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804. Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston in 1803 and wrote his famous collections, poems, and essays in Massachusetts in the second half of the 19th century. Henry David Thoreau was born in 1817 in Concord. There he met Ralph Waldo Emerson and worked as a tutor for Emerson’s children. Thoreau met other writers such as Ellery Channing, Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, who formed the Transcendentalist group (see Historic Art Movements below). Contemporary writer Andrew Clements currently lives in Westborough, Massachusetts. His first novel, Frindle, won 16 state book awards, as well as the Christopher Award. VISUAL ARTS Massachusetts has a vital population of contemporary artists. The Worcester Art Museum has a contemporary art collection that displays the work of living artists made during the last 10 years. The collection addresses current thematic issues in modern visual culture and showcases work by younger artists from around the world, including painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography, and electronic media. The Institute of Contemporary Art presents art in all media, including visual art exhibitions, music, film, video, and performance. Founded in 1936 as the Boston Museum of Modern Art, the museum was designed to be a laboratory in which innovative approaches to art could be pursued. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has an extensive collection that includes everything from Egyptian sarcophagi to French Impressionism. Harvard University’s Arthur M. Sackler Museum contains works by Matisse, Picasso, and Italian Renaissance artists. Salem's Peabody Essex Museum strives to show people the links between art, architecture, and culture. The Worcester Art Museum showcases works by Cassatt, Gauguin, Goya, Monet, Sargent, and Whistler. In western Massachusetts, the Norman Rockwell Museum has the largest collection of the illustrator’s original art. The Provincetown Art Association and Museum on the tip of Cape Cod displays the work of more than 400 Provincetown artists. The Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, is a regional art center that contains the Weyerhaeuser family collection. The museum has an extensive collection of prints, including those by Albrecht Dürer, Jacques Callot, J.M.W. Turner, Camile Corot, Kaethe Kolwitz and Rembrandt van Rijn. It also has collections of Shaker furniture and American paintings with works by Sanford Gifford, Charles Burchfield, and George Bellows. The Citgo Sign in Boston’s Kenmore Square near Fenway Park is considered "public art" and Boston's pride and joy. It is one of the largest signs in New England. First constructed in 1940, its neon was added in 1965. The double-faced sign is the size of an Olympic-sized pool and was saved from destruction by concerned citizens in 1983. ARCHITECTURE Two of Boston’s most famous architects are Charles Bulfinch (1763–1844) and Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). Bulfinch designed the Massachusetts State House and expanded Boston’sFaneuil Hall in 1805 and University Hall in 1815. He is credited with helping Boston transition from town to city government. He oversaw police and fire services, and acted as the de facto mayor. In 1818, President James Monroe made Bulfinch the architect of the U.S. Capitol. H.H. Richardson completed several commissions in Boston, including Trinity Church. He moved from New York to Brookline in 1874 and stayed there until his death. His old friend, Fredrick Law Olmsted, joined him in Brookline in 1883, and they enjoyed collaborating on several projects. Duxbury’s Art Complex Museum was designed by artist Ture Bengtz. Architect Richard Owen Abbott, a teacher at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, helped make the Weyerhaeuser family’s design a monument to nature and wood. The Bengtz Gallery is leaf-shaped and the interior and exterior design of the building have been compared to the waves of Duxbury’s Atlantic Ocean location. Boston has many examples of original Colonial architectural style including the Old State House, thePaul Revere House, the Old North Church, and the Old South Meeting House. Examples of the Federal style in the city include the Massachusetts State House, Quincy Market, Faneuil Hall, and the Charles St. Meeting House. The Victorian architectural style can be seen in Boston’s Trinity Church, the Boston Public Library, Old Boston City Hall, and the Flour and Grain Exchange.Examples of contemporary architecture include the John Hancock Tower, the Prudential Center, and Rowe's Wharf. HANDICRAFT AND FOLK ART Massachusetts is home to many ethnic groups, each of who have long-standing folk art traditions that come from their heritage and time-honored work. A National Heritage Museum exhibit mounted between 2008 and 2009 was the fruit of eight years of fieldwork by folklorists at the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC). The researchers carefully recorded the myriad cultural traditions that exist in Massachusetts, documenting over 525 individuals, groups, and community organizations. Today, the MCC's archives include more than 5,000 color slides, 1,000 black and white film negatives, 300 color negatives, 1,500 digital images, 170 cassette tapes, and 160 digital audio recordings. HISTORIC ART MOVEMENTS Massachusetts native Ralph Waldo Emerson is considered the father of the Americantranscendentalism movement. Transcendentalism was born from new ideas in mid-19th century New England about literature, religion, culture, and philosophy. Emerson and his fellow Transcendentalists, including Henry David Thoreau and A. Bronson Alcott, argued that culture was disconnected from nature and the individual’s experience. The transcendentalists claimed that intuition was more important than what was taught at Harvard University and communicated through organized religion. Emerson's 1836 essay "Nature" solidified the movement as a genuine philosophy and new school of thought. -World Trade Press