Berkshire Lyric

Berkshire Lyric is one of the oldest and largest music non-profits in the Berkshires, having a mission to provide community, beauty and meaning through the choral art. 

They have over 150 singers in numerous choruses and provide several year round creative music education programs for young people ages 6 to 25 at no charge. The Berkshire Lyric Chorus is their principal concert ensemble and has singers ages 15 to 82 who live and work fulltime in Berkshire County and the surrounding areas. 

Founded in 1963 by Robert Blafield and led by Jack Brown since 2007, they continue as a strong advocate for great singing in the community. Lyric produces over a dozen concerts a year that include holiday programs, pop concerts, annual benefits for local food pantries and significant annual concerts with orchestra at Seiji Ozawa Hall. This past May they performed Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and prior years have included major works such as Haydn’s Creation and The Seasons, Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Mass in C, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Brahms’ German Requiem, Bruckner’s Mass no. 3 and Bloch’s Sacred Service. In other area venues they have sung works by composers such as Handel, Rachmaninoff, Orff, Stravinsky, Ives, Britten and Lauridsen. They believe that making music in community is a high calling, one that builds relationships across generations while exploring what the unique power of choral music can do to make all of us more fully human.