image description — Geoffrey Carter cuts the ribbon on 163 North St., the new home of BeatNest.

BeatNest Celebrates Grand Opening in New Space

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
12:36PM / Monday, May 12, 2025Print Story | Email Story

The space has private recording areas and room for group classes.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — BeatNest, an electronic music program, celebrated its grand opening at 163 North St. on Saturday.

This new space is about 10 times bigger than its former space, owner Geoffrey Carter said, and being on North Street provides more visibility.

"The street visibility has been great because people just walk by and they can see my sign," he said. "I've always been looking for an upgrade to teach bigger groups of classes where I can do group events and expand my offerings."

Carter says the number of classes and the number of students have grown, prompting the need to expand his space.

"We've just finished doing a group class of like 10 kids at once and it's great because it's more affordable for them and I get to teach more kids at once and it's good, and I have also gotten more private students," he said.

Carter says he loves to teach kids and show them how to work with electronic music, including beatmaking, how to DJ, and music production.

"I've been a musician my whole life and I love to work with kids and I like inspiring the youth to create music," he said. "I think it's important to do so with technology where it's become easier and easier for kids to just sit down and start making music that they are happy with and enjoy making from the first lesson they can make something great."

The new space was formerly rented by TheCollab, a collaborative recording studio of which BeatNest was a member and had been holding events and camps. The collaborative offered Carter the space to take over, even leaving a lot of the stuff behind for him to use.

Carter works with other programs, such as Berkshire Music School, and recently added Families Like Ours, a nonprofit supporting children with special needs, to have group classes.

"I would love to continue to work with other organizations in the Berkshires and expand my offerings for larger ranges of kids and increase my teen classes and adult classes," he said, adding he is starting adult events.

Eleanor Kidder, who has been taking weekly lessons with Carter for more than a year, said she is excited to see him move to the new location. Her mother, Kimberly Kidder, met Carter when they both took the Entrepreneurship for All small-business accelerator.

"To go from being a fellow co-hort member to seeing how he has grown from his little space down at the Greylock building to moving into the space so much bigger and just how much he's accomplished in the last two years that I've known him is really cool as well," Kimberly Kidder said.

Eleanor said her music talent has grown and that she loves the creativity aspect she gets to play with during her time.

"I feel like I have gone from a beginner to a pro. I'm always like 'no!' when it ends," she said.

The new space has a main room for performances and events, a private room for private sessions, a vocal booth, and a classroom for group classes.

You can find out more on the website.

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Soccer Hall of Fame Adds Members, Awards Scholarships

Community submission02:13PM / Friday, May 15, 2026

PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- The 2026 CIAO Soccer Hall of Fame induction ceremony took place at Berkshire Hills Country Club on Thursday.

The Hall of Fame's mission is to preserve the sport's history in Berkshire County, to honor excellence within the game and to make a connection between the generations that bring communities together. With players who last played on a soccer field in Berkshire County in the 1960s to the scholarship winners at the banquet on May 14th who played their last high school game in the fall of last year, we are achieving our goal.

It is worth noting that this class of inductees is stellar. We have four County MVP selections, 14 All-Berkshire selections, eight All-Western Mass selections and, and nine captain honors, five four-year varsity starters and one five-year varsity starter.

The players were introduced by committee chairmen Al Belanger and Patrick West. The scholarship winners were introduced by Chris Dumas, a member of the CIAO Soccer Hall of Fame committee. The photographer for the evening was Ricco Fruscio. Over the past 21 years, the scholarships awarded to high school seniors in Berkshire County have topped $250,000.

The 2026 Inductees:

Katie Dumas Sturm (Wahconah 2015) was a hard-nosed, and relentless four-year starter for Wahconah. She was a two-year captain in the middle of the field, scoring and assisting on clutch goals in big games. She was rewarded with being named All Berkshire, and All Western Mass in her senior year. She is married to Brent Sturm (who is also being inducted into the hall of fame this year) and has a son Banks and a 7-week-old Everett Michael. She works at General Dynamics.

Brent Sturm (Wahconah 2009) was named to the All Berkshire Team in both his junior and senior years and won a Western Mass championship during his time at Wahconah. He also went on to have a stellar career at Wentworth Institute. He and his wife, Katie, are the first husband and wife inductees into the CIAO Soccer Hall of Fame in the same year. After college, he helped coach the Wahconah Soccer and basketball teams. He works at General Dynamics.

Nicole Gamberoni (Lenox 2019) was an impact player on her team for five years while at Lenox making All-Berkshire teams four times. She was captain twice, finished with 107 points, and was the league MVP two times. She also went on to play soccer at AIC. She is working at Lenox High School while she is getting her master’s degree.

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