Berkshire Symphony Performance

06:00PM / Wednesday, March 04, 2026Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. The Williams College Department of Music presents the Berkshire Symphony with director Andrew J. Kim in a performance titled, Opera Without Words on March 6, at 7:30 pm.

This event is free and open to the public. There are no reservations or ticketing.

This concert presents instrumental music from operas across time and musical traditions, drawing from Johann Strauss Jr.'s Overture to Die Fledermaus, Britten's Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes; Richard Wagner's Vorspiel und Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde; and Joseph de Bologne's L'Amant Anonime.

According to a press release:

The Berkshire Symphony is a truly unique model for an orchestra. Consisting of Williams College faculty and other professional musicians sitting side-by-side with auditioned students, the ensemble presents high level performances for the College and the Berkshires community at large while fostering immersive learning experience for the students in a professional setting. The faculty and students are able to develop close mentorships through playing next to each other, and rehearsals become a fertile ground for growth in which students learn nuances of ensemble playing and collaborative music-making.

The orchestra presents four concerts a year, each through four rehearsals on preceding Tuesdays and Thursdays. It aims to share a diverse set of repertoire that represents wide-ranging cultural backgrounds as well as time periods, including music written by living composers. The orchestra also serves as a liaison between the College and its broader community as an important performing arts organization in the Berkshires, helping to connect everyone through music.

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Discrimination Against Muslim Americans Persists 25 Years After 9/11

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
07:00AM / Saturday, September 12, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Dozens of Muslim Americans were among people killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Untold numbers of Muslim Americans have suffered countless acts of discrimination in their aftermath.

"Of course, you'll find several accounts of Muslims from all over the U.S. describing how they went from the unknown kids in the school to being stereotyped or ridiculed for their Muslim names," Sidra Mahmood recalled recently. "However, many Americans forget that the victims of 9/11 were also Muslim Americans.

"I can't forget the time when a classmate broke down in sobs when 9/11 came up in our classroom at the Islamic seminary I went to in Texas, because her father's best friend who was like an uncle to her, died on 9/11."

Today, Mahmood is a chaplain at Williams College. In 2001, she was growing up in Karachi, Pakistan, when terrorists forced two passenger jets into the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan and another plane into the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. A third plane, which terrorists hoped to crash into a D.C. landmark, was brought down in western Pennsylvania after passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers.

The attacks, which ultimately claimed 2,976 lives, horrified people around the world, including in Mahmood's native land.

"I remember being aghast like anyone who witnessed the fall of the Twin Towers in real time," she said. "However, even as a child, fear gripped me about the possibility of war, especially once we learned that Afghanistan, right adjacent to Pakistan, would be attacked by the U.S. My mother had told me about the 1971 war between India and Pakistan when she remembered hiding in the dark after bomb sirens would go off in Punjab after intentional blackouts.

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