Mission
The mission of Music in the Berkshires is to help Berkshire County residents and visitors find the live music that brings them joy. Additionally, we want to help promote local and visiting musicians, help our music venues publicize their performances, and help raise the visibility of the Berkshire live music scene outside the region, promoting economic development for the area.
About
Mark Greenlaw and his wife, Melissa, are passionate about music. With their three children grown up and living out West, Mark retired from the full-time working world in 2022. He and Melissa moved from the Boston suburbs to West Stockbridge. As they approached their first winter in the Berkshires, Mark was concerned about getting cabin fever.
In planning for the weeks ahead, Mark started searching websites for a calendar that provided a complete listing of live music in the region. He wasn’t satisfied. The existing Berkshire area event calendars that included live music were sparsely populated and only showed a few shows taking place in any given week.
“I started putting together a spreadsheet of all the shows that my wife and I wanted to go see through the winter,” shares Mark, “and then a friend said, ‘Hey, would you share that spreadsheet with me?’ A lightbulb went off, and I decided (for fun) to build the site. I started to show it to people. They said, ‘Wow, this is great! We really need this.’”
Music in the Berkshires was launched in April of 2023 and started growing virally. Mark subsequently created a weekly newsletter and built up an impressive following on Facebook and Instagram.
Upon learning of the website, the Editor-in-Chief of Berkshire Magazine, Anastasia Stanmeyer, met with Mark to discuss its popularity and the wheels started turning. C.E.O. of Old Mill Road, and Publisher of Berkshire Magazine, Dr. Joshua Sherman, then joined the conversation. Joshua talked with Mark about his passion for live music and his plans for increased coverage in that realm. Mark and Melissa made a visit to Old Mill Road’s recording studio in East Arlington, Vermont, and there was no looking back. In early 2024, Old Mill Road acquired Music in the Berkshires and Mark joined the team as Content Director for the digital publication.
“Music is at the heart of everything we do at Old Mill Road,” says Joshua. “Creating a coordinated community calendar for the Berkshires’ music scene was a goal of mine when we acquired Berkshire Magazine in the fall of 2020. But why spend time solving a problem when a solution already exists? Music in the Berkshires is your definitive go-to guide to the region’s music scene.”