By Catherine Calamé
“I’m a retired guy now. I’m ready to just step back and read for pure pleasure. Walk the dog, you know?” said publishing powerhouse and author André Bernard. “The Berkshires is where it’s calm and beautiful. It’s a good place to be.”
Big ideas meet breathtaking views again this summer as Bernard launches the third season of his vibrant lecture series, In Conversation, at The Mount, Edith Wharton’s idyllic estate in Lenox. This “retired guy” sounds busy.
The Berkshires has always been part of Bernard’s life. “My father, Albert Bernard, was a viola player in the Boston Symphony, and we used to come here every summer for Tanglewood,” he recalled. “He was hired under [Serge] Koussevitzky and retired under [Erich] Leinsdorf. It was wonderful to grow up backstage there.”
Bernard and his wife, Jennie, continued the tradition, spending summers in Lenox while raising their family in New York. When the pandemic struck, the couple made the Berkshires their full-time home. “I have a Massachusetts license and Massachusetts plates,” said Bernard, “which means a lot to me.”
In Conversation began serendipitously. A couple of years ago, The Mount’s former board chair, Dan Kasper, approached Bernard (who is also a member of The Berkshire Eagle’s advisory board) with a simple request: Could he ask his friend, author Simon Winchester, to give a talk at The Mount? Winchester agreed—on the condition that Bernard join him onstage. That event sparked a new tradition.
Bernard has plenty of friends, colleagues, and interests to keep the conversations going. After a career in book publishing, he spent 18 years as vice president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, where his work helped fund and support some of the most influential thinkers of our time. “I was constantly in touch with incredibly creative, smart, interesting people in every field,” he said. “Not just writers, but physicists and anthropologists and dancers—the Foundation gives fellowships in 55 fields. I was learning about everything.”
With such a deep network, Bernard only had to look to his own contacts to arrange talks last summer with Rosanne Cash, Roz Chast, and Michael Pollan—whose event required an additional 100 seats for the eager crowd.
“It’s really fun for me because I get to talk to a friend, or people I’m interested in, and bring them to The Mount, which is a place I really care about,” said Bernard. “The gardens and the mansion, sitting in a huge tent outdoors, talking to a very enthusiastic, literate audience—the whole brew is a recipe for a good event.”
