Welcome to Boston Lifestyle!

Boston At Night

The culture of Boston, Massachusetts, shares many many roots with greater New England, including a dialect of the Eastern New England accent popularly known as Boston English. The city has its own unique slang, which has existed for many years. Boston was, and is still, a major destination of Irish immigrants. Irish Americans are a major influence on Boston’s politics and religious institutions and consequently on the rest of Massachusetts.

Many consider Boston a highly cultured city, perhaps as a result of its intellectual reputation. Mark Twain once wrote of it, In New York they ask “how much money does he have?” In Philadelphia, they ask, “who were his parents?” In Boston they ask, "how much does he know?" Much of Boston’s culture originates at its universities.

Visual Arts

Splendor and Elegance at MFA

Museums dedicated to the cultural art in Boston or Cambridge include the Museum of Fine Arts, the National Museum of Afro-American Art, the Institute for Contemporary Art and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, as well as art museums associated with Harvard University, Boston University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston College and other schools. Numerous art galleries are located on Newbury Street, in the South End and in the Fort Point Channel area. Some of the most influential and longest running galleries in these areas include the Bernard Toale Gallery, Barbara Krakow Gallery, Howard Yezerski Gallery and the formerly cooperative space Gallery NAGA. The Boston Sculptors Gallery is one of only a handful of cooperative sculpture galleries in the country. The Boston Art Dealers Association sponsors artist talks, panels and awards ceremonies on a seasonal basis.

In addition, the Boston Public Library and the Boston Atheneum each have large collections of art, books, and research materials, and regularly host cultural events and exhibits. The BPL collects and exhibits drawings by living Boston artists, and the Atheneum hosts annual shows by member artists.

Theatre

Dirty Dancing at BOH

The Theater District, south of Boston Common, contains a number of ornate theatres, including the Boston Opera House, the Cutler Majestic Theatre and The Citi Performing Arts Center. The most prominent professional theater companies are located at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge and at the Huntington Theatre, but small companies and theaters are scattered throughout the city, including at the Boston Center for the Arts and the Calderwood Pavilion in Boston’s South End. Street performers can be found in and around Quincy Market near Faneuil Hall. Every summer, the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company performs on the Boston Common. Outside view of Jordan Hall, an important Boston concert venue located at The New England Conservatory.

Music

Peter Bufano

Boston is also home to a wide array of music—from bands like Boston and Aerosmith—to the world-renowned Boston Symphony Orchestra, the famed Boston Pops, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, the Boston Philharmonic, the Boston Chamber Music Society, Boston Lyric Opera Company, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, OperaBoston, the Celebrity Series of Boston and the Handel and Haydn Society (the oldest choral company in the U.S.). Major venues include Jordan Hall, Symphony Hall, and the Berklee Performance Center, as well as venues at each of the colleges and universities. Several important music schools are located in Boston, including the New England Conservatory for classical music, the Boston Conservatory for classical music, dance, and musical theater, and the Berklee College of Music for jazz amd a variety of contemporary music styles. Every two years, the city hosts the Boston Early Music Festival, an international gathering for people interested in historical music performance.