2014 Tanglewood Schedule

James Taylor Returns July 3 and 4

By: BSO - Nov 21, 2013

 

TANGLEWOOD KICKS OFF 2014 SEASON JUNE 28 WITH GARRISON KEILLOR’S RETURN TO THE SHED WITH A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION; BOSTON SYMPHONY CHAMBER PLAYERS PRESENT CONCERT IN CELEBRATION OF THEIR 50TH ANNIVERSARY, JULY 1; JAMES TAYLOR RETURNS TO THE SHED JULY 3 & 4

American Public Media’s A Prairie Home Companion returns once again to the Tanglewood grounds on Saturday, June 28, for the program’s annual live broadcast from the Koussevitzky Music Shed. Host Garrison Keillor and a colorful cast of friends from the shores of Lake Wobegon will take the stage for this Tanglewood tradition, a favorite for audiences since A Prairie Home Companion was first broadcast live from the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home in 1998.

On Tuesday, July 1, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players make their 2014 Tanglewood appearance in Ozawa Hall, performing a new work commissioned in celebration of the ensemble’s 50th anniversary season. Also on the program are Debussy’s Sonata for flute,viola, and harp—the first of the composer’s instrumental sonatas, all of which were composed in the last three years of his life—and Schubert’s Octet in F, D. 803, one of music history’s most ambitious pieces of chamber music.

James Taylor, one of Tanglewood’s most beloved guests, takes back the Shed stage along with his extraordinary band in two concerts, Thursday, July 3, and Friday, July 4. A festive Independence Day fireworks display follows the July 4 concert. All proceeds for the July 4 concert to benefit Tanglewood.

WEEK 1 (JULY 5–10)
ALL-AMERICAN OPENING NIGHT GALA CONCERT FEATURES WORLD FAVORITE RENÉE FLEMING, JULY 5; ISRAELI CONDUCTOR ASHER FISCH LEADS BSO IN PROGRAM OF LISZT AND WAGNER, WITH GARRICK OHLSSON AS SOLOIST IN BRAHMS’S PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2, JULY 6; CHANTICLEER BRINGS SHE SAID/HE SAID PROGRAM TO OZAWA HALL, JULY 9; EMERSON STRING QUARTET PERFORMS SHOSTAKOVICH’S FINAL FIVE STRING QUARTETS, JULY 10

Celebrated soprano Renée Fleming opens the 2014 BSO season at Tanglewood in an all-American program on July 5. With the Boston Symphony, she will present great works of the American concert hall and opera stage, plus favorites from musical theater and popular genres.

Israeli conductor Asher Fisch, who made his debut leading the BSO in an acclaimed performance of music by Wagner during the 2012 Tanglewood season, leads the orchestra in a Shed concert on Sunday, July 6. The program this summer, which also features dynamic American pianist Garrick Ohlsson, includes orchestral excerpts from Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Brahms’s lush and inventive Piano Concerto No. 2, and Liszt’s boisterous tone poem Les Préludes.

On Wednesday, July 9, all-male a cappella ensemble Chanticleer comes to Ozawa Hall with a program called She Said/He Said. The complex and emotionally charged dialogue between the sexes is an eternal theme for composers, from the bawdiest Renaissance madrigals through standards by Cole Porter. In another vein, godliness bestowed upon women is extolled in works by Andrea Gabrieli and EricWhitacre. She Said/He Said will feature female voices as diverse as Hildegard von Bingen and Stacy Garrop, German Romanticism from Brahms and Fanny Mendelssohn, and songwriting by Joni Mitchell. The program will conclude with newly created arrangements contributing fresh material to Chanticleer’s popular and jazz repertoire.

In an extended concert with two intermissions on Thursday, July 10, the eminent Emerson String Quartet provides the rare opportunity to hear the last five of Shostakovich’s immortal string quartets, some of the greatest chamber works of the 20th century, in a single evening. The selected quartets are Nos. 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15, all composed in the Cold War-era USSR between 1966 and 1975.

WEEK 2 (JULY 11–17)
ANDRIS NELSONS MAKES FIRST TANGLEWOOD APPEARANCES SINCE BEING NAMED BSO MUSIC DIRECTOR, JULY 11 WITH SOLOIST ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER, AND JULY 12 IN A PROGRAM OF STRAUSS, RACHMANINOFF, AND RAVEL; JASON ALEXANDER JOINS KEITH LOCKHART AND THE BOSTON POPS ON JULY 13; BENJAMIN BAGBY’S SEQUENTIA ENSEMBLE RETURNS TO OZAWA HALL, JULY 15; THOMAS HAMPSON CELEBRATES STRAUSS’s 150TH BIRTHDAY, JULY 16

In two highly anticipated performances on Friday, July 11, and Saturday, July 12, Andris Nelsons makes his first Tanglewood appearances since being named the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s music director designate. The July 11 concert, for which Mr. Nelsons and the orchestra are joined by German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, features an all-DvoÅ™ák program including the Violin Concerto, the pastoral and tuneful Symphony No. 8, and the rarely performed 1896 symphonic poem The Noonday Witch. On July 12, Maestro Nelsons leads a dance-inspired gala performance featuring both the BSO and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. On the first half of the program, he leads the TMCO in excerpts from Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, featuring sopranos Sophie Bevan and Angela Denoke and mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard. The second half features the BSO in Rachmaninoff’s colorful and energetic Symphonic Dances and Ravel’s iconic Bolero.

The Boston Pops Orchestra and conductor Keith Lockhart makes their 2014 Tanglewood debut on Sunday, July 13, with special guest Jason Alexander. Singer, dancer, and master of comedic timing, Mr. Alexander is best known for his appearances on television (as George Costanza in Seinfeld) and in film. A Broadway veteran and Tony-Award winner, with the Boston Pops he will perform selections from The Music Man, Pippin, and Merrily We Roll Along, plus a few surprises.

On Tuesday, July 15, the Paris-based Sequentia Ensemble for Medieval Music comes to Ozawa Hall with its director and cofounder Benjamin Bagby for a performance as part of its Lost Songs Project: Music from the Court of Charlemagne. This program explores the musical world of Charlemagne and his circle, through political and religious songs, laments, storytelling, and epic. All of these appear today in shadowy and fragmentary forms, like phantoms from 1200 years ago, requiring deep study, reconstruction, and imagination. Through Mr. Bagby’s scholarly work and dramatic presentation, these Lost Songs sing again as they once sang for Charlemagne and his court.

Renowned baritone Thomas Hampson gives an Ozawa Hall recital with pianist Wolfram Rieger on Wednesday, July 16, celebrating the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss’s birth. In this program, Mr. Hampson explores the world of the composer and his influences as a writer of song at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. In addition to songs by Strauss himself, this concert will include music by Berg, Korngold, and Zemlinsky.

WEEK 3 (JULY 18–24)
ANDRIS NELSONS LEADS SECOND WEEKEND OF PROGRAMS: JULY 19 FEATURES TRUMPET SOLOIST HÅKAN HARDENBERGER IN ROLF MARTINSSON’S BRIDGE, TRUMPET CONCERTO NO. 1; JOSHUA BELL JOINS NELSONS JULY 20 FOR LALO’S SYMPHONIE ESPAGNOLE; THOMAS HAMPSON KICKS OF WEEKEND JULY 18 WITH PERFORMANCE OF COPLAND’S OLD AMERICAN SONGS, WITH CHRISTOPH VON DOHNÁNYI; NEW YORK-BASED ORCHESTRA THE KNIGHTS PERFORM IN OZAWA HALL JULY 23; DAVID ROBERTSON LEADS THE NATIONAL YOUTH ORCHESTRA OF THE USA, JULY 24

Mr. Hampson takes the stage again on Friday, July 18, this time alongside the BSO and guest conductor Christoph von Dohnányi in selections from American composer Aaron Copland’s Old American Songs. Mr. Dohnányi also leads the orchestra in Strauss’s rollicking and virtuosic tone poem Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, which even the composer hailed as one of his finest works.

Music Director Designate Andris Nelsons returns to lead the orchestra in a pair of concerts for the second week running Saturday, July 19, and Sunday, July 20. The Saturday performance features two great works of the Romantic period—Brahms’s Symphony No. 3 and Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio italien—and is rounded out by contemporary Swedish composer Rolf Martinsson’s Bridge, Trumpet Concerto No. 1, with soloist Håkan Hardenberger. On Sunday, Mr. Nelsons is joined by virtuoso American violinist Joshua Bell for Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole for violin and orchestra, on a program that also includes Beethoven’s immortal Symphony No. 5 and Pulitzer Prize-winning New York-based composer Christopher Rouse’s Rapture, a 2000 work that Rouse says is meant to convey “a sense of spiritual bliss, religious or otherwise.”

On Wednesday, July 23, New York-based orchestra The Knights, a unique and flexible ensemble featuring musicians and composers from diverse musical backgrounds that expands and contracts to accommodate the variety of music it performs, performs in Ozawa Hall. The program features Maria Schneider’s Winter Morning Walks, for soprano, jazz musicians, and strings, and transcriptions for trumpet and ensemble of songs by Joni Mitchell, Kurt Weill, Michel Legrand, and Astor Piazzolla. Soloists include soprano Dawn Upshaw, trumpetist Håkan Hardenberger, pianist Frank Kimbrough, clarinetist Scott Robinson, and bassist Jay Anderson.

America’s brightest young players ages 16­–19 visit Tanglewood on Thursday, July 24, as the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America comes to Ozawa Hall. The program, led by St. Louis Symphony Music Director David Robertson and featuring American violinist Gil Shaham, includes Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Britten’s Violin Concerto, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and a new work by Samuel Adams commissioned and written for the orchestra.

WEEK 4 (JULY 25–JULY 31)
PAUL LEWIS JOINS BSO AND CHRISTOPH VON DOHNÁNYI FOR MOZART’S PIANO CONCERTO NO. 12, JULY 25; MAESTRO DOHNÁNYI LEADS MAHLER’S SYMPHONY NO. 2, JULY 26; RAFAEL FRÜHBECK DE BURGOS LEADS PROGRAM OF VERDI AND RACHMANINOFF WITH SOLOIST GABRIELA MONTERO IN HER BSO DEBUT; THE BOSTON LYRIC OPERA ORCHESTRA PERFORMS A CHAMBER VERSION OF BEESON’S LIZZIE BORDEN, JULY 31
Longtime BSO and Tanglewood guest Christoph von Dohnányi returns to the podium for two more BSO performances Friday, July 25, and Saturday, July 26. The July 25 concert features English piano soloist Paul Lewis, who elicited raves for his Symphony Hall performances with the orchestra in October 2013, in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K.414, as well as Beethoven’s Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus and Mendelssohn’s dashing Symphony No. 4, Italian. On July 26, Maestro Dohnányi leads the BSO, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, soprano Camilla Tilling, and mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly in Mahler’s sprawling and transcendent Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, both one of the great works and the great spectacles of the symphonic repertoire.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra welcomes familiar guest conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos to the Shed on Sunday, July 27, for varied program of Rachmaninoff and Verdi. On the first half of the concert, Venezuelan-American pianist Gabriela Montero takes center stage for her BSO debut, performing Rachmaninoff’s sweeping Piano Concerto No. 2, full of passionate emotion and memorable melodies. The operatic second half of the program is devoted to the music of Verdi, including the Overture and Va, pensiero (Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) from Nabucco and the Finale of Act II from Aida.

The opera theme continues on Thursday, July 31, as the Chamber Ensemble from the Boston Lyric Opera Orchestra comes to Ozawa Hall for an evening of American opera. Led by conductor David Angus and featuring sopranos Chelsea Basler and Caroline Worra, mezzo-soprano Heather Johnson, tenor Omar Najmi, and baritones David McFerrin and Daniel Mobbs, the ensemble performs Jack Beeson’s 1965 opera Lizzie Borden about the infamous 1892 Fall River, Massachusetts, double axe murder. The work will be performed without intermission and sung in English with supertitles in a new chamber version created for the Boston Lyric Opera.

WEEK 5 (AUGUST 1–7)
JEAN-YVES THIBAUDET JOINS ASSOCIATE CONDUCTOR MARCELO LEHNINGER AND BSO FOR SHOSTAKOVICH’S PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1, AUGUST 1; JOHN WILLIAMS LEADS ANNUAL TANGLEWOOD FILM NIGHT, AUGUST 2; AUGUSTIN HADELICH PERFORMS MOZART’S VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 4, AUGUST 3; TANGLEWOOD ON PARADE TAKES PLACE ON TUESDAY, AUGUST 5; PAAVO JÄRVI AND HIS DEUTSCHE KAMMERPHILHARMONIE BREMEN PERFORM ALL-BRAHMS PROGRAM, AUGUST 6; LEONIDAS KAVAKOS, YO-YO MA, AND EMANUEL AX PERFORM RECITAL OF BRAHMS WORKS, AUGUST 7

For The Serge and Olga Koussevitzky Memorial Concert on Friday, August 1, the Boston Symphony Orchestra is led by Associate Conductor Marcelo Lehninger and joined by renowned French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Opening the program is Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for strings and concluding it is Schumann’s Symphony No. 4. In between is Shostakovich’s Concerto No. 1 for piano and trumpet—featuring Mr. Thibaudet and BSO principal trumpet Thomas Rolfs—an intricate and inspired work that belongs among the composer’s best.

A beloved summer tradition continues on August 2 with John Williams’ Film Night, one of the most eagerly-anticipated evenings of the Tanglewood Season. Special guests will join John Williams and the Boston Pops for this program of exciting music lit by the bright lights of Hollywood.

Maestro Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos returns to the podium on Sunday, August 3, for a BSO concert devoted entirely to the Classical period and the Austro-German tradition. Young rising German violinist Augustin Hadelich joins the orchestra for Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4 in D, K.218, at the heart of the program. The Mozart is bookended by the music of his principal predecessor and successor, respectively: Haydn’s Symphony No. 6, Le Matin, to begin the program, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2, to close it. All three works capture their composers at the beginning of their careers and showcase their early genius.

One of the festival’s most beloved traditions, the ever-popular Tanglewood on Parade (Tuesday, August 5), gives audiences a chance to hear all of the festival’s orchestras perform in a single concert. Leonard Slatkin and Stéphane Denève are joined by Boston Pops Conductor Keith Lockhart, and Laureate Conductor John Williams for a program that will include the traditional TOP finale, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. This festive concert features performances by the BSO, the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and the Boston Pops, followed by fireworks over the Stockbridge Bowl.

On Wednesday, August 6, Estonian conductor Paavo Järvi and his Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen take the Ozawa Hall stage for an all-Brahms program that also features German pianist Lars Vogt. Kicking off the concert is the raucous and lighthearted Academic Festival Overture, followed by the moreserious-minded Piano Concerto No. 1. Concluding the program is the Symphony No. 2, the composer’s most expansive and relaxed symphony, but also featuring a wealth of rhythmic innovation.

Brahms is once again in the spotlight on Thursday, August 7, as a trio of stars comes to Ozawa Hall for an evening of chamber music devoted to the Romantic master’s work. Violinist Leonidas Kavakos, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and pianist Emanuel Ax team up for the Piano Trio No. 1 in B, Op. 8, in the concert’s finale, and perform in duos for the Violin Sonata No. 1 in G, Op. 78, and the Cello Sonata No. 2 in F, Op. 99.

WEEK 6 (AUGUST 8–14)
BSO CELEBRATES LEONARD SLATKIN’S 70TH BIRTHDAY, AUGUST 8, WITH WORLD PREMIERE OF BOLCOM’S CIRCUS OVERTURE; STÉPHANE DENÈVE LEADS PROGRAM OF DEBUSSY, SZYMANOWSKI, AND TCHAIKOVSKY, AUGUST 9; DAVID ZINMAN LEADS ALL-TCHAIKOVSKY PROGRAM FEATURING YO-YO MA, AUGUST 10; JEREMY DENK PERFORMS BACH GOLDBERG VARIATIONS AND IVES’S SONATA NO. 2, AUGUST 13; PHILHARMONIA BAROQUE ORCHESTRA BRINGS HANDEL’S TESEO TO OZAWA HALL, AUGUST 14

The BSO celebrates American conductor Leonard Slatkin’s 70th birthday on Friday, August 8, as he leads the orchestra in a program featuring the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer William Bolcom’s Circus Overture, a BSO commission written for the occasion. Gil Shaham joins Mr. Slatkin and the Orchestra for Barber’s Violin Concerto, and the concert concludes with Elgar’s kaleidoscopic Enigma Variations, a musical depiction of the composer’s friends and acquaintances that stands as one of the repertoire’s greatest examples of tone painting.

On Saturday, August 9, French maestro Stéphane Denève takes the podium for a BSO performance pairing music by Tchaikovsky with two works from the 20th century. To begin the program, Mr. Denève leads the orchestra in Debussy’s revolutionary Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun, after which he and the orchestra are joined by Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos for Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 2. The drama and adrenaline of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 bring the concert to a close.

Yo-Yo Ma once again takes the stage at Tanglewood on Sunday, August 10, this time in an all-Tchaikovsky program with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by American maestro David Zinman. Mr. Ma is featured in two works: the Andante cantabile and the Variations on a Rococo Theme, both for cello and orchestra. The program also includes the Polonaise from Tchaikovsky’s operatic masterpiece Eugene Onegin, and the perennial favorite Symphony No. 6, Pathétique.

New York-based American pianist Jeremy Denk arrives in the Berkshires to give an Ozawa Hall recital Wednesday, August 13, featuring two great monuments of the keyboard literature: Ives’s Sonata No. 2, Concord, of which Mr. Denk has made something of a specialty, and Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

The drama and dazzle of Baroque opera take over Ozawa Hall on Thursday, August 14, as the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, led by early music specialist Nicholas McGegan, gives a complete concert performance of Handel’s rarely performed 1713 opera seria Teseo, based on the legend of Theseus and Medea. The cast includes sopranos Amanda Forsythe, Amy Freston, Dominique Labelle, and Céline Ricci; countertenors Robin Blaze and Drew Minter; and baritone Jeffrey Fields. 

WEEK 7 (AUGUST 15–21)
EMANUEL AX JOINS THE BSO AUGUST 15 FOR BEETHOVEN’S EMPEROR CONCERTO; BRAMWELL TOVEY LEADS THE BSO, TANGLEWOOD FESTIVAL CHORUS, AND A CAST OF SINGERS IN BERNSTEIN’S CANDIDE, AUGUST 16; NIKOLAI LUGANSKY JOINS CHARLES DUTOIT FOR RACHMANINOFF’S PIANO CONCERTO NO. 3 ON A PROGRAM FEATURING STRAVINSKY’S FIREBIRD, AUGUST 17; ELLIS AND DELFEAYO MARSALIS PERFORM WORKS FROM THE LAST SOUTHERN GENTLEMEN, AUGUST 17

Stéphane Denève returns to the Shed podium on Friday, August 15, to lead the BSO in music by Beethoven and Prokofiev. Pianist Emanuel Ax joins the orchestra for the first half of the program as soloist in Beethoven’s ever-popular Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor, written in Vienna in 1809 while the city was under siege by Napoleonic forces. After intermission, the BSO welcomes the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and mezzo-soprano Elena Manistina for Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky cantata, music originally written for Sergei Eisenstein’s film of the same name.

Operetta and satire come to the Shed on Saturday, August 16, with a complete concert presentation of Bernstein’s witty Candide, based on Voltaire’s novel. The BSO and Tanglewood Festival Chorus are conducted by Bramwell Tovey, and the cast of distinguished vocalists includes soprano Anna Christy, mezzo-sopranos Kathryn Leemhuis and Frederica von Stade, tenors Nicolas Phan and Beau Gibson, and baritones Paul LaRosa and Richard Suart, as well as vocal soloists from the Tanglewood Music Center.

On Sunday, August 17, eminent Swiss conductor Charles Dutoit takes the helm of the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra for The Leonard Bernstein Memorial Concert. The talented young TMC Fellows perform an all-Russian program featuring Stravinsky’s Scherzo fantastique and the complete ballet score for The Firebird, as well as Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, withRussian pianist Nikolai Lugansky.

Later the same day, father Ellis Marsalis, Jr., and son Delfeayo Marsalis perform works from their first collaborative album, The Last Southern Gentlemen. Built on the intimacy of American ballads and the trombone’s expressive mimicry of the human voice, The Last Southern Gentlemen is a firm acknowledgement of the existence and importance of those sweet, gentle sounds.

WEEK 8 (AUGUST 22–30)
KEITH LOCKHART AND THE BOSTON POPS BRING THE WIZARD OF OZ TO LIFE WITH LIVE MUSIC PLAYED ALONG WITH THE MOVIE, AUGUST 22; CHARLES DUTOIT LEADS THE BSO IN BERLIOZ, RACHMANINOFF, AND RESPIGHI, AUGUST 23, AND THE SEASON-ENDING PERFORMANCE OF BEETHOVEN’S SYMPHONY NO. 9, AUGUST 24; MARIA SCHNEIDER ORCHESTRA TAKES TO OZAWA HALL, AUGUST 24; WAIT WAIT…DON’T TELL ME! RETURNS TO TANGLEWOOD ON AUGUST 28; JOSH GROBAN JOINS MAESTRO LOCKHART AND THE POPS TO CLOSE OUT THE SUMMER, AUGUST 30

The Boston Pops and Keith Lockhart bring the magic of Dorothy, the Wicked Witch of the West, and the rest of the Wizard of Oz gangto the Shed on Friday, August 22, in a performance of Oz with Orchestra.The Wizard of Oz was a technical marvel for the MGM studio in the late 1930s. MGM has stunningly re-mastered this timeless classic, and in this version, produced by John Goberman, the brilliantly restored images are accompanied by a full symphony orchestra playing entirely new transcriptions of Harold Arlen’s brilliant lost scores.

Charles Dutoit returns to the podium on Saturday, August 23, and Sunday, August 24, to lead the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s final two concerts of the 2014 Tanglewood season. An Italian-themed program on August 23 begins with Berlioz’s colorful Roman Carnival Overture and continues with Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, featuring pianist Kirill Gerstein as soloist. Completing the program is Respighi’s rousing trio of Rome-centric tone poems: Roman Festivals, Fountains of Rome, and Pines of Rome. Earlier in the day, Tanglewood’s annual Family Concert will take place at 2:30 p.m. in Ozawa Hall. Then, on August 24, the BSO’s Tanglewood season comes to a close with its traditional performance of Beethoven’s transcendent Symphony No. 9. The final concert this year includes a second opportunity for the Tanglewood Festival Chorus to shine in the form of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, which also features pianist Yefim Bronfman. Vocal soloists include sopranos Nicole Cabell and Meredith Hansen, mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford, tenors Noah Stewart and Alex Richardson, and bass-baritone John Relyea.

In the evening following the BSO’s farewell performance, the Maria Schneider Orchestra—a big-band group led by composer-pianist Maria Schneider that blends the freedom of jazz and the structure of classical music—brings its unique flavor of music-making to Ozawa Hall.

On Thursday, August 28, Tanglewood visitors have the opportunity to enjoy a live presentation of the witty and fast-paced radio program Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! in the Shed. The Peabody Award-winning series offers a fast-paced, irreverent look at the week’s news, hosted by Peter Sagal along with judge and score-keeper Carl Kassell. This 8 p.m. performance will be recorded for broadcast to its weekly audience of 3.2 million weekly listeners on more than 600 NPR stations nationwide.

The Tanglewood 2014 season comes to a close on Saturday, August 30, when Josh Groban joins the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, under the direction of Keith Lockhart, for the final concert of the summer.  One of today's popular music superstars, Mr. Groban has become a Tanglewood favorite and provides a spectacular close to an extraordinary summer of music-making.  

TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER HIGHLIGHTS
The Tanglewood Music Center (TMC), the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer academy for advanced musical study, is considered one of the world’s foremost graduate-level educational programs for young professional musicians. TMC Fellows work closely with members of the BSO and renowned guest artists, performing some 40 concerts each season, including chamber music concerts and large-scale orchestral programs.

The Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra (TMCO) will perform  five full concerts during the 2014 season, concluding the annual Leonard Bernstein Memorial Concert in the Shed on Sunday, August 17, with conductor Charles Dutoit heading up a program featuring Nikolai Lugansky in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, as well as Stravinsky’s Scherzo fantastique and the complete ballet score for The Firebird. Other guest conductors to lead the TMCO this season, along with conducting Fellows of the Music Center, include Stefan Asbury in a program featuring Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, July 6; Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos in a program including Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 and Sibelius’s Luonnotar, July 28; Stéphane Denève in an all-Berlioz program, including the overture to Béatrice et Bénédict, Les Nuits d’été, and Symphonie fantastique, August 11: and an orchestra program that closes the Festival of Contemporary Music on July 21 (see below). The TMCO will also perform during Tanglewood on Parade on August 5.

In addition, on Saturday, July 12, the TMCO will participate in a Gala evening welcoming Andris Nelsons to Tanglewood for the first time since his appointment as BSO Music Director Designate. The TMCO will join Maestro Nelsons on stage for excerpts from Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier during the first half of the program, followed by BSO performances of Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances and Ravel’s Bolero.

2014 FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC, JULY 17-21
The 2014 Festival of Contemporary Music, under the direction of composers John Harbison and Michael Gandolfi, will highlight works by American composers, as part of Tanglewood’s season-long focus on American music. One of the highlights of FCM this year is the world premiere of Welsh-born American composer Bernard Rands’ Folk Songs (a TMC Commission). The piece  takes its inspiration from the seminal Folk Songs of Rands’ mentor Luciano Berio. The program also includes At Once on a Deserted Street by Martin Boykan, Voices, a world premiere and TMC commission by the young German composer and 2012 TMC Fellow Benjamin Scheuer, and Michael Gandolfi’s As Above.

Another highlight of the Festival is the Theatre evening on Sunday, July 20, at 8 p.m., featuring concert performances of Andrew Waggoner’s This Powerful Rhyme—a piece written between 2003 and 2006 featuring Shakespearean sonnets and exploring countless aspects of intimate human relationships—and Kate Soper’s Helen Enfettered, based on text from Chapter E of Christian Bök’s Eunoia, which describes the character and ordeal of Helen of Troy.

The Festival opens on Thursday, July 17, with chamber works by American composers James Matheson (Anatomy of Melancholy), Anna Weesner (Mother Tongues), Jacob Druckman (Bo), Fred Lerdahl (Wake), and John Harbison (Parody Fantasia), as well as Korean-born composer Seung-Ah Oh (Canonical Contours for percussion quartet). On Friday, July 18, TMC Fellows will perform works from the Composition Fellows’ intensive “piece-a-day” project,  whereby the composers develop short works for specific small ensembles quickly and practically. Saturday, July 19, at 2:30 p.m., features an all-American program with works by George Perle, Keeril Makan (Two), Hannah Lash (Friction, Pressure, Impact), David Dzubay, Eric Nathan (Toying), and Anthony Cheung (Roundabout).

The closing concert of the Festival of Contemporary Music takes place on Monday, July 21, and features the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in Roger Sessions’ Concerto for Orchestra, a Pulitzer Prize-winning piece commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra for its centennial thirty years ago. Also on the program are Steve Mackey’s Beautiful Passing, a  violin concerto, featuring violinist Sarah Silver, a member of the 2014 Tanglewood New Fromm Players; English composer Charlotte Bray’s At the Speed of Stillness; and John Adams’s Slonimsky’s Earbox.

The Festival of Contemporary Music, which began at Tanglewood in 1964, is a project of the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO’s prestigious summer music academy; Festival programs feature performances by TMC Fellows and guest artists.

TANGLEWOOD WINE AND FOOD CLASSIC, AUGUST 7-10
The Tanglewood Wine and Food Classic takes place in 2014 on Thursday, August 7 through Sunday, August 10. The four day event, featuring seminars, dinners, and a grand tasting, kicks off on Thursday evening with a wine dinner. The grand tasting will take place on Saturday, August 9, in the Hawthorne tent, and the weekend closes with an auction dinner on Sunday, August 10. Complete information about the Tanglewood Wine and Food Classic will be available in early 2014.

One Day University at Tanglewood, Sunday, August 24, 2014
One Day University, the acclaimed adult education series, is returning to Tanglewood on Sunday, August 24, presenting three lectures by professors from Brown, Fairfield, and Yale. Topics to be discussed include “What Would The Founding Fathers Think of America Today?” with Brown University’s Wendy Schiller;  “Rhapsody In Blue: Gershwin's Remarkable Masterpiece” with Fairfield University’s Orin Grossman; “The Art of Aging:  Discovering New Sources of Creativity and Perception" with Yale University's Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland.  Dr. Nuland's appearance is sponsored by The Boys From Brooklyn.  From Brooklyn to the Berkshires: Marty Bloom, Allen Hyman, Marty Schwartz and Bob Tutnauer, The Boys From Brooklyn, support and seed cultural, social and educational programs in the Berkshires.  The cost of One Day University at Tanglewood is $159, and includes VIP parking and lawn admission for the 2:30 p.m. BSO season-­â€finale performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, led by Charles Dutoit. Advance purchase is required. For more information or to register for One Day University at Tanglewood, call Symphony Charge at 888­â€266-­â€1200 or visit www.tanglewood.org/onedayu .

HOW TO PURCHASE TICKETS, HOW TO ORDER A BROCHURE, AND FREE AND DISCOUNTED LAWN TICKETS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
Tickets for the 2014 Tanglewood season go on sale to the general public on Sunday, January 26. Tickets are available through Tanglewood’s website, www.tanglewood.org, through SymphonyCharge at 888-266-1200, and at the Symphony Hall Box Office at 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston MA. Regular season ticket prices range from $10-$121. Tickets for Saturday Morning Rehearsals range from $11-$31. All ticket prices include a $2 Tanglewood grounds maintenance fee.

Tickets will also be available for purchase in person at the Tanglewood Box Office at Tanglewood’s Main Gate on West Street in Lenox, MA, as of late June. American Express, Visa, MasterCard, Diners Club, Discover, and cash are all accepted at the Tanglewood Box Office. For further information and box office hours, please call the Boston Symphony Orchestra at 617-266-1492 or visit www.tanglewood.org.             

The BSO's $20 tickets for attendees under 40 will be available during the 2014 Tanglewood season for select performances. Beginning January 26, tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis through www.tanglewood.org and through SymphonyCharge. Blackout dates include all Popular Artist concerts; June 28, July 3 and 4, and August 28. Eligible patrons may purchase up to two tickets per show and must provide proof of age when picking up their tickets at will call in order to receive the discount. 

Tanglewood will offer the BSO's popular college card at the orchestra's summer home again this season. College students can purchase the college card for $25 (online, by phone or in person). With the college card, students have the opportunity to attend an unlimited number of classical and orchestral concerts throughout the Tanglewood season for no additional cost. Tickets can be picked up—one per cardholder, student ID required—at the Tanglewood Box Office beginning on Monday the week of the concert date. Availability is not guaranteed for all concerts, and is posted online. Tickets are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, and must be picked up by 8 p.m. or 2 p.m. on the day of the concert. Blackout dates include all Popular Artist concerts; June 28, July 3 and 4, and August 28.

Tanglewood is pleased to offer free lawn tickets for children and young people age 17 and younger and a 50% discount on Friday-evening lawn tickets to college and graduate students for Friday-evening concerts. Up to four free children’s lawn tickets are available per parent/legal guardian per concert at the Tanglewood Box Office on the day of the concert, as all patrons, regardless of age, must have a ticket. Please note that the free lawn ticket policy does not apply to organized groups. For Popular Artists concerts, free lawn tickets are only available for children under age 2.

Tanglewood brochures with complete programs and information on how to order tickets will be available in early February by calling 617-638-9467. For further information, please call the Boston Symphony Orchestra at 617-266-1492 or visit www.tanglewood.org. For Berkshire tourist information and reservations, contact the Berkshire Visitors Bureau at 800-237-5747 or www.berkshires.org.  

FAMILY-FRIENDLY ACTIVITIES
Tanglewood provides special programs for kids, such as the popular Kids’ Corner, a musical and craft-related project supervised and supported by BSO staff on weekends, and the Watch and Playprogram, a series of lively discussions about instruments, concert themes, and/or musical concepts on selected Sundays. In addition, through its Tanglewood for Kids program, Tanglewood offers free lawn tickets, up to four per family, to all children and young adults age 17 and under.  Tanglewood will present its annual Family Concert on Saturday, August 23 at 2:30 p.m. Tickets for the Family Concert are free to youth age 18 and under and $10 for each adult.

TANGLEWOOD PATRON AMENITIES AND PERKS
Tanglewood offers a free pre-concert panel discussion series called “This Week at Tanglewood” on Fridays at 7:15 p.m. in the Koussevitzky Music Shed, and free hour-long walking tours of Tanglewood’s grounds and performance spaces daily (email bsav@bso.org or call 617-638-9394 for dates and times). Friday-evening Prelude Concerts, at 6 p.m. in Ozawa Hall, feature BSO musicians in small ensemble and chamber music settings. Saturday-evening Prelude Concerts, July 5-August 16, at 6 p.m. in Ozawa Hall, feature Tanglewood Music Center Fellows in performance. Admission to Prelude Concerts is free to all BSO concert ticket holders.

“Talks and Walks,” a series of informal conversations presented by guest artists and members of the BSO family in the Tent Club on Thursday afternoons, begins with a talk at 1 p.m. and a guided tour of the grounds at 1:45 p.m. To purchase tickets, available at $17 each or $102 for a full series, call 617-638-9394 or email bsav@bso.org. 

BSO 101—a free music appreciation series led by BSO Director of Program Publications Marc Mandel and members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra—takes place on Wednesdays from 12:45–2 p.m. in the Tanglewood Tent Club. BSO 101 sessions will focus on a single work to be played by the BSO each Tanglewood weekend, examining and illuminating aspects of musical shape and form and of the composer’s individual musical style. All of these sessions will include recorded musical examples, and each is self-contained so that no prior musical training or attendance at any previous session is required.   Attendees are encouraged to bring a lunch, though there will also be an option to buy lunch at the Tent Club. 

Tanglewood offers Lawn Chair Rentals, for a fee of $5, available at the Grille at the Main Gate for Shed concerts, and at the Bernstein Gate for Ozawa Hall performances. Pre-ordered meals are available in theTanglewood Grilleand theTanglewood Café. Meals may be ordered online at www.tanglewood.org or by calling 413-637-5152. Tanglewood also offers large video screens for the pleasure of lawn patrons on Friday and Saturday nights, and, for the convenience of patrons, a Bank of America ATM is locatedoutside the main gate. 

Bus Service to the Lenox area is offered by Peter Pan and Greyhound Bus Lines. For fare and scheduling information, call 800-343-9999 or 800-231-2222. Special excursions are offered by the Berkshire Tour Company, 781-438-8620; Greylock Discovery Tours, 413-637-4442; Animactions Unlimited, 413-448-2115; and Gateway Travel Service, 781-729-6900.  Limited bus service is offered by AAA Connecticut/Connecticut Motor Club, 203-928-6556 and K&L Tours, 617-267-1905. Information about lodging, dining, and other Berkshire-area activities is available by contacting the Berkshire Visitors Bureau at 413-743-4500.

MEDIA OFFERINGS AT BSO.ORG
BSO.org is the largest and most-visited orchestral website in the United States, attracting close to 7 million unique visitors annually and generating over $80 million in revenue since its launch in 1996. In the fall of 2011, the BSO redesigned and updated its popular website at BSO.org. The site’s Media Center, consolidates its numerous new media initiatives in one location. In addition to comprehensive access to all BSO, Boston Pops, Tanglewood, and Symphony Hall performance schedules, patrons have access to a number of free and paid media options. Free offerings include WGBH radio broadcast streams of select BSO, Boston Pops, and Tanglewood performances; audio concert preview podcasts; Emmy Award-winning audio and video interviews with guest artists and BSO musicians; the BSO’s video podcast series, “It’s Your BSO,” featuring interviews with BSO members; music excerpts, of up to three minutes, highlighting upcoming programs as well as all self-produced albums by the BSO, Boston Pops, Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and Tanglewood Music Center Fellows, and complete program notes for all performances, which can be downloaded and printed or saved offline to an e-reading device such as a Kindle or Nook.

Responding to the rapid increase in the use of smart phones, the Boston Symphony’s revamped website is now available across all smart mobile devices capable of web browsing. Users have on-the-go access to virtually all of the BSO’s online content including media offerings such as podcasts, audio clips, and even live streams of BSO performances. Mobile users will also be able to access performance calendars, program notes, and artist bios, as well as purchase tickets, meals, and parking, and make donations via hand-held devices such as iPhones, iPads, Android phones and Tablets, and select Blackberry devices.

Paid content on BSO.org includes digital music downloads of all self-produced and self-published content by the BSO, Boston Pops, Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and Tanglewood Music Center Fellows. Albums available include the BSO’s and James Levine’s most recent recordings ofMozart’s symphonies 14, 18, 20, 39, and 41; the BSO’s Grammy-winning recording of Ravel’s complete Daphnis and Chloé, Brahms’s A German Requiem; the Boston Pops’ The Dream Lives On: A Portrait of the Kennedy Brothers featuring Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, and Ed Harris, and The Red Sox Album; the Tanglewood “From the Audio Archives” 75 Streams Digital Music Subscription, featuring historic, remastered recordings from performances across Tanglewood’s first 75 years; as well as the Tanglewood Festival Chorus’s 40th Anniversary CD. Digital music is available in standard definition MP3, and select content is also available in high definition (HD) stereo and surround formats. The Media Center can be visited by clicking on Media Center at bso.org/mediacenter.

RADIO BROADCASTS AND STREAMING
Concerts from the Shed are broadcast throughout the Tanglewood season on WGBH's Classical New England service, including 99.5 FM in Boston and 88.7 in Providence; in Albany on WAMC 90.3 FM and its network of translators; and in Connecticut on WMNR 88.1 FM. In addition, Sunday-afternoon concerts are broadcast on WFCR 88.5 in Amherst. Streaming, and now on-demand audio of the broadcasts can also be accessed via the stations' websites at WGBH’s www.classicalnewengland.org; www.wamc.org; www.wmnr.org; and www.wfcr.org.

SPONSORSHIP
Commonwealth Worldwide Chauffeured Transportation is proud to be celebrating its eleventh year as the Official Chauffeured Transportation Provider of the BSO.  

For further information, call the Boston Symphony Orchestra at 617-266-1492. The Boston Symphony Orchestra is online at www.bso.org. All programs and artists are subject to change.

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PRESS CONTACT:
Bernadette Horgan, Director of Public Relations (bhorgan@bso.org)                                       617-638-9285

 Click here to view the 2014 Tanglewood Program Listing