Tanglewood Adds Pops Tribute to Queen
Marc Martel to Perform Freddie Mercury Hits
By: BSO - Apr 23, 2019
Tanglewood is announcing two new events to take place during the 2019 season:
On Thursday, June 27 at 8 p.m., the Boston Pops and special guest Marc Martel join together for a celebration of the legendary rock band Queen. Martel, known for his striking vocal resemblance to Freddie Mercury, Queen’s lead singer, has been fronting Queen's official tribute show, The Queen Extravaganza, since 2011. Now, eight years later, Martel also tours all over the world with his own Queen tribute show, The Ultimate Queen Celebration, and orchestral show, Symphonic Queen, and was a vocalist for the 2018 Oscar-winning biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, along with Freddie Mercury and Rami Malek. Leading this Pops program in the Koussevitzky Music Shed is James Burton, Tanglewood Festival Chorus conductor and choral director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Making its Tanglewood debut, Postmodern Jukebox brings its hybrid jazz, pop, and swing sound to Ozawa Hall on Saturday, June 22 at 8 p.m. A rotating musical collective started by arranger and pianist Scott Bradlee in 2011, PMJ is known for reworking popular modern music into different retro genres. The group has gone on to amass over one billion YouTube views with 3.5 million subscribers, and has chalked up more than 1.7 million fans on Facebook. For the past half-decade, PMJ has toured the world, playing hundreds of shows to sold-out houses on six continents. They have also performed on Good Morning America, topped iTunes and Billboard charts, and have caught the attention of NPR Music and NBC News.
Tickets for the Thursday, June 27 Boston Pops Celebrates Queen concert range from $25-$114. Tickets for the Saturday, June 22 Postmodern Jukebox concert range from $29-$99. Both concerts go on sale on Monday, April 29 at 10 a.m. All tickets can be purchased through www.tanglewood.org and by calling 888-266-1200.
Postmodern Jukebox joins Live From Here with Chris Thile (6/15), Brian Wilson (6/16), Richard Thompson (6/21), Earth, Wind & Fire (6/28), Rodrigo y Gabriela (6/30), Josh Groban (7/2), James Taylor and his All-Star Band (7/3 & 4), Train and the Goo Goo Dolls (8/5), Gladys Knight and The Spinners (8/28), Squeeze—The Squeeze Songbook Tour (8/29), Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo and Melissa Etheridge (8/30), Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals and Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue (8/31), and Reba McEntire (9/1) as part of the 2019 Tanglewood season popular artist lineup. The Boston Pops Celebrates Queen is an addition to the Boston Pops’ summer schedule.
2019 TANGLEWOOD SEASON
The 2019 Tanglewood season will see Boston Symphony Orchestra Music Director Andris Nelsons in residence throughout the month of July, leading 14 programs, including a first for Tanglewood—a concert performance of Wagner’s complete Die Walküre with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and a star-studded cast, presented in three concerts over a two-day period, July 27 & 28. Tanglewood will also be the setting for the BSO’s Nelsons-led world premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts’ The Brightness of Light, a work for voices and orchestra inspired by letters between Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz; it was written especially for Renée Fleming and Rod Gilfry, who will be the featured soloists. Ms. Fleming, a favorite guest artist at Tanglewood since her BSO debut there in 1991, has been named the Koussevitzky Artist for the 2019 Tanglewood season. The BSO and Andris Nelsons open the orchestra’s summer season on Friday, July 5, with Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22, with Emanuel Ax as soloist—the first of twenty BSO programs taking place throughout July and August.
Marking a major milestone in the history and life of Tanglewood and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the 2019 Tanglewood season will see the launch of the Tanglewood Learning Institute (TLI)—offering participants new levels of wide-ranging enrichment and education initiatives—and the opening of the major new four-building Linde Center for Music and Learning, home to the TLI’s summer programming and a site of the activities of the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO’s acclaimed summer music academy since 1940. These new buildings will be Tanglewood’s first year-round facilities available for event and concert use by the BSO, Berkshire community, and beyond, starting in fall 2019. Offering participants an unprecedented and expansive array of more than 140 interactive and engaging cross-cultural activities and programs, the Tanglewood Learning Institute will offer visitors a sense of discovery and engagement on a scale never before offered by the festival. Notable presenters will include Madeleine K. Albright, Secretary of State (1997–2001); Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author Doris Kearns Goodwin; cellist Yo-Yo Ma; soprano Renée Fleming; BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons; composer John Williams; and playwright Tom Stoppard, among a long list of acclaimed artists and important cultural figures of our time.
These major events and milestones take place during a season that also honors Tanglewood’s cherished musical traditions, among them concerts by the one and only Boston Pops, including the annual John Williams’ Film Night; a series of chamber music and recital programs in the acoustically acclaimed Ozawa Hall, celebrating its 25th anniversary season in 2019; frequent performances by the talented Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center; and a Popular Artist series, including two appearances by one of the festival’s most beloved singers, James Taylor, on July 3 and 4. The BSO’s musical leadership, Andris Nelsons, Keith Lockhart, and John Williams, are joined by an extraordinary roster of guest artists, including beloved familiar faces—Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, and Joshua Bell; other favorite performers—Yefim Bronfman, Christine Goerke, Hilary Hahn, Paul Lewis, Ryan Speedo Green, Thomas Hampson, Leonidas Kavakos, Ken-David Masur, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Kristine Opolais, Morris Robinson, Gil Shaham, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet; and several exciting artists making their Tanglewood debuts—Inon Barnatan, J’Nai Bridges, MILOŠ, Simon O’Neill, and François-Xavier Roth. The 2019 Festival of Contemporary Music, August 8-12, under the direction of BSO Artistic Partner Thomas Adès, boasts a tremendous array of works by composers of our time and recent history, with nine American premieres, including works by Richard Ayres, Gerald Barry, Erica Fox, György Kurtág, Hilda Paredes, Poul Ruders, and Nathan Shields, as well as a TMC-commissioned world premiere from Andrew Hamilton; there will also be a special concert dedicated to the piano works of the late Oliver Knussen.
Musical highlights of the season also include Copland’s Symphony No. 3, Debussy’s La Mer, Dvo?ák’s New World Symphony, Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Betsy Jolas’ A Little Summer Suite, Ravel’s La Valse and Daphnis and Chloé (complete), Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 2, Strauss’s “Dance of the Seven Veils” from Salome, Joan Tower’s Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 1, and an Andris Nelsons-led Verdi Requiem, as well as works by Brahms, Gershwin, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Stravinsky, among many other favorite composers. The traditional season-ending finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with a cast of acclaimed soloists and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, James Burton, conductor, will be led by Giancarlo Guerrero; the program opens with Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden (Peace on Earth) for unaccompanied chorus. In another major highlight, Yo-Yo Ma, who will be featured in three concerts during the 2019 Tanglewood season, makes a special solo appearance in the Shed, performing Bach’s Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites as part of his two-year The Bach Project, in which Mr. Ma will perform Bach’s six suites for solo cello in 36 locations on six continents.
In addition to the programs of the 2019 Festival of Contemporary Music and the new Kevin Puts work, new pieces to be performed during the season include two world premieres—The Lost Words, for children’s choir and orchestra, by BSO Choral Director James Burton, featuring the Boston Symphony Children’s Choir; and André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope, for soprano and string quartet, with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet—as well as the American premiere of Avner Dorman’s Double Concerto for violin, cello, and orchestra, with Pinchas Zukerman and Amanda Forsyth. The performance of Penelope, along with André Previn’s Violin Concerto, Anne-Sophie, written for and featuring Anne-Sophie Mutter, will take place in celebration of Sir André Previn’s 90th birthday year.
The 2019 Popular Artist Series includes Brian Wilson (6/16), Richard Thompson (6/21), Postmodern Jukebox (6/22),The Boston Pops Celebrates Queen (6/27), Earth, Wind & Fire (6/28), Rodrigo y Gabriela (6/30) Josh Groban (7/2), James Taylor and his All-Star Band (7/3 & 4), Train and the Goo Goo Dolls (8/5), Gladys Knight and The Spinners (8/28), Squeeze—The Squeeze Songbook Tour (8/29), Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo and Melissa Etheridge (8/30), Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals and Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue (8/31), and Reba McEntire (9/1). American Public Media’s Live From Here with Chris Thile also returns on June 15, opening the 2019 season.
Beyond the schedule of performances, Tanglewood continues to offer a wide variety of discounted ticket options, among them $20 tickets for attendees under 40 and free lawn tickets to young people age 17 and under—two of the festival’s most popular ticket offerings—as well as a variety of special programs for families and children, including Kids’ Corner, Watch and Play, the annual Family Concert, which will feature the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Thomas Wilkins on July 27, and Summer Sundays, an afternoon of entertaining and educational activities planned around the weekly Sunday-afternoon BSO concerts. Tickets for the 2019 season—regular-season ticket prices range from $12-$130—go on sale to the public on Sunday, February 10 at www.tanglewood.org and 888-266-1200. Tickets for James Taylor’s concerts on July 3 & 4 go on sale on Monday, January 28. Visit www.tanglewood.org for complete information about concert programming, ticket purchasing, and the many family- and children-centric programs Tanglewood offers each summer.
CONCERT LISTING:
Saturday, June 22, 8 p.m., Ozawa Hall|
Postmodern Jukebox
Thursday, June 27, 8 p.m., Shed
The Boston Pops Celebrates Queen
Marc Martel, special guest
James Burton, conductor