Tanglewood

Close Encounters With Music introduces grand prize winners of the Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition and Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in their Berkshire debuts; presents one of the preeminent Baroque ensembles, Tragicomedia, to usher in the holiday season; and adds another notch on its belt of successful commissioning projects with a new work by American composer Robert Beaser, who has written for Glimmerglass and New York City Opera.

After 40 years of collaborations pianist Chick Corea and vibraphone player Gary Burton are about to release their sixth CD. Hot House is an album of the standards they loved and grew up on. For a nearly sold out gig in Ozawa Hall, with nearly as many outside on the lawn, they played a set of duets followed by one with the Harlem String Quartet.

An ingenious thriller, the ultimate murder mystery, The 39 Steps has it all. Shakespeare & Company opens the 2012-2013 Fall & Winter season with this hilarious adaptation of John Buchan’s novel, which also draws inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film. Featuring a seasoned ensemble including Elizabeth Aspenlieder (Bad Dates), Jason Asprey (Parasite Drag), David Joseph (The Tempest), and Josh Aaron McCabe (Hound of the Baskervilles), The 39 Steps offers an intriguing, sidesplitting evening or afternoon at the theatre. The 39 Steps runs from September 22 through November 4 in S&Co.’s Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre.

Both nine time Grammy winner, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis leading his Quintet, and renowned bass player Christian McBride with a trio, commented warmly on the honor of returning to Tanglewood. But, for both, not in many years. The evening that ended at 11 PM closed in a jam session with all of the musicians trading riffs.

Last night in Ozawa Hall the French Ebene Quartet offered a divided program that included two works by Mozart and Tchakovsky followed by a jazz set. It is a part of he overhaul of jazz programming at Tanglewood. On Monday, August 20 Wynton Marsalis and Christian McBride are featured. With Chick Corea and Gary Burton slated for Sunday, August 26.

Last night at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown the legendary singer/ songwriter, Art Garfunkel launched an 18 city tour that will end on December 1. It supports the issue of a double CD which is a retrospective of his career but includes new material. While he spoke to the audience of "giving my heart to you" he struggled to push a voice that he virtually lost just two years ago. An appreciative audience supported his courage and poetic humanity.

Just before Chris Botti came on stage for a two hour performace at Ozawa Hall there was a brief but ferocious downpour that had hundreds of fans on the lawn scurrying of shelter. The downpour soaked some fans but failed to dampen spirits of a stunning, eclectic and thoroughly entertaining evening with one of our greatest living artists.

Amazingly, it has been fifty years since the last visit of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet to Jacob's Pillow. The classical ballet company demonstrated its diversity during a two hour program in three segments- In Tandem, Moonlight Sonata, and Carmina Burana. For most audience members it was a highlight of Pillow's 80th season.

Donizetti was a master of opera buffa - comic opera - and "Don Pasquale" is one of his enduring hits. By focusing on singers and their interactions, Boston Midsummer Opera gets it right.

On Wednesday the German born violin virtuoso, Anne-Sophie Mutter, performed in Ozawa Hall accompanied by pianist Lambert Orkis. On Friday she led a baroque orchestra in an all Mozart program. Tonight, she will be a guest among many participating in the Gala 75th Anniversary concert. She has also met with students in the Tanglewood summer program. It was her first Berkshire visit since 1992.

In one of the best ever Pops programs Keith Lockhart paid tribute to New York composers. Including the Washington D. C. born jazz great Duke Ellington's A Tone Parallel to Harlem. For the second half of the concert he was joined by Broadway legend Bernadette Peters. She performed a number of songs by Stephen Sondheim including two from Follies which she performed this season on Broadway. Awesome.

It was steamy in the Shed last night for the sweltering launch of the gala, 2012, 75th season of Tanglewood. With Christoph von Dohnányi, a Conducting Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1952, the orchestra replicated the very first BSO concert that took place on August 5, 1937. A capacity audience enjoyed the all-Beethoven program, opening with the Leonore Overture No. 3, followed by Symphony No. 6, Pastoral, and Symphony No. 5.

Last night James Taylor performed the first of three annual sold out shows at Tanglewood. With a twenty minute intermission the program started just after seven and ended just before ten. During all that time guest artist Taylor Swift graced us with two duets and a solo of her teen anthem, a thrill to thousands of girls in the audience “Love Story.” More tonight.

As part of the celebrations for its 35th Season, Shakespeare & Company is pleased to introduce a series of presentations and events tailored to its summer performance season. Engaging discussions, riveting talks, and insightful Q&A’s will all be featured in the Company’s packed calendar of special events. For more information on all of Shakespeare & Company’s special 35th Season offerings, including Founders’ Talks, Author! Author!, Tuesday Talks, Wednesday Q&A’s, Behind the Scenes Tours, and other special events.

On Thursday, June 28 the Williamstown Theatre Festival launches its season with the opening night of two shows. Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" directed by David Hyde Pierce with Tyne Daly is on the Main Stage. The more intimate Nikos Stage will feature the world premiere of The Deep Blue directed by Bob Balaban with Becky Ann Baker and a return to Williamstown after a long absence of a perennial favorite, Blythe Danner. Yesterday WTF artistic director Jenny Gersten hosted a meet an greet with the directors and their stars.

The color and force of two monuments of twentieth century choral music were performed with drama and grand production by the New York Philharmonic, Orfeon Pamplones and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.

Train is back on track for Friday, August 31. Followed by Pops, on Saturday, and then a hard rock tandem of Evanescence and Chevelle rounding out a solid Labor Day Weekend in the Shed. This is a dramatic change of policy for Tanglewood making for a weekend with broad audience appeal second only to the Fourth of July. This last blast of summer will surely draw large audiences to Lenox. Then its back to work and school.

The musical centerpiece of the evening will be the Tanglewood 75th Celebration Concert featuring performances by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, as well as the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, led by conductors John Williams, Keith Lockhart, and Andris Nelsons. These legendary Tanglewood ensembles will be joined on stage by several of today’s leading artists, including violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianists Emanuel Ax and Peter Serkin, and vocalist James Taylor.

While not exactly an overhaul, Mark Volpe appears to be tweaking the programming at Tanglewood. Sticking with the mantra of Tanglewood as the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra means facing the reality or an eroding, senior audience. The annual season ending Tanglewood Jazz Festival has been scrapped replaced by booking A list jazz artists Wynton Marsalis and Christain McBride in Ozawa Hall and Pops in the Shed for a boldy revamped Labor Day weekend. And that's not all.

Tanglewood, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this season, June 22-September 2, is offering a number of ticket programs designed to give visitors and Berkshire residents a wide variety of options when planning their visit to the BSO’s summer home. Kripalu and the Clark Art Institute are each teaming up with the BSO this summer to offer three new ticket deals showcasing a variety of different Berkshire summer attractions.

PBS announced today that the Tanglewood 75th anniversary gala concert, featuring many of the iconic artists identified with the fete, has been added to the line-up of the PBS Arts Summer Festival and will air nationally on Friday, August 10 at 9 p.m. ET as part of GREAT PERFORMANCES.

Numerous unique events in Boston this week. Maestro Bernard Haitink leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s warm and ever-popular Pastoral Symphony. Handel and Hayden presents the memorable Mozart Coronation. The Celebrity Series showcases at Jordan Hall: Emerson String Quartet, Boston Philharmonic Orchestra ends its season with Mahler Triumphant! ArtsEmerson presents Hershey Felder in Maestro: Leonard Bernstein while The Luck of the Irish final weeks continue at the Huntington Theatre. The Institute of Contemporary Art presents the 49th Ann Arbor Film Festival of animation and technical innovation.

Victoria Bond makes a case for the accessibility of contemporary music as the Great Noise Ensemble interprets. Her delightful short chamber piece, Coqui, concluded the first part of the program.

A flurry of activities in both Boston and Cambridge this week. Do not miss the Elliot Norton laureate William Kentridge will present his animated films at the Harvard Archives. The Jewish film festival promises a variety of special movies. Maestro Bernard Haitink will conduct at the Boston Symphony Orchestra Mendelssohn’s incidental music to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Institute of Contemporary Art & World Music/CRASHARTS showcases the unforgettable India Jazz Suites: Kathak Meets Tap.

Brahms composed The German Requiem, “Ein Deutsches Requiem,” at a time of bereavement and personal, piercing associations. The plunge in the Rhine of his mentor and spiritual father, Robert Shumann, as well as the death of his mother, Christiane, who died before he could reach her, are the inspiration for this memorial piece. “Ein Deutsches Requiem” is not a generic requiem; it differs from the standard, as it is neither a mass nor oratorio, and nowhere in the libretto is there a reference to the son of God. The score is composed of seven movements that use German texts from the Old Testament, New Testament and Apocrypha. The libretto is selected to spread blessings, rather than sadness and despair, to the living and to the dead.