The 2018 Tanglewood season is underway. We are planning to cover about one-half of the fifteen popular artist shows scheduled before the Boston Symphony Orchestra season gets underway on Friday July 6, when Music Director Andris Nelsons returns to his place at the podium in the Koussevitsky Music Shed to conduct a program that features pianist Lang Lang.
Article updated Aug. 11, 2018 by Dave Read Tanglewood on Parade, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s annual fundraiser in support of the Tanglewood Music Center, with a schedule of concerts, recitals and events all afternoon and culminating with a gala evening concert, was visited by late afternoon thunderstorms that sent music lovers as well as all… read more
Article updated August 10, 2018 by Dave Read Joshua Bell resembled an athlete who knows he’ll soon be sent into the game during the opening moments of the Wienawski Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor, the feature selection of the Aug. 5, 2018 program in the Koussevitsky Music Shed at Tanglewood, with the Boston… read more
Article updated July 17, 2018 by Dave Read Attending the Sunday afternoon (July 15, 2018) program in the Koussevitsky Music Shed at Tanglewood was no easy matter; every bit of it commanded your attention, from Mendelssohn’s beautifully familiar Italian symphony, through Yuja Wang’s dazzling performance of Beethoven’s 1st piano concerto, to the how-fit-in-these-fraught-times composition from… read more
Article updated July 7, 2018 by Dave Read Andris Nelsons led the Boston Symphony Orchestra in their 2018 Tanglewood season opener, featuring pianist Lang Lang in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24. Since the middle of June, the Popular Artist series has had the run of the place, through good weather and bad. Tonight felt nothing… read more
Article updated July 6, 2018 by Dave Read Something about James Taylor’s Fourth of July concert at Tanglewood felt low-key, but that’s in reference to a dozen or so such, which always rank among the most exciting shows of the year. Our expectations may have been out of whack because his July 4, 2008 show… read more
Article updated July 2, 2018 by Dave Read Bela Fleck and the Flecktones played a generous and rousing concert in Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood on Friday, June 29, 2018. We hesitate to describe the performance as firey or electrifying, because then the band may be blamed for the heat wave that followed in their wake… read more
(Given the Tanglewood aspect of this, I’m re-posting it from my personal blog daveread.me) June 26, 2018 – When the email announcing Donald Hall’s death arrived Sunday morning, I was drafting a letter to him, which would include a blank bookplate for him to sign, for my pre-ordered copy of A Carnival of Losses; Notes… read more
Article updated June 25, 2018 by Dave Read Harry Connick, Jr. transported the Tanglewood audience Saturday night from the high land overlooking Lake Mahkeenac to the Ninth Ward below Lake Pontchartrain by way of a concert/seminar of nearly two and a half hours that included a second-line parade through the Koussevitsky Music Shed. Is it… read more
Article posted Feb. 14, 2018 by Dave Read The 2018 Tanglewood schedule features a season-long celebration of the centennial of the birth, in Lawrence, MA, of Leonard Bernstein, who became the protege of Serge Koussevitsky in 1940 as a member of the first class of what became the Tanglewood Music Center. Bernstein’s last performance was… read more
Article updated June 20, 2018 by Dave Read Tanglewood schedules present an embarrassment of riches, putting us at risk of fun-overload, which is as dangerous as second-helpings of pecan pie at Thanksgiving. Having covered Tanglewood since the Clinton Administration, we know enough to moderate, not overbook, and to look closely at the lineup so as… read more
Article updated June 20, 2018 by Dave Read The original iteration of the Berkshires as a playground for the obscenely rich was during the last quarter of the 19th century, when it became an autumnal retreat for robber barons and other scallywags who’d grown bored of their Newport and Adirondack estates. In terms of man-made… read more
Article updated June 27, 2018 by Dave Read The 1st Annual Northeast Fiddlers Convention convened on June 9, 2018 at Hancock Shaker Village, a co-production with Oldtone, amounting to the most apt pairing of venue and event, especially given the critical role played by music and movement in Shaker life. Dates for the 2nd annual… read more
