Tanglewood popular artists

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 to avoid regret.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has listed 15 concerts on the 2018 Popular Artist calendar before Maestro Andris Nelsons opens the BSO’s Tanglewood season on July 6. The first weekend included Roger Daltry and the Boston Pops performing The Who’s Tommy, followed by a show billed as David Crosby and Friends, and then Steven Stills and Judy Collins for Sunday afternoon.

Underwhelmed by last summer’s Pete Townsend/Boston Pops mashup, we eliminated this year’s Who remnant, leaving us to decide between factions of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. We chose the show scheduled for Sunday largely because Tanglewood is the most beautiful music venue in the world on a Sunday in June, but also because we figured Stills’ guitar chops will have aged better than Crosby’s front-man chops.

We were so right about the Sunday afternoon at Tanglewood aspect of our choice, but from what we hear, we missed a pretty exciting show Saturday night!

2018 Tanglewood schedule

The 2018 Tanglewood schedulefeatures a season-long celebration of the centennial of Leonard’s Bernstein’s birth, culminating in the Aug. 25 Bernstein Centennial Celebration hosted by Audra McDonald, with Maestro Andris Nelsons, four guest conductors and soloists Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, and others.

Hotels near Tanglewood

Find hotels near Tanglewood with user reviews, check amenities, nearby attractions, availability and then book your room reservations at these lodging establishments through our partner, International Hotel Solutions (IHS), the leading provider of secure online hotel reservations.

Tanglewood tickets and box office information

Tickets for the 2018 Tanglewood season available through Tanglewood’s website, www.tanglewood.org, SymphonyCharge at 888-266-1200, and at the Symphony Hall Box Office at 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston MA.

Getting around the Tanglewood campus

The Tanglewood campus, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center comprises several hundred acres in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge. It is the location of the Koussevitsky Music Shed and Ozawa Hall, where hundreds of thousands attend concerts and a variety of events, including picnics. We always advise new visitors to arrive early and take their daily walking exercise wandering the beautiful Tanglewood grounds. This dynamic map of the Tanglewood grounds includes photos and information for such points of interest as Aaron Copland Library, Highwood Manor House, The Glass House, and The Lion’s Gate.

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 seasons, that was it – the Berkshires’ season was late summer/early fall. The Berkshires today, its essential natural resource polluted in perpetuity by G.E. (the corporate criminal kicked off the Dow Jones just this week), scrambles to make a go of things by converting the arts into a commodity.

One hopes this conversion is less harmful than GE’s conversion of the Housatonic River was. But one bit of harm is the spawning of the awkward phrase “shoulder season.” It seems that where a segment of the local population that otherwise would’ve been engaged in corporate communications and other aspects of internal paper-pushing now toil in the obscenely oxymoronic “cultural economy.” As one who traffics in language, I cannot help but wonder if a segment of a shoulder season would be called a “clavical week?”

…on the shoulders of giants

That’s why metaphor is best left alone by people essentially talking business, because if we imagine Tanglewood as something with shoulders, then we see something hideously ugly – one shoulder comprised of fifteen concerts, the other only one. We know PCBs to be endocrine-disrupting, so we’ll have to find somebody else than GE to blame for this skeletal anomaly.

There’s no more beautiful venue in the world than Tanglewood, regardless the season – or metaphor. And speaking of beautiful, Alison Krauss, accompanied by remnats of Union Station and members of the Cox family, regaled a handsome audience on a quintessential June evening with a ninety minute show that amounted to a sampler of her stunning career.

2018 Tanglewood schedule

The 2018 Tanglewood schedulefeatures a season-long celebration of the centennial of Leonard’s Bernstein’s birth, culminating in the Aug. 25 Bernstein Centennial Celebration hosted by Audra McDonald, with Maestro Andris Nelsons, four guest conductors and soloists Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, and others.

Hotels near Tanglewood

Find hotels near Tanglewood with user reviews, check amenities, nearby attractions, availability and then book your room reservations at these lodging establishments through our partner, International Hotel Solutions (IHS), the leading provider of secure online hotel reservations.

Tanglewood tickets and box office information

Tickets for the 2018 Tanglewood season available through Tanglewood’s website, www.tanglewood.org, SymphonyCharge at 888-266-1200, and at the Symphony Hall Box Office at 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston MA.

Getting around the Tanglewood campus

The Tanglewood campus, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center comprises several hundred acres in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge. It is the location of the Koussevitsky Music Shed and Ozawa Hall, where hundreds of thousands attend concerts and a variety of events, including picnics. We always advise new visitors to arrive early and take their daily walking exercise wandering the beautiful Tanglewood grounds. This dynamic map of the Tanglewood grounds includes photos and information for such points of interest as Aaron Copland Library, Highwood Manor House, The Glass House, and The Lion’s Gate.

June 19, 2016 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

Brian Wilson played Pet Sounds at Tanglewood, June 18, 2016, the second concert on the Popular Artist series at the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It took Mr. Wilson about three minutes to knock the cynicism out of me and by the end of this two and a half hour show, I was a true believer. As the concert loomed on my calendar, my plan was to disparage latter-day rock critics who rave about an album that was put away soon after it’s 1966 release. The various musical innovations of Brian Wilson that characterize Pet Sounds were either not noticed or simply lost on us who were bored by the AM radio sound and eager to bounce headlong into the realm of Cream’s Fresh Cream, Frank Zappa’s Freak Out, and Bob Dylan’s Blond on Blond, just to name 3 other 1966 albums.

But this was a great show and by the end of the opening song, Heroes and Villians, we were won over by Mr. Wilson, as much for his simply charming stage presence as for his musical genius. The way things are today, even if your Crawdaddy subscription has lapsed, everybody knows all the crap Mr. Wilson has been through over 50+ years; the mere fact that he’s up and about is worthy of our admiration. When he left the stage some 34 songs later, though, he did so with our affection too, which we were happy to return. The show ended with Love and Mercy, his late ’80s song and pointed us in the direction of the 2014 movie about him bearing the same name, which he has described as a “very factual” representation of his life around the time of Pet Sounds.

Beach Boy Al Jardine was in the band, playing guitar a few feet away from Wilson, as was his son Matt, who took a couple turns singing falsetto parts that were an essential piece of the Beach Boys sound. Also on board for this tour is Blondie Chaplin, the South African singer and guitarist who first joined the Beach Boys in the 1970s and who did long stints with the Rolling Stones, too. First song of the seven encore numbers was Good Vibrations, recorded at the same time as Pet Sounds, but left off the album. It was given a pulsating reading today – they fairly blew the roof off the joint! Oh yeah, there was also Barbara Ann, Help Me Rhonda, Fun, Fun, Fun – it was a hell of a show, with one of the most exciting encores of all time!

About Tanglewood: box office, tickets, getting there, nearby hotels

Follow this link for Berkshires travel information, including public transportation within Berkshire county and Amtrak and Peter Pan bus schedules.
Find hotels near Tanglewood with user reviews, check amenities, nearby attractions, availability and then book your room reservations at these lodging establishments through our partner, International Hotel Solutions (IHS), the leading provider of secure online hotel reservations.

Getting around the Tanglewood campus

The Tanglewood campus, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center comprises several hundred acres in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge. It is the location of the Koussevitsky Music Shed and Ozawa Hall, where hundreds of thousands attend concerts and a variety of events, including picnics. We always advise new visitors to arrive early and take their daily walking exercise wandering the beautiful Tanglewood grounds.

Here is a dynamic map of the Tanglewood grounds, with photos and information for such points of interest as Aaron Copland Library, Highwood Manor House, The Glass House, and The Lion’s Gate.

June 18, 2016 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

Earth, Wind, & Fire, a band that practically embodies as many musical genres as Tanglewood’s Popular Artist Series represents, made its second appearance at the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra June 18, 2016. By scheduling them in between concerts by Dolly Parton and Brian Wilson, Tanglewood presented us the opportunity to enjoy a geographically inspired sampler of American music ranging from country, to city, to beach over a single weekend.

Maurice White and Philip Bailey form Earth, Wind, & Fire in 1971

Since their 1971 founding in Chicago by Maurice White and Philip Bailey, Earth, Wind, & Fire has scored six Grammies as a group and been inducted nto the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; founder White, who died in February, Bailey and several other members of the band also are in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. White’s brother Verdine is the group’s bassist, and at the other end of the sonic spectrum are the horn section, Gary Bias on saxophone, Bobby Burns, Jr. on trumpet, and Reggie Young on trombone. Besides all the oh-so-danceable funky music, straight-out R & B, beautiful harmonies and thrilling falsetto singing, EWF puts on a show for your eyeballs too with pulsating lights and streaming digital graphics. After this show, you would think the Koussevitsky Music Shed would need some down time, but that won’t happen until September!

Tanglewood photos Earth, Wind, & Fire concert

About Tanglewood: box office, tickets, getting there, nearby hotels

Follow this link for Berkshires travel information, including public transportation within Berkshire county and Amtrak and Peter Pan bus schedules.
Find hotels near Tanglewood with user reviews, check amenities, nearby attractions, availability and then book your room reservations at these lodging establishments through our partner, International Hotel Solutions (IHS), the leading provider of secure online hotel reservations.

Getting around the Tanglewood campus

The Tanglewood campus, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center comprises several hundred acres in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge. It is the location of the Koussevitsky Music Shed and Ozawa Hall, where hundreds of thousands attend concerts and a variety of events, including picnics. We always advise new visitors to arrive early and take their daily walking exercise wandering the beautiful Tanglewood grounds.

Here is a dynamic map of the Tanglewood grounds, with photos and information for such points of interest as Aaron Copland Library, Highwood Manor House, The Glass House, and The Lion’s Gate.

June 17, 2016 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

Dolly Parton opened the 2016 Tanglewood season on her Pure & Simple tour, attacting an impressive audience on a picnic-perfect June evening; watching her fans stream into the Koussevitsky Music Shed was the closest we’ll ever get to seeing a Mardi Gras parade in Lenox. In a show that lasted 2.5 hours and included 28 songs, she also told so many stories that you wish you’d brought along a stenographer. Dolly Parton emerged some fifty years ago onto a fairly cloistered country western scene which she helped bust loose into a dominate place in pop culture, becoming head of a global entertainment business while maintaining her charm, her artistic integrity, and her figure!

Dolly Parton’s Pure & Simple tour

Ms. Parton’s Pure & Simple tour is organized around a CD, to be released in August, which contains a suite of love songs she wrote to celebrate her fiftieth wedding anniversary. Love seems to be Dolly Parton’s organizing principle, and much of her patter relates to her love of her own family, her childhood home in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, and then to the family all of us comprise. After that, she talks alot about her rhinestone costumes and her boobs. But perhaps the most remarkable thing she talked about is the Imagination Library, which she established in 1995 for the benefit of children in her childhood home, as a tribute to her illiterate father. Since then, it has given away 100,000,000 books, many to children.

Making up Dolly’s band were Richard Dennison, Tom Rutledge, and Kent Wells (and a drum machine) and besides displaying her beautiful vocal technique, Ms. Parton also played a half-dozen instruments, including banjo, which she played backwards on one number! Especially endearing was a medley of ’60s songs, including The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down, mentioning her affection for Levon Helm and The Band, and announcing that his daughter, the musician Amy Kelm, was in attendance.