By Dave Read, Lenox, MA, July 5, 2024 event – Although I’ve been filing reports from Tanglewood since the Clinton administration, it wasn’t until 2022 that I attended the open-to-the-public Opening Exercises of the Tanglewood Music Center, which is the true heart and soul of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood enterprise.
I was surprised to be among only a few score of civilians inside Ozawa Hall. Every time I enter that building I am awestruck at its simple majesty, the genius of the architecture. Speaking of which, did you know that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said that architecture is frozen music?
Besides brief remarks by the suits in charge, the event resolves to the a capella performance of the Alleluia chorus composed by Randall Thomspson with a commission from Serge Koussevitsky, the great man whose great vision now encircles the globe, every part of which sends students to Tanglewood and employs musicians trained there!