August 18, 2012 performance; Dave Read.

Tanglewood rung up another glittering gala celebration, honoring the 80th birthday of Boston Pops Laureate Conductor John Williams with no less a musical luminary than soprano Jessye Norman serving as M.C. But to refer to John Williams as Boston Pops Laureate Conductor is like referring to Bob Dylan as a former Minnesotan.

Williams’ compositions, especially those written for movies, have global appeal and place him in the pantheon of popular art. As pointed out by Leonard Slatkin, who conducted several segments of tonight’s program, John Williams may have surpassed Beethoven in writing the world’s most familiar musical motif. Slatkin first sounded the four notes that open Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, then declared that Williams beat him by two with the oh-so-familiar two notes from his Theme for Jaws.

Steven Speilberg, whose local ties include service on the board of the Norman Rockwell Museum, took the stage and noted that their collaborations have spanned half of Williams’ life. Other encomia were presented, fittingly, via the big screen. The festivities began with anchorman Brian Williams, no relation, appearing to do a fake newscast about Williams’ 80th birthday being celebrated at an “unknown location,” before zooming in via Google earth on Tanglewood. Another movie titan, George Lucas, also added his best wishes from a remote location.

Photos of John Williams’ 80th birthday celebration at Tanglewood

The initial musical salvo was delivered, in dramatic fashion, by the US Army Herald Trumpets, flanking the stage with their director conducting from the center aisle, playing Williams’s Olympic Fanfare and Theme, along with the Boston Pops under the baton of Keith Lockhart.

The big screen unfurled again and there was President Obama adding his accolades, on behalf of a grateful nation. Aslo “live via videotape” were Gustavo Dudamel and Deborah Borda from Williams’s “hometown orchestra” the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His orchestral work Soundings was performed at the opening of their new home, Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2003, and also performed at Tanglewood a few years ago.

Video greetings from the Boston Red Sox entertained Williams and the huge audience returning to their seats, blankets, benches, and lawn chairs after intermission followed by Fanfare for Fenway, Williams composition for the ballpark’s 100th anniversary.

Another screen drop and here was Seiji Ozawa, filmed with a Red Sox tapestry in the background, looking and sounding fairly good considering his condition. With a heartfelt tribute to his friend, the Maestro seemed to be asking forgiveness for being absent, leaving his legion of fans hopeful for his eventual return to Tanglewood.

75th Tanglewood anniversary season

Whereas the Boston Pops hasn’t missed a beat since Williams handed the baton to Lockhart in 1995, the Boston Symphony Orchestra hasn’t been so lucky in the wake of Ozawa’s 29 year tenure. For all you can tell from the audience, though, that may be purely an administrative matter, because this 75th Tanglewood anniversary season has been a beauty.

The way this program progressed, patrons were guessing who’d appear the next time the video screen dropped. Some expected the Queen of England herself! Why not – given Williams’ Olympic Fanfare, London 2012, and her own Jubilee…? After all, a member of her court, Sir Paul McCartney, made a video appearance at James Taylor’s 60th birthday party at Tanglewood a couple summer’s ago. Nope, no Queen; but Bill Clinton did chime in, remember him?

Of course James Taylor was on hand, to sing You’ve Got a Friend, in a duet with BSO cellist Owen Young, and to speak of his affection and gratitude for Williams, who invited Taylor to play his first gig with the Pops 20 years ago. Williams also introduced him to “the love of my life, Caroline.”

Besides Ms. Norman’s rendition of This Song is You, a musical highpoint was the performance of Williams’ composition for the Obama inauguration, Air and Simple Gifts, performed by Yo-Yo Ma, cello, Gil Shaham, violin, Gabriela Montero, piano, and Anthony McGill, clarinet. Another was Three Concert Pieces conducted by Shi-Yeon Sung, former BSO assistnt conductor, which was made up of one movement from each of 3 concerti by Williams: for Oboe, with Keisuke Wakao soloing, for Horn, with James Sommerville soloing, and for Tuba, with Mike Roylance soloing.

Fitting tribute to the Wiliams’s genius in scoring movies came by way of Yo-Yo Ma and the Pops on Going to School from Memoirs of a Geisha; Gil Shaham and the Pops performing the Theme for Schindler’s List, and finally, the Main title from Star Wars, all conducted by Leonard Slatkin.

The grand finale of John Williams’ 80th Birthday Ceebration at Tanglewood was his own Happy Birthday Variations, with the Pops very ably augmented by the brass and woodwind players of the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. That piece is great fun, seemng to sample the most memorable and exciting motifs from the composer’s oeuvre. Then a loud POP and streamers and confetti rained on the audience, as they stood to applaud Mr. Williams, now onstage with his friends and colleagues, having the time of his life.

Chris Botti put on a tremendous show in Ozawa Hall, which was packed to the rafters with lawn patrons given refuge from the rain. Botti is a versatile trumpeter, playing plenty of straight ahead jazz but also pop, rock, and classical in this genre-agnostic show that featured two guests along with a very impressive band. He’s pretty loquacious, too, unlike his hero Miles Davis, whose LPs Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain were the sources for two numbers that were highlights of tonight’s program. In addition to Botti’s own virtuosity, they showcased the brilliance of Brazilian guitarist Leonardo Amuedo. Everyone in the band had plenty of opportunities to display their artistry: Billy Childs on piano, Tim Lefebvre on acoustic and electric bass, Billy Kilson on drums, and Andy Ezrin on keyboards and sythensizer. (Lefebvre and Ezrin are Massachussetts natives.)

Botti is more engaged with his audience than any musician we’ve seen at Tanglewood, more so even than James Taylor and Garrison Keillor. Not only did he descend from the stage to play in the aisle, in a duet with Ms. Fischer, who sang The Very Thought of You while seated in the lap of a patron, but also he invited a young girl on stage to play drums on the final number, Nessun Dorma, the aria from the last act of Puccini’s Turandot.

In this celebratory 75th anniversary season at Tanglewood, the first in over a decade not to be followed by a Labor Day weekend jazz festival, jazz fans have not been overlooked! Even before the arrival of the BSO, there was Diana Krall in the Shed folowed the next night by the very jazzy Silk Road Ensemble with Yo Yo Ma in Ozawa Hall. Next up will be another Ozawa Hall jazz concert bill headlined by the Wynton Marsalis Quartet, with opening act Christian McBride Trio on Aug. 20, followed on Aug. 26 by the Chick Corea and Gary Burton Hot House Tour, with the Harlem String Quartet.

July 14, 2012 performance; Article by Dave Read

Tanglewood threw an impressive party in recognition of its 75th anniversary as the summer home in the Berkshires and educational component of the Boston Sympony Orchestra. The Tanglewood Medal was instituted and shortly after intermission of the 3 hour program, Boston Pops conductor laureate John Williams presented it in abstentia to Seiji Ozawa, whose acceptance message was read by Yo Yo Ma.

Ozawa’s 29 year tenure as BSO music director was followed by the ill-fated term of James Levine, acknowledged tonight as the orchestra’s first American-born music director, but also unable to attend. Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart doubled as MC to start the program, addressing not only the 18,000 in attendance but also the world wide audience who will see the version that PBS plans to air on August 10 (check your local listings).

Boston Pops play Copland and Bernstein

Lockhart led the brass of the Boston Pops in Fanfare For the Common Man, by Aaron Copland, who headed the composition faculty of the Tanglewood Music Center for twenty five years. It was followed by excerpts from TMC alumnus Leonard Bernstein’s On The Town, which seems to represent the quintessential Pops repertoire, with its variety of memorable melody, rhythm, and musical whimsy.

James Taylor sings Ol’ Man River with Boston Pops

Next up was James Taylor, the esteemed pop culture chameleon, BSO patron, and intentional Berkshireite, who performed a three song set celebrating the Great American Songbook, along with the Pops under the baton of John Williams. It was an impressive performance by JT, who nails the final lines of Ol’ Man River in the following clip:

Inaugural Tanglewood Medal presented to Seiji Ozawa

UPDATE May 18, 2013: Andris Nelsons named Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

After Nelsons’ leading the BSO in Ravel’s La Valse, and the presentation of the inaugural Tanglewood Medal by John Williams to Seiji Ozawa, in abstentia, the stage was set for the program’s grand finale, Beethoven’s Fantasia in C minor for piano, chorus, and orchestra. It was performed by Peter Serkin, an annual guest soloist, David Zinman leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra along with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and current and former Tanglewood Music Center vocal fellows, John Oliver conducting.

Tanglewood 75th anniversary photos

July 6, 2012 performance review by Dave Conlin Read

It is the genius of Beethoven and his ilk to compose scores that can be brought to life by an orchestra. Once animated, the symphony occupies a gap in time where a listener can repose, affording him a respite in eternity, without the inconvenience of dying.

Alternate metaphor: We live, if not precisely minute to minute, then moment by fleeting moment. Listening to the work of such a composer as Beethoven, I get a sense that, because these scores of musicians are so keyed into time, exquisitly so, that time itself loses its grip on me.

Watching Maestro von Dohnanyi go about his business, his gestures looking so casual (so not arty) that I imagined an overnight custodian somewhere air conducting to the radio. But he clearly was keyed in and with such a masterful grasp of timing that the smallest, quietest passages were beautifully apparent tonight. Good choice for the BSO to have the former Tanglewood Music Center conducting fellow to lead the first of several anniversary-themed programs this summer.

Since ending his 20 year tenure as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra in 2002, Maestro von Dohnányi has kept busy. This season, he leads subscription concerts at the Boston and Chicago symphony orchestras, and at the New York Philharmonic. Last season he became Honorary Conductor for life of the Philharmonia Orchestra; this season he leads the Philharmonia in Madrid, Cardiff, in a Brahms symphony cycle at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, and at London’s Royal Festival Hall.