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2015 Tanglewood reviews

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Wynton Marsalis at Tanglewood

July 18, 2015 Article by Dave Read

Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra gave a concert in Ozawa Hall yesterday that could serve as the template for all concerts: two sets artfully arranged to engage, sustain, and satisfy an auditor’s attention, with just the right measure of exposition from the stage to establish a conversation, contextualize the selections, and identify the musicians. Marsalis was an amiable host from his 3rd row seat in the trumpet section of the band, which he led through an overview of early 20th century jazz in the first set, followed by a set made up of compositions and arrangements by musicians in the band.

Tonight’s concert got underway with fairly quiet and subtle playing on compositions from the 1930s by Benny Carter, Symphony in Riffs and Duke Ellington, Mood Indigo. By the time the 3rd piece was over, George Gershwin’s Fascinating Rhythm, we knew we were in for quite a treat, as we’d already heard lovely solos by Marsalis on trumpet, Victor Goines on clarinet, and all three trombone players. The set ended with Things to Come by Dizzy Gillespie, which afforded everybody ample space to play, especially the exquisite rhythm section, emerging in the wake of a long trumpet run.

After intermission, the concert continued with a piece called 2/3 Adventure, by bassist Carlos Henriquez, then one rooted in spirituals by trombonist Chris Crenshaw. Next in the spotlight was pianist Dan Nimmer with a selection from a suite he composed from important political speeches. That was followed by sax player Sherman Irby’s arrangement of a composition by Wayne Shorter, who played with the orchestra recently.

The concert closed with Marsalis’s own Back to Basics from his Oratorio, Blood on the Fields, the first jazz composition to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Music (1997). Everyone in the band got another chance to solo, with Marsalis himself bringing it all to a humorous, muttering conclusion, waving the plunger mute over the bell of his trumpet.

Marsalis dedicates concert to the late Gunther Schuller

Marsalis dedicated the concert to the late Gunther Schuller, telling the audience that his stint at the Berkshire Music Center, which Schuller ran from 1970 until 1984, “changed my life.” At 17, he was the youngest musician ever admitted; two years later, he joined the Jazz Messengers lead by legendary drummer and bandleader Art Blakey.

Mahler’s Eighth marks TMC’s 75th

August 12, 2015 Tanglewood concert review by

The culmination of the Tanglewood Music Center’s 75th anniversary celebration was the Aug. 8, 2015 performance of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, the Symphony of a Thousand, with BSO music director Andris Nelsons conducting 363 musicians, including the TMC Fellows, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, eight leading vocal soloists, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Chorus, the American Boychoir, and members of the BSO. Not only was this concert an impressive spectacle, but it was as thrilling a musical experience as one could imagine.

Latin hymn combined with Goethe’s Faust

Andris Nelsons and Klaus Florian Vogt with the TMCO performing Mahler's Symphony No. 8, 8.8.15 (Hilary Scott)
Andris Nelsons and Klaus Florian Vogt with the TMCO performing Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, 8.8.15 (Hilary Scott)
The composition is in two parts: the 8th century hymn for the Christian feast of Pentacost, Veni, creator spiritus, and the final scene from Goethe’s Faust, which itself covers three millenia of history. Mahler found the connection for that improbable coupling in the third stanza of the hymn, “Accende humen sensibus,/Infunde amorem cordibus!” (“Illuminate our senses,/Pour love into our hearts!”) Judging by the response of the audience in the Shed and accross the Lawn, that invocation was achieved – everybody smiled broadly, standing for wave after wave of applause.

For a brief video of this performance, visit streambso.org, where you’ll see that Mahler’s 8th opens loud and bright, organ and choir invoking a church-like setting. But however universal every doctrine claims its scope, this performance of Mahler’s 8th would bear no doctrinal delimitation; this celebration was no church-going event! Mahler’s treatment of Goethe’s text is practically a sampler of musical styles and ideas, leading to the final chorus. The journey is spellbinding, building naturally to a close, nothing forced, no straining, the accumulation of one beautiful sound after another until your senses – and your soul, have been thouroughly engaged and satisfied.

  • Boston Symphony orchestra – Aug. 8, 2015 program
  • Koussevitsky Music Shed, Tanglewood
  • Andris Nelsons conducts Mahler Symphony No. 8
  • The Leonard Bernstein Memorial Concert
  • Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra
  • Alumni of the Tanglewood Music Center
  • Erin Wall, soprano (Magna Peccatrix)
  • Christine Goerke, soprano (Una poenitentium)
  • Erin Morley, soprano (Mater Gloriosa)
  • Mihoko Fujimura, mezzo-soprano (Mulier Samaritana)
  • Jane Henschel, mezzo-soprano (Maria Aegyptiaca)
  • Klaus Florian Vogt, tenor (Doctor Marianus)
  • Matthias Goerne, baritone (Pater Ecstaticus)
  • Ain Anger, bass (Pater Profundus)
  • Tanglewood Festival Chorus, John Oliver, conductor
  • Boston University Tanglewood Institute Chorus, Ann Howard Jones, conductor
  • American Boychoir, Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, conductor
  • Tanglewood tickets:
  • Box Office: 617-266-1200; 888-266-1200
  • Website: tanglewood.org

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

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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.

Tanglewood on Parade Aug. 4, 2015

August 7, 2015 Article by

This year’s Tanglewood on Parade Gala Concert, the Tanglewood Music Center’s main fundraising event, was an especially satisfying evening of music, even if a little sad because John Williams’ health prevented his participation. With the Boston Pops conductor laureate absent, tonight’s audience was made to settle for three conductors, instead of the usual four, but got to witness the Pops debut of Boston Symphony Orchestra music director Andris Nelsons.

The program got underway with Nelsons leading the BSO in selections from Berlioz, Ravel, and Shostokovich. Maestro Nelsons didn’t address the audience tonight, but he certainly was communicative, displaying an uncanny vocabulary of conducting gestures. So fluid and captivating as he cajoles and exhorts the orchestra, this successor to Koussevitsky makes you think he may, as well, be a disciple of Balanchine.

In the next segment, popular guest conductor Stephane Deneve led the Fellows of the TMC in three John Williams compositions. Deneve was both funny and eloquent as he talked about his own affection for Williams and in introducing the compositions, including Just down West Street … on the left, Williams’ gift in honor of the TMC’s 75th anniversary. The Violin Concerto, a tribute to his first wife whao had just died, featured longtime Pops concertmaster Tamara Smirnova taking a rare turn as soloist.

Boston Pops pay tribute to Frank Sinatra
The festivities resumed after intermission with Keith Lockhart conducting the Boston Pops in Kabalevsky’s Overture to Colas Breugnon, followed by A Tribute to Frnk Sinatra: “Ole Blue Eyes at 100.” Not only were the Pops’ great jazz chops again in evidence, but so was the clarity of their enunciation, as you could practically hear the lyrics in their renditions of Chicago and New York, New York.

Star Wars and the Cold War

Pops conductor Lockhart then introduced the Pops debut of Maestro Nelsons for the performance of another John Williams selection, Throne Room & finale from Star Wars. During the Reagan Administration, “Star Wars” became the nickname for the Strategic Defense Initiative, one of the closing initiatives of the Cold War, which is notable because Reagan’s Secretary of State, George P. Shultz, a frequent Tanglewood patron, was in the audience tonight.

Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture

No matter how exciting the program and how brilliant the performances, everything else is merely prelude to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, which always concludes the gala concert, itself the finale to the annual day-long celebration of music at Tanglewood. We heard an unusual rendition of it here last month, performed by the Boston Pops Brass & Percussion section and two world-champion drum and bugle corps, the Blue Devils of California and the Boston Crusaders. While that was great fun, tonight’s rendition, under Nelson’s impassioned direction, was truly breathtaking.

  • Tanglewood tickets:
  • Box Office: 617-266-1200; 888-266-1200
  • Website: tanglewood.org

July 10, 2015 Tanglewood program Boston Symphony Orchestra

July 13, 2015 Article by

The Friday July 10, 2015 program in the Koussevitsky Music Shed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra gave the lie to the popular misconception that symphonic concerts are most suitable for blue hairs and codgers. They simply are not, under any circumstance, but especially tonight, when, funnily enough, performer’s hair styles were most evident. Guest conductor Stéphane Denève has such an energetic technique that his curly hair sometimes flies around like you’d see in a cartoon, and tonight’s soloist, Cameron Carpenter, sports a modified Mohawk, so that from the audience it looks like there’s a fat exclamation mark on his skull!

Stephane Deneve and Cameron Carpenter with the BSO at Tanglewood, July 10, 2015; photo:Hilary Scott.
Stephane Deneve and Cameron Carpenter with the BSO at Tanglewood, July 10, 2015; photo:Hilary Scott.
Maestro Denève introduced the program with an ease and aplomb that relaxed everybody and elicited laughs, especially each time he over-pronounced the ending ‘s’ in Saint-Saëns, “because that’s the way we French pronounce Saint-Saënsssssss!” Also, he made the most unusual request that the audience refrain from applauding at the end of the opening piece, Barber’s Adagio for Strings, because he wanted a seamless segue into Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Timpani in recognition of the friendship between the composers and the fact that the pieces were completed within months of each other. “Then, you are free not to refrain from applauding,” he said.

Cameron Carpenter and the International Touring Organ

Stephane Deneve and Cameron Carpenter with the BSO at Tanglewood, July 10, 2015; photo:Hilary Scott.
Stephane Deneve and Cameron Carpenter with the BSO at Tanglewood, July 10, 2015; photo:Hilary Scott.
The audience honored Denève’s request, the pieces meshed beautifully, and Carpenter and the BSO gave such an exhilarating performance that the attendant ovation fairly blew the roof off the joint. The Julliard-educated organist has set upon a course of revolutionizing the instrument’s place in the classical repertoire, to the extent that he had a new one built – International Touring Organ, monumental cross-genre digital organ built by Marshall & Ogletree. Carpenter holds the 2012 Leonard Bernstein Award, and is the first solo organist ever nominated for a Grammy.

  • Boston Symphony orchestra – July 10, 2015 program, Koussevitzky Music Shed
  • Stéphane Denève conducts Barber, Poulenc and Saint-Saëns featuring organist Cameron Carpenter
  • Tanglewood tickets:
  • Box Office: 617-266-1200; 888-266-1200
  • Website: tanglewood.org

Whereas the Poulenc presented a showcase particularly for the overwhelming power of the organ, in the evening’s concluding piece, Saint-Saëns demonstrates its versatility in playing a less dominant and supporting role with the orchestra.

Tanglewood Brass Spectacular

July 8, 2015 Article by

The Tanglewood Brass Spectacular featured performances by the Boston Pops Brass & Percussion section, the Boston Crusaders, the third-oldest drum corps in America, celebrating their 75th anniversary; and the sixteen-time Drum Corps International World Champion Blue Devils from Concord, California. The program was suggested by BSO trumpeter and drum corps alumnus Michael Martin, whose father Freddy Martin, one of the genre’s most esteemed figures, was a conductor and composer on tonight’s program.

First, the host ensemble performed a variety of pieces, including two by Boston Pops laureate conductor John Williams. They demonstrated why the Pops and the BSO always sound so good when they veer into the jazz and pop realms, because these players sure can swing! Then the Blue Devils and Boston Crusaders took turns, each filling the Koussevitsky Music Shed stage with an assortment of musical instruments never seen there before. Besides all the horns and drums, there was an array of vibrophones from wing to wing.

Massed bands perform Tcahikovsky’s 1812 Overture

The 2+ hour concert closed with an unprecented performance by all three ensembles of Tcahikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Tanglewood patrons are used to exciting performances of that chestnut as the finale to the annual Tanglewood on Parade, but tonight’s rendition was truly breathtaking.

  • Tanglewood Brass Spectacular – July 6, 2015
  • Tanglewood tickets:
  • Box Office: 617-266-1200; 888-266-1200
  • Website: tanglewood.org

James Taylor at Tanglewood July 4, 2015

July 6, 2015 Article by

James Taylor’s concert at Tanglewood July 4, 2015 attracted another sell-out audience that packed the Koussevitsky Music Shed and temporarily converted the sweeping lawn area into the 2nd most populated town in the Berkshires! The Washington, MA resident, frequently misidentified as living in Lenox, was accompanied by the familiar cohort known as his All Star Band, plus wife Kim and son Henry. Everybody lucked out when the weather went from dreary and drizzly to bright and sunny in time for the show.

James Taylor performing at Tanglewood, 7.4.15 (Hilary Scott)
James Taylor performing at Tanglewood, 7.4.15 (Hilary Scott)
Mr. Taylor released a new album recently, Before This World, his first in 13 years and 17th studio recording overall, which spent a week at the top of the charts! Tonight’s show featured several songs from it – Angels of Fenway, Montana, and Today, Today, Today, each of which received an extra decibel of applause. Angels of Fenway relates his experience of the 2004 Boston Red Sox’ release from the “curse of the Bambino” when they overcame an 0-3 deficit to beat the New York Yankees for their first championship since selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920.

Beatles sign James Taylor to Apple records 1968

James Taylor and his band performed at Tanglewood on July 4, 2015 (Hilary Scott)
James Taylor and his band performed at Tanglewood on July 4, 2015 (Hilary Scott)
Introducing the other new songs, Taylor said that as is the case with so many of his songs, they too reference his 1968 Apple/Beatles bonanza, when, despite doubts and frustrations, he knew he was “the luckiest guy on the planet.” His demo had gotten the attention of Peter Asher, which led to an audition with the Beatles at the same time as when they were recording the White Album! Since then, he seems to have done all he could to justify that luck, producing a body of work that manifests his sense of gratitude.

Having attended many of the 24 concerts he has performed at Tanglewood, we can attest to his consistent generosity, toward both toward his fans in the audience and his fellow musicians on stage. He always answers a few shouts from the auidience during the set – “thank you, sir, love you, too” – “yup, we’re gonna do that one” holding up the setlist, which today ran to 25 songs, including 3 in the “encore” portion. While the band was offstage during the 20 minute intermission, James taylor stayed busy working the stage rim, signing autographs and mugging for cellphone snapshots.

  • James Taylor at Tanglewood – July 4, 2015 setlist
  • Wandering
  • Secret Of Life
  • Angels of Fenway
  • Country Road
  • Montana
  • Me and My Guitar
  • Fool to Care
  • Carolina In My Mind
  • Bartender’s Blues
  • Smiling Face
  • Fire and Rain
  • Shed a Little Light
  • Rio
  • I Will Follow
  • Whenever You’re Ready
  • Steamroller
  • Today, Today, Today
  • Before this World
  • Jolly Springtime
  • Sweet Baby James
  • Mexico
  • How Sweet It Is
  • Knock On Wood
  • Sun On The Moon
  • You and I