Dave Read

The fourth week of the Tanglewood this season, James Levine’s last, will have him conducting three major programs. On July 24, Maestro Levine leads Berlioz’s Le Corsaire Overture and Harold in Italy, with BSO principal violist Steven Ansell, on a program with the Prelude to Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina and the dramatic Pictures at an Exhibition (orchestrated by Ravel).

Last fall’s Symphony Hall performance of Brahms’s A German Requiem, will be reprised July 25, with Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski and German baritone Matthias Goerne, along with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.

On July 26 and 27, Levine conducts the Tanglewood Music Center Vocal Fellows and Orchestra, with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, in a fully-staged production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, sung in Italian with English supertitles. There also wiil be a third performance on July 29, led by a Tanglewood Music Center Conducting Fellow.

Scheduled for July 26 is conductor David Robertson and the BSO along with baritone Thomas Hampson and pianist Orli Shaham for an all-American program, Harris’s Symphony No. 3, Thomson’s Five Songs from William Blake, Barber Songs with Orchestra, and Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety.

James Levine, Keith Lockhart, John Williams, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, and Leonard Slatkin share the podium on Tuesday July 28 for the annual Tanglewood on Parade. They will take turns conducting the BSO, the TMCO, and the Boston Pops on a program highlighted by a TMCO performance of the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, programmed in honor of Leonard Bernstein’s 90th birthday year. Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture followed by a dazzling fireworks display ends the day-long celebration of music and TMC fund-raiser (and unofficial fancy picnic championship).

On July 30, Sir James Galway gives an Ozawa Hall recital joined by his wife, flutist Lady Jeanne Galway, and longtime collaborator, pianist Phillip Moll as part of his 70th birthday celebration, .

The schedule for the fifth week of the 2009 Tanglewood season, July 31-August 5, 2009, features guest conductor, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, frequent guest Sir James Galway and the Mark Morris Dance Group.

Spanish conductor Rafael Frunhbeck de Burgos, who is celebrating his 75th birthday, returns for two programs. On July 31, he leads the BSO in two French masterpieces, Debussy’s La Mer and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2, on a program with the Beethoven Violin Concerto that will be performed by Vadim Repin.

Then on August 3, Maestro de Burgos conducts the the Tanglewood Music Center Vocal and Conducting Fellows and Orchestra in a program of Stravinsky’s complete Pulcinella, and the suite from the 1919 version of The Firebird. The program will also feature Peter Serkin performing Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Winds, under the direction of a Tanglewood Music Center Conducting Fellow.

On August 1, Sir James Galway celebrates his 70th birthday with a musical party under the direction of Leonard Slatkin. It will feature the BSO and special surprise guests with a repertoire that includes Debussy’s Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun, Copland’s Appalachian Spring, the overture to Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and the Flute Concerto No. 2.

Former BSO assistant conductor Thomas Dausgaard returns August 2, for the first time since 1995, to conduct The Serge and Olga Koussevitsky Memorial Concert, featuring Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, of Norway.

On August 5 and 6, the Mark Morris Dance Group will present two world premieres at Tanglewood, featuring performances by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianist Emanuel Ax, and violinist Colin Jacobsen. One dance is set to Charles Ives’s Trio for piano, violin and cello, while the other is set to Beethoven’s late Sonata No. 4 for cello and piano, Op. 104. The program also includes Morris’s A Lake, choreographed to the Haydn Horn Concerto No. 2 and performed by Tanglewood Music Center Fellows.

Trumpeter Chris Botti’s debut appearance with the Boston Pops on August 7, under the direction of Keith Lockhart, highlights week six of the Tanglewood schedule, August 7-12, 2009.

Conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos ends his summer at Tanglewood with a provocative pair of early 20th-century classics—Prokofiev’s charming Symphony No. 1, Classical, and Orff’s rousing Carmina burana, featuring soprano Laura Claycomb, tenor Lawrence Brownlee, and baritone Markus Werba, all making their BSO debuts (Aug. 8). The Tanglewood Festival Chorus, John Oliver, conductor, will be featured as well.

Following his performances with the Mark Morris Dance Group, the always popular Yo-Yo Ma performs the Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 and the Fauré Elegie with BSO Assistant Conductor Julian Kuerti, on a program also featuring Bizet’s Symphony in C and George Perle’s Sinfonietta No. 2, the latter as part of the Festival of Contemporary Music (Aug. 9).

The remarkable versatility of André Previn is showcased in an Ozawa Hall program by the Boston Symphony Chamber Players (Aug. 12). The ensemble reprises a new work by Previn, premiered in Boston at Jordan Hall in March, and Previn plays piano in the Brahms Quintet in F minor for piano and strings. Villa-Lobos’ Quintette en forme de chôros, for wind quintet, rounds out the program.

The schedule for the seventh week of the 2009 Tanglewood season, August 14-20, 2009, features three guest conductors with significant ties to Tanglewood, Michael Tilson Thomas, Andre Previn, and Kurt Masur.

Tanglewood Music Center alumnus Michael Tilson Thomas, who was a protege of Leonard Bernstein, returns to the Tanglewood festival for the first time since 1988. His first program, August 14, initiates a weekend highlighted by three great Romantic piano concertos, as he conducts Rachmaninoff’s tempestuous Piano Concerto No. 3, performed by Yefim Bronfman, on a program with Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5.

Tilson Thomas’ second program is a project especially dear to his heart. The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theatre is a musical homage to his grandparents, who were leading performers in Yiddish theater in the ’20s and ’30s (Aug. 19 and 20). This lively Ozawa Hall program is scripted and narrated by Tilson Thomas, who also plays piano and conducts. It features the original performers who helped with the show’s creation in 2005: Judy Blazer, Neal Benari, Ronit Widmann-Levy, and Eugene Brancoveanu, all making their Tanglewood debuts. Pat Birch directs.

Frequent Tanglewood guest Andre Previn returns August 15 to collaborate with one of his favorite soloists, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, in Liszt’s poetic Piano Concerto No. 2, on a program with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 and Ravel’s La Valse. Previn goes back to his early jazz piano roots with a special evening of standards in Ozawa Hall on August 16 in a concert with longtime collaborator bassist David Finck.

Kurt Masur takes the podium Sunday afternoon August 16 to lead the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in an all-Brahms program focusing on music that is at the very heart of his repertoire: the Brahms Symphony No. 2 and the Piano Concerto No. 2, with Garrick Ohlsson as soloist.

Augusta Read Thomas will direct the 2009 Festival of Contemporary Music at the Tanglewood Music Center, which will take place August 7-11. The focus will be on works by young composers, including three world premieres, and will also include works by composers not frequently heard at Tanglewood. Also, masterworks of the 20th and 21st centuries by distinguished senior composers are scheduled to be presented.

Only works by living composers have been programmed by Ms. Thomas. Another theme will be the contemporary piano, and the Fromm Concert at Tanglewood will be performed by the exceptional English pianist Nicolas Hodges. The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s contribution to the 2009 Festival of Contemporary Music will be a performance of George Perle’s Sinfonietta No. 2, under the direction of BSO Assistant Conductor Julian Kuerti on August 9.

Further details about the Festival of Contemporary Music will be announced at a later date.

The schedule for the final week of the 2009 Tanglewood season will include Kurt Masur on August 21 conducting the BSO on a program with Haydn’s Symphony No. 88 and the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 25 in C, with pianist David Fray, making his BSO debut.

The following night features Masur leading Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, Italian, The Hebrides (Fingal’s Cave) Overture, and the Violin Concerto, with violinist Gil Shaham.

The final program of the BSO’s 2009 Tanglewood season will be the annual performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, with conductor and Tanglewood Music Center alumnus Michael Tilson Thomas, with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, soprano Erin Wall and mezzo-soprano Kendall Gladen in their BSO debuts, tenor Stuart Skelton in his Tanglewood debut, and bass-baritone Raymond Aceto on Aug. 23. The program begins with a movement from Ives’s Thanksgiving and Forefathers’ Day, for chorus and orchestra (from his Holiday Symphony).