Dave Read

Tanglewood 2013 daily schedule

Here is the Tanglewood 2013 daily schedule of concerts and special events, listing all Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, popular artists, and Tanglewood Music Center concerts. Tanglewood has been a leading cultural attraction for a long time and after a triumphant 75th season in the Berkshires last year, the following roster of concerts and special events looks very promising, even with James Taylor on sabbatical! More to download (PDF): 2013 Tanglewood brochure.

June 2013 Tanglewood schedule

Melissa Etheridge with Special Guest Eric Hutchinson – June 21, 2013 – 7pm – Shed
The Boston Pops performs a Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration – June 22, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
Joan Baez and the Indigo Girls – June 23, 2013 – 2:30pm – Shed
Tanglewood Family Fun Fest – June 28, 2013 – 3pm – Register here
Terence Blanchard Group – June 28, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood with Garrison Keillor – June 29, 2013 – 5:45pm – Shed
Tanglewood Music Center – Brass Extravaganza – June 30, 2013 – 10am

July 2013 Tanglewood schedule

TMC String Quartet Marathon – July 1, 2013 – 11am
Tanglewood Music Center – Vocal Concert – July 3, 2013 – 70pm
Jackson Browne with special guest Sara Watkins – July 4, 2013 – 7pm – Shed
Opening Night at Tanglewood: All-Tchaikovsky Program – July 5, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
Mahler Symphony No. 3 – July 6, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
Tanglewood Music Center – Chamber Concert – July 7, 2013 – 10am
Boston Pops Orchestra – July 7, 2013 – 2:30pm – Shed
Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra – July 8, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
BSO 101: A Free Adult Education Series at Tanglewood on Wednesday Afternoons, – July 10, etc. – 12:45 – 2:00pm
Tanglewood Music Center – Vocal Concert – July 10, 2013 – 8pm
Harbison, The Great Gatsby – Orchestra and Chorus of Emmanuel Music – July 11, 2013 – 7:30pm – Ozawa Hall
Wagner, Ravel and Rimsky-Korsakov: Underscore Friday – July 12, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
Bernstein West Side Story – July 13, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
Tanglewood Music Center – Chamber Concert – July 14, 2013 – 10am
Stravinsky, Haydn and Beethoven – July 14, 2013 – 2:30pm – Shed
Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra – July 15, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
Borodin String Quartet – July 17, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
Bryn Terfel – July 18, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
Wagner, Liszt, and Brahms – July 19, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
Wagner Die Walküre, Act 3 – July 20, 2013 – 2:30pm – Shed
Tanglewood Music Center – Chamber Concert – July 21, 2013 – 10am
Vivaldi, J.S. Bach and Telemann – July 21, 2013 – 2:30pm – Shed
Vocal Concert – July 21, 2013 – 7pm
Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra – July 22, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds Five and Guster – July 23, 2013 – 7pm – Shed
BSO 101: A Free Adult Education Series at Tanglewood on Wednesday Afternoons, – July 24 – 12:45 – 2:00pm
Mahler Chamber Orchestra – July 24, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
Garrick Ohlsson – July 25, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
All-Mozart Program – Berkshire Night – July 26, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
Verdi Requiem – July 27, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
Tanglewood Music Center – Chamber Concert – July 28, 2013 – 10am
Dvorák and Prokofiev – July 28, 2013 – 2:30pm – Shed
An Evening with Steve Miller Band – July 29, 2013 – 7pm – Shed
Film Screening – MOTOMASA Sumidagawa – July 30, 2013 – 8pm – Theatre
Mark Morris Dance Group and TMC Opera – July 31, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall

August 2013 Tanglewood schedule

Mark Morris Dance Group and TMC Opera – Aug. 1, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
Strauss, Beethoven and Poulenc – UnderScore Friday – Aug. 2, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
Ravel and Beethoven – Aug. 3, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
Tanglewood Music Center – Chamber Concert – Aug. 4, 2013 – 10am
Stravinsky and Dvo?ák, Yo Yo Ma – Aug. 4, 2013 – 2:30pm – Shed
Esperanza Spalding – Aug. 4, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
Tanglewood on Parade – Aug. 6, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
BSO 101: A Free Adult Education Series at Tanglewood on Wednesday Afternoons, – Aug. 7 – 12:45 – 2:00pm
Christian Zacharias – Aug. 7, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
Festival of Contemporary Music – Chamber Orchestra – Aug. 8, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
Festival of Contemporary Music – Chamber Music – Aug. 9, 2013 – 2:30pm – Ozawa Hall
Sibelius and Brahms – Aug. 9, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
Beethoven, Carter, and Brahms – Aug. 10, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
Festival of Contemporary Music, Chamber music – Aug. 11, 2013 – 10am
All-Beethoven Program – Aug. 11, 2013 – 2:30pm – Shed
Festival of Contemporary Music: Benjamin Written On Skin (U.S. premiere) – Aug. 12, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
Emerson String Quartet – Aug. 14, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
The Goat Rodeo Sessions – Aug. 15, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
The Boston Pops Orchestra – Michael Feinstein and Friends – Aug. 16, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
Mozart and Mahler – Aug. 17, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
Tanglewood Music Center – Chamber Concert – Aug. 18, 2013 – 10am
Mozart and Mahler – The Leonard Bernstein Memorial Concert – Aug. 18, 2013 – 2:30pm – Shed
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals with very special guest Josh Ritter – Aug. 19, 2013 – 7pm – Shed
Boston Symphony Chamber Players – Aug. 20, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
BSO 101: A Free Adult Education Series at Tanglewood – Aug. 21, 2013, 12:45 – 2:00pm
Daniil Trifonov – Aug. 22, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
Poulenc, Stravinsky and Beethoven – UnderScore Friday – Aug. 23, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
Tanglewood Family Concert – Aug. 24, 2013 – 2:30pm – Ozawa Hall
Film Night at Tanglewood – Aug. 24, 2013 – 8:30pm – Shed
One Day University at Tanglewood – Aug. 25, 2013 – 9am
Beethoven Symphony No. 9 – Aug. 25, 2013 – 2:30pm – Shed
Monty Alexander- Aug. 25, 2013 – 8pm – Ozawa Hall
Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! – Aug. 29, 2013 – 8pm – Shed
Donal Fox, Scarlatti Jazz Project – Aug. 31, 2013 – 1pm – Ozawa Hall
Harry Connick, Jr. – Aug. 31, 2013 – 7pm – Shed

September 2013 Tanglewood schedule

Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra – Sept.. 1, 2013 – 2:30pm – Shed

Phil Woods, Freddie Bryant, Greg Caputo headline Jazz weekend in Lee, MA

Phil Woods, Freddie Bryant, Greg Caputo headline the Berkshire Gateway Jazz Weekend, in downtown Lee, July 25-28. Berkshires Jazz, Inc. and Berkshire Gateway Preservation, Inc. have teamed-up to bring a full weekend of marquee performers, a jazz documentary film, and appearances by local jazz musicians to the town. Concert schedule opens at 6pm on Thursday, July 25 with the screening of “A Life in E Flat,” a biographical profile of the legendary alto saxophonist, NEA Jazz Master and 4-time Grammy winner Phil Woods. Through a special arrangement with Jazzed Media, producers of jazz films and CDs, the screening at the Lee Library on Main Street is free and open to the public.

Tickets for these two concerts, $25 each, or $40 for both, are on sale at the Chamber of Commerce information booth in downtown Lee; at Qwik Print, Great Barrington, and Wood Brothers store in Pittsfield and online at www.BerkshireGatewayJazz.com. Information at 413-243-1033.

Berkshire Gateway Jazz Weekend schedule Lee, MA July 25-28, 2013

Thursday, July 25, 6pm. Phil Woods bio-pic, “A Life in E Flat.” Lee Public Library. Free, sponsored by Jazzed Media.
Friday afternoon, July 26, 2-4pm. “Jazz in the Alley” with the Berkshire Jazz Collective, featuring Andy Wrba (WOOr-bah) and other musicians from the area. Free.
Friday evening, July 26, 8pm. Freddie Bryant and Kaleidoscope. First Congregational Church, 25 Park Place. ($25. Or, both Thursday and Saturday concerts for $40)
Saturday, July 27 “Jazz in the Alley” resumes at noon, with an outdoor art exhibit, plus a concert featuring a quintet of local jazz performers (including Rich Vinette, Stan Pyrzanowski, Josh Kleederman, Jack DiNicola and Ted Murray).
Saturday, July 27, 1pm: Andy Kelly’s Jazz Ambassadors, a roaming New Orleans-style group, will be strolling downtown in various locations along Main Street, kicking off at Baja Charlie’s and finishing in the alley next to Spectrum Theatre.
Exhibit: A Retrospective featuring artist John Lawson. Good Purpose Gallery, 40 Main St., Lee. Reception: Saturday July 27, 5-7 pm. Live music by Steve Dietmann and the Jazzmen Band.
Saturday, July 27, 7:30pm. Greg Caputo Big Band, “Benny Goodman to Gordon Goodwin.” With special guest Phil Woods. First Congregational Church, 25 Park Place. ($25. Or, both Thursday and Saturday headline concerts for $40)
Sunday July 28, Jazz Brunch at the Starving Artist Creperie, 40 Main St. 11am-1pm. Free.

Andris Nelsons cancels Tanglewood appearance

A highlight of the 2013 Tanglewood schedule was supposed to be the July 27 program with new BSO artistic director Andris Nelsons conducting the Boston Symphony in Verdi’s Requiem, but that has been canceled due to an accident Maestro Nelsons suffered at home. He was recently appointed the next Boston Symphony Orchestra Music Director, starting in the 2014-15 season. Here is the statement from Mark Volpe, BSO Managing Director:

“… Over the weekend, Mr. Nelsons was struck in the head by a door that unexpectedly swung open at his residence in Bayreuth, Germany, where he has been conducting at the festival. Mr. Nelsons is currently receiving medical attention at a hospital in Bayreuth. His doctors report that he is expected to make a full recovery but, as always with concussions, Mr. Nelsons has been strongly advised to take time out of his work schedule and not travel by plane at all at this time. It is therefore with a heavy heart that he is forced to withdraw from his Tanglewood performance.

Though this is disappointing news to all of us at the BSO, as well to the orchestra’s many supporters, we have every expectation that Mr. Nelsons will recover as quickly as possible and that we will see him in Boston in October for his scheduled concerts at Symphony Hall. Our thoughts are with Mr. Nelsons during this time of healing and recovery.”

Andris Nelsons expresses regrets

“Truly, I feel a great sense of sadness at not being able to come to Tanglewood this week to conduct the Verdi Requiem and to spend time amongst our great musical family, including Tanglewood’s wonderfully supportive audience. I will miss you all and am very sorry indeed that this very unfortunate accident prevents me from being there. I am grateful to be receiving the best possible medical attention and am currently resting well. I promise I will recover as soon as possible and very much look forward to coming back in good shape for my performances with the orchestra in October in Boston.”

An announcement about who will conduct Tanglewood’s July 27 performance of the Verdi Requiem will be forthcoming. Read more: 2013 Tanglewood schedule.

West Side Story at Tanglewood

July 13, 2013 performance; by Dave Read

Two nights after a merely modest audience was attracted to Tanglewood for the concert performance in Ozawa Hall of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby, an ungainly horde assembled at the Koussevitsky Music Shed for a screening of West Side Story with the Boston Symphony Orchestra playing the score. While some of that can be attributed to Thursday vs. Saturday scheduling, an audience disparity in the neighborhood of 8 – 1 cannot be overlooked. (See our review of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby)

Both programs featured genre-swapping hybrids with significant Tanglewood roots. The Great Gatsby was born a Book, became a Hollywood movie four times (plus TV movie and series), and an opera, when the Met commissioned it from Tanglewood Fellow, instructor, and administrator John Harbison in honor of former BSO Music Director James Levine.

West Side Story was an idea of choreographer Jerome Robbins who brought it to Leonard Bernstein, a member of the first class in 1940 of the Tanglewood Music Center. It opened on Broadway in 1957, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by Arthur Laurents. It won 2 Tonys out of 6 nominations; the 1961 movie won 10 of 11 Oscars. That doesn’t mean that the movie adaptation was that much better, but it sure was an overwhelming success.

Tonight’s presentation may be deserving of awards for the myriad technical work that it represents, deleting the orchestral score while maintaining the dialogue and lyrics, for example, but we found it somehow lacking. Rather than cohere into a unified artistic expression – a sensory experience of some measure, it remained in parts: 1. Leonard Bernstein’s score, 2. the heavily re-worked movie. (Besides, the Shed plus 15k patrons make for an infelicitous film venue.)

While these concerns colored the overall experience, they didn’t lessen the excitement of so many passages, particularly the brilliantly operatic songs America, Cool, which seemed to get an additional buoyancy from the orchestra’s masterful playing. The BSO, under David Newman’s muscular direction, delivered the tour de force performance required by so-varied a score. The orchestra was augmented tonight by mandolin, electric guitar, drum kit, and several additional brass players.

But, what’s the point of monkeying around with something that worked so well the first time around? Why not work up an Opera version, instead, which is the genre Bernstein originally proposed when Robbins told him he wanted to make a modern day version of Romeo and Juliet? And then schedule it for a Saturday night!

The usual Film night at Tanglewood, featuring a performance by the Boston Pops of music composed by John Williams for movies often directed by Steven Speilburg, is scheduled for Aug. 24; tonight’s conductor David Newman will return to the podium for that program.

The Great Gatsby John Harbison’s Opera performed at Tanglewood

July 11, 2013 performance; by Dave Read

The concert performance in Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood of The Great Gatsby, by the orchestra and chorus of Emmanuel Music, was so enjoyable that we’re tempted to propose a corollary to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s adage, There are no second acts in American lives, to wit, American novels can get third lives.

None of the movie versions of The Great Gatsby has achieved anything near the stature of the novel, but we think the opera has legs and can give the book a run for its money. Whereas Fitzgerald’s standing as a prose stylist cannot be ignored, his choices relating to plots and characters can make it easy to overlook his books. But it is precisely the contrivedly tragic plot and one-dimensional characters that make Gatsby such a good fit for Opera.

We particularly enjoyed the performance of baritone David Kravitz as Nick Carraway, the steady narrator, and we came to prize soprano Devon Guthrie, who got Daisy Buchanan off to a slow start, only to hit her stride and then practically blow the roof off the joint in the middle of Act ll.

Composer John Harbison, recipient this month of the BSO’s Horblit Award and present tonight, was commissioned in 1998 by the Metropolitan Opera to compose the opera in honor of James Levine’s 25th anniversary there. Since then, there have been several related projects including the compilation of a Gatsby Suite. In the program notes, Mr. Harbison, whose Tanglewood relationship includes stints as a TMC Conducting Fellow, faculty member and coordinator of the composition program, calls tonight’s performance a revival.

Ozawa Hall was a lovely accompanist for the performance on a rare comfortable July evening, with a near-capacity audience indoors and a good compliment of West Eggers peering on from the lawn.

Vince Gill with Boston Pops after Tanglewood thunderstorms

July 7, 2013 performance; by Dave Read

Vince Gill performs at Tanglewood with the Boston Pops and conductor Keith Lockhart. — Vince Gill performs at Tanglewood with the Boston Pops and conductor Keith Lockhart; Hilary Scott photo.

Opening weekend of the BSO’s 2013 Tanglewood schedule called for a performance by the Boston Pops with special guest Vince Gill; an ill-timed thunderstorm blew the planned program out the window. Instead of a 2:30 start for the Pops’ set of seven selections and a second set with Gill and his band after a 25 minute intermission, what transpired was a single 85 minute concert.

Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockart led the Pops through a truncated set designed to celebrate the American West. Besides two selections from Rodeo, by the familiar and decidedly unWestern Aaron Copland, the highlight of the set was Carmen Goes Country, a recent gift to the Boston Pops from its former principal arranger and Harmonica Rascal Richard Hayman.

Vince Gill mines the jazz vein

Vince Gill at Tanglewood with the Boston Pops and conductor Keith Lockhart. — Vince Gill at Tanglewood with the Boston Pops and conductor Keith Lockhart; Hilary Scott photo.

Vince Gill’s setlist included Whenever You Come Around, his paean to wife Amy Grant, and concluded with his lament for his brother, Go Rest High on That Mountain. His compositions were well adapted to the Pops’ accompaniment; often the result was a rich burnishing. The one exception was his new “legitimate jazz song” Faint of Heart, which got the endorsement of jazz diva Diana Krall, who sings it with him on his new album The Time Jumpers.

Placing a song from any musical genre within a symphonic setting is a risk almost always worth taking, at least for the sake of artistic curiosity. But when an artist is already stepping out from the comfort of his genre to experiment in another, taking the further step of giving it a symphonic wrap dulls the point of writing a jazz song in the first place. We look forward to hearing it late some night in a dingy roadhouse joint, which is the milieu it seemed to suggest, beneath the too-lush embellishment of the orchestra.

Gill is a friendly and funny guy who recalled his previous Tanglewood performance along with Amy Grant, when they were guests on a James Taylor program. Mentioning Taylor’s presence for this concert, he said that singing Sweet Baby James with him was a dream come true.