Tanglewood Highlights Open Season
Schedule from June 21 to July 18
By: BSO - May 23, 2013
TANGLEWOOD KICKS OFF 2013 SEASON WITH A WEEKEND OF POPULAR MUSIC CONCERTS: MELISSA ETHERIDGE, JUNE 21; WARREN HAYNES AND THE BOSTON POPS PERFORMING A JERRY GARCIA SYMPHONIC TRIBUTE, JUNE 22; AND JOAN BAEZ AND THE INDIGO GIRLS, JUNE 23; TERENCE BLANCHARD GROUP PERFORMS IN OZAWA HALL, JUNE 28;GARRISON KEILLOR’S PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION RETURNS ON JUNE 29; JACKSON BROWNE, WITH SPECIAL GUEST SARA WATKINS, PERFORMS ON JULY 4
Grammy- and Oscar-winning American rock singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge opens the 2013 Tanglewood season on Friday, June 21, at 7 p.m., bringing her mixture of personal lyrics, pop-based folk-rock, and smoky vocals to the Shed. She’ll be joined by special guest, American singer-songwriter Eric Hutchinson .
On Saturday, June 22, Tanglewood will present the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration, a new symphonic project celebrating American musical icon Jerry Garcia, featuring Warren Haynes (The Allman Brothers Band, The Dead, and Gov’t Mule) with the Boston Pops under the direction of Keith Lockhart on Saturday, June 22, 2013, at 8.30 p.m. in the Shed. This groundbreaking orchestral adventure will feature new orchestral arrangements of Jerry Garcia’s storied original compositions as well as classic interpretations of timeless standards that were hallmarks of Garcia’s shows. Wrapping up opening weekend, American folk singer Joan Baez and folk-rock duo the Indigo Girls perform a special concert in the Shed on Sunday, June 23, at 2:30 p.m.
On Friday, June 28, The Terence Blanchard Group , featuring New Orleans’ jazz trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard , will give the season’s first jazz performance in Ozawa Hall. Mr. Blanchard first performed at Tanglewood during the Jazz Festival on August 31, 2008.
On Saturday, June 29, American Public Media’s A Prairie Home Companion returns once again to the Tanglewood grounds for the program’s annual live broadcast from the Koussevitzky Music Shed. Host Garrison Keillor and a colorful cast of friends from the shores of Lake Wobegon will take the stage for this Tanglewood tradition, a favorite for audiences since A Prairie Home Companion was first broadcast live from the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home in 1998. On July 4, Tanglewood will hold its annual Fourth of July popular artist concert this year featuring American singer-songwriter Jackson Browne and special guest Sara Watkins, with festive fireworks following the concert.
WEEK 1, JULY 5–11
VIRTUOSO VIOLINIST JOSHUA BELL JOINS THE BSO AND CONDUCTOR RAFAEL FRÜHBECK DE BURGOS TO OPEN THE ORCHESTRA’S 2013 TANGLEWOOD SEASON ON JULY 5 WITH AN ALL-TCHAIKOVSKY PROGRAM; VOCALIST ANNE-SOFIE VON OTTER JOINS BSO FOR MAHLER’S THIRD SYMPHONY ON JULY 6; KEITH LOCKHART LEADS THE BOSTON POPS WITH COUNTRY SINGER VINCE GILL ON JULY 7; AND THE ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS OF EMMANUEL MUSIC BRING JOHN HARBISON’S OPERA THE GREAT GATSBY TO OZAWA HALL ON JULY 11
The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 76th Tanglewood season starts on Friday, July 5, with an all-Tchaikovsky program featuring violin virtuoso Joshua Bell , a regular Tanglewood guest since 1989, in the composer’s beloved Violin Concerto. Maestro Frühbeck will also lead the BSO in the composer’s Symphony No. 5. The following evening, he will lead the BSO and the women of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, joined by mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter in Mahler’s Symphony No. 3.
On Sunday, July 7, Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops return to the Shed stage for a program featuring American country superstar Vince Gill. The Country Music Hall of Famer’s career spans three decades and includes countless hit songs, including “Don’t Let Our Love Start Slippin’ Away,” “When I Call Your Name,” and “Whenever You Come Around.”
On Thursday, July 11, the orchestra and chorus of Boston-based Emmanuel Music come to Ozawa Hall for John Harbison’s opera, The Great Gatsby, as part of Tanglewood’s 75th birthday tribute to the composer. The concert performance will be led by Emmanuel Music artistic director Ryan Turner and will feature tenor Gordon Gietz as Jay Gatsby and soprano Devon Guthrie as Daisy Buchanan. Writing the opera on a commission for the Metropolitan Opera, Mr. Harbison, Emmanuel Music’s former artistic director and a composer with close ties to the BSO and Tanglewood, adapted his own libretto from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel, creating an evocation of the Roaring Twenties: the giddy jazz-inspired pop songs, the madcap dances, the omnipresent radio. Mr. Harbison underpins the frivolity with themes of romantic obsession, casual cruelty, corruption, betrayal, and death.
WEEK 2, JULY 12–18
DAVID NEWMAN LEADS THE BSO IN BERNSTEIN’S WEST SIDE STORY ALONGSIDE THE NEWLY REMASTERED FILM JULY 13; PIANIST LEON FLEISHER JOINS ORCHESTRA FOR RAVEL’S PIANO CONCERTO FOR LEFT HAND ON JULY 12; LYNN HARRELL JOINS RAFAEL FRÜHBECK DE BURGOS AND THE BSO JULY 14; BARITONE BRYN TERFEL PERFORMS OZAWA HALL RECITAL JULY 18
Japanese conductor Kazushi Ono makes his Tanglewood debut with the BSO on July 12 to lead a program in the tradition of musical storytelling, featuring Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, composed as a birthday present for his second wife, Cosima, after the birth of their son; and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, inspired by Arabian Nights. At the heart of the program is Ravel’s Piano Concerto in D for the left hand, a piece written in 1929 and 1930 for Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm during World War I. The great American pianist Leon Fleisher, who celebrates his 85th birthday in July 2013, is soloist.
The cinematic magic of West Side Story comes alive at Tanglewood on Saturday, July 13, when conductor David Newman , in his BSO debut, leads the orchestra in a live performance of Bernstein’s electrifying score while the newly re-mastered film is shown on large screens in high definition with the original vocals and dialogue intact. Directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, West Side Story won ten Academy Awards©—more than any other musical film—including Best Picture. Released in 1961 with choreography by Jerome Robbins and a screenplay by Ernest Lehman, the film is one of the greatest achievements in the history of movie musicals.
On Sunday, July 14, guest conductorRafael Frühbeck de Burgos returns to the Shed stage for the second week in a row, leading the BSO in Stravinsky’s neoclassical Suite from Pulcinella and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8. Cellist Lynn Harrell joins the orchestra for Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in C.
On Wednesday, July 17, the venerable Moscow-based Borodin String Quartet (now in its 68th year) will perform Brahms’s Quartet No. 3 in B-flat, Op. 67, and Tchaikovsky’s Quartet No. 3 in E-flat minor, Op. 30, in Ozawa Hall. The following evening, Thursday, July 18, Welsh opera great Bryn Terfel will present a recital of German and English art songs. Pianist Natalia Katyukova, a participant in the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, will join the renowned baritone for this program.