Tanglewood August 21 – 23, 2009: End of Symphony Season — Not to Be Missed!

from the Boston Symphony website

"Kurt Masur Conducts Beethoven and Mendelssohn

Kurt Masur opens the BSO's final Tanglewood weekend August 21 leading two classical masterworks, Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 and Haydn's Symphony No. 88. The program's centerpiece is a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25 in C, featuring the BSO debut of one of Mr. Masur's favorite collaborators, the young French pianist David Fray. Mr. Fray has received numerous prizes and awards, and was BBC Music Magazine's "Newcomer of the Year" in 2008.

August 22, 2009 8:30 PM Kurt Masur dedicates a concert to showcasing the music of one of his most admired composers, Felix Mendelssohn. This BSO program features Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4, Italian, one of the composer's most beloved works, evoking the warm climes of the Mediterranean, as well as The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) Overture, begun during a visit to the Hebrides archipelago off the coast of Scotland. The evening's centerpiece is Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, featuring one of the BSO's most popular guest artists, the American violinist Gil Shaham.

Michael Tilson Thomas Conducts Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

On August 23, Michael Tilson Thomas leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra's final program of the 2009 festival season, the annual grand finale performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. The masterwork features 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. The program begins with Ives' Decoration Day, the composer's stirring ode to Memorial Day."

The Friday and Saturday concerts are at 8:30 p.m. and are streamed on WAMC. The Sunday concert is at 2:30. It is also streamed on WAMC; and WGBH streams it with a "pre-game show" beginning at 2:00. All times are Eastern.

More info is available at the website on the Tanglewood pages.

Tanglewood August 14 – 16, 2009

August 14 - 16 at Tanglewood 

"Michael Tilson Thomas Returns to Tanglewood

 One of the most highly anticipated guests at Tanglewood this season is Michael Tilson Thomas, who returns to the festival and the BSO for the first time in two decades, leading the BSO in two programs, August 14 and 23. His first program August 14 initiates a weekend highlighted by three great Romantic piano concertos, as he conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra and soloist Yefim Bronfman in Rachmaninoff's tempestuous Piano Concerto No.3, on a program with Shostakovich's Symphony No.5.

  

André Previn and Kurt Masur at Tanglewood

On August 15, André Previn collaborates with the Boston Symphony and 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.

Kurt Masur takes to the podium Sunday afternoon, August 16, to lead an all-Brahms program including the Piano Concerto No. 2, with Garrick Ohlsson as soloist.. The program's second half is the composer's bucolic Symphony No. 2."

There will be streams over the web as usual. 

Welcome — August 13, 2009: hernima

I see by my dashboard that I have a new follower on this blog, hernima, who joined a couple of days ago. I don't have any other information, and I don't find anything telling me that hernima has a blog. (If you do, please let me know and I can plug it, link it, if appropriate, and follow.)

So welcome, hernima. Thanks for following. I hope you find interesting things here. You might also want to take a peek at my other blog, Naturgesetz: Catholic and Homosexual.

Tanglewood August 7 – 9, 2009

Well, I was so distracted by my sister-in-law's visit that I forgot about Tanglewood until after the Friday night show, but it was the Boston Pops, which didn't interest me much. Sorry if you wish you had known. Tonight we get Prokofieff and Orff and various composers on Sunday afternoon. I expect the normal streams to be available. Here's a summary from the BSO's website.

August 7 - 9 at Tanglewood 

The Boston Pops Orchestra under Keith Lockhart ushers in Week 6 of Tanglewood with a concert August 7 featuring the Tanglewood debut of extraordinary pop/jazz trumpeter Chris Botti. Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos leads the BSO in a pair of early 20th-century classics—Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1, Classical, and Orff’s Carmina burana, on August 8.  The performance of Carmina burana will feature soprano Laura Claycomb, tenor Lawrence Brownlee, and baritone Markus Werba, all making their BSO debuts, as well as the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, John Oliver, conductor. The always-popular Yo-Yo Ma performs the Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 and the Fauré Elégie on August 9, with BSO Assistant Conductor Julian Kuerti. The program also includes Bizet’s Symphony in C and George Perle’s Sinfonietta No. 2, the latter as part of the Festival of Contemporary Music.