Boston Symphony Orchestra's Tanglewood 2021 Season Begins On July 10

The Boston Symphony will return to Tanglewood, its summer home in the beautiful Berkshires since 1937, and welcoming back audiences, July 9-August 16, for the first time since March 2020.

At that time, the orchestra was forced to cancel all live performances with audiences, beginning with its concert schedule at Symphony Hall and extending to the 2020 Tanglewood season and beyond, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sixteen months later, the BSO looks forward with great optimism to reopening and reimagining Tanglewood this summer-presenting a shorter, six-week season designed to capture the essential Tanglewood experience, with performances by the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, and Tanglewood Music Center orchestras, many of the most preeminent guest artists of our time, and special chamber music and large ensemble groups greatly admired for the power and inspiration of their artistic gifts. Tanglewood is also pleased to present the 2021 Popular Artist series and the 2021 Boston Pops July 4 Spectacular.

The BSO's season-opening concert on July 10-reuniting the orchestra and its audience-will be especially meaningful to everyone associated with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. For the special occasion, the BSO will perform an all-Beethoven program-a belated 250th-birthday celebration-led by Music Director Andris Nelsons and featuring a treasured guest artist, Emanuel Ax. First on the program is The Creatures of Prometheus Overture, followed by Mr. Ax joining the BSO for the Emperor Concerto. To end this reopening concert, Andris Nelsons leads the Symphony No. 5-the work Serge Koussevitzky chose in 1937 to open the very first BSO concert in the Berkshires. It seems most appropriate to mark the orchestra's triumphant return to its summer home and welcome audiences back to live performances this way.

On July 11 Mr. Nelsons is joined by one of his frequent collaborators, Latvian violinist Baiba Skride, who is soloist in Sibelius' evocative Violin Concerto. For the opening work on this program, African-American composer Carlos Simon was inspired by the Allegretto movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony to write Fate Now Conquers, taking the title from a diary entry in which the earlier composer alluded to Homer's Iliad. Closing the Sunday-afternoon concert is Dvořák's Symphony No. 6.

On July 9, the first Tanglewood weekend kicks off with a return appearance by The Knights, who perform a typically eclectic program that opens with Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin, continues with Crisis Modes by Vijay Iyer, an American composer of Indian descent, and a selection from jazz legend Mary Lou Williams' Zodiac Suite for piano and orchestra, and concludes with Gershwin's masterwork, Rhapsody in Blue. Aaron Diehl makes his Tanglewood debut as the featured piano soloist.

During this reduced concert season, the BSO remains deeply committed to its essential educational, outreach, and innovative programs. The Tanglewood Music Center-the BSO's acclaimed summer music academy since 1940-and the Tanglewood Learning Institute-launched in 2019 and offering a wide spectrum of programs designed to engage curious minds-are each integral to the identity of the festival, as are the activities that involve the community and resonate with families and young audiences, who can attend the festival through Tanglewood's free lawn ticket program for those under 18 years of age.

The BSO will also present online content for many of its well-known education programs at Tanglewood, including the Tanglewood Music Center, Tanglewood Learning Institute, Days in the Arts (DARTS), and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (presented by Boston University). Click here to view details of these online programs.

Tanglewood in the City-especially created for the local community-will feature a BSO video concert to be projected onto screens on the Pittsfield Common on Saturday, July 17, at 7 p.m., preceded by pre-concert live performances by Kids 4 Harmony and the Eagles Community Band. This special event-now in its second year- is being presented in partnership with Mill Town Capital. The program will include Ellington's Harlem, Copland's Lincoln Portrait with narrator John Douglas Thomson, Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F with soloist Kirill Gerstein (left), and John Harbison's Remembering Gatsby: Foxtrot for Orchestra based on his highly acclaimed opera The Great Gatsby, under the direction of guest conductor Jacques Lacombe. The rain date for this video concert is Sunday, July 18, at 5 p.m.; information about a rain date, if needed, will be available the weekend of July 17 at www.tanglewood.org.

Thanks to sponsorship from Berkshire Medical Center, Boston Symphony Orchestra musicians will be featured in Community Pop-Up Concerts at three Berkshire Health facilities, in honor of medical professionals throughout the region; these performances are open to the public. Performing outside their usual orchestra roles, participating BSO members will take part in noon-time solo and chamber music performances at the Berkshire Medical Center Health in Pittsfield on July 7; Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington on July 27; and the BMC Satellite Emergency Facility in North Adams on August 8 (rain dates for these programs are July 9 and 27 and August 6, at 3 p.m.).

Online Concert Streaming of Tanglewood Performances at bso.org/now

For the first time in the history of the Tanglewood festival, the live performance schedule will be accompanied by select weekly live video concert streams, available throughout the summer on the orchestra's online streaming portal-BSO NOW, at bso.org/now-as a way of engaging music lovers, locally and globally, who are not able to attend Tanglewood's live performances. BSO NOW video concert streams featuring select BSO Saturday-night performances and Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra Monday-evening performances will be available online beginning eight days after the live performances take place, July 9-August 16, and remain available for 30 days.

Views can extend their Saturday night BSO concert experience through the Tanglewood Learning Institute's ShopTalks series, hosted by TLI Director Sue Elliott and featuring candid conversations with conductors, soloists, and composers, prior to each live concert stream at 5 p.m.; also available on video on demand during the 30-day period each concert stream is available at bso.org/now. Further details about the TLI's summer programs are available at tli.org. Programs are subject to change, pending artist approvals.

There are several purchasing options for accessing BSO NOW online concert content: a 7-day pass is available for $9; a 30-day pass for $25, and a Season Pass for $100. In addition to the Tanglewood performances being made available throughout the summer, the Season Pass includes access to a wide variety of previously released online performances by the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops, among other available content.

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