John Williams World Premiere, Chamber Music By Ax-Kavakos-Ma and More Among Upcoming Tanglewood Highlights

The Boston Symphony will return to Tanglewood, its summer home in the beautiful Berkshires since 1937, and to welcome back audiences, July 4-August 26, for the first time since March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a 15-month performance hiatus. The shorter, six-week Tanglewood season is designed to capture the essential Tanglewood experience, with performances by the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, and Tanglewood Music Center orchestras, preeminent guest artists of our time, and notable chamber music and large ensembles. Tanglewood will also present the 2021 Popular Artist series (click here for press release) and the 2021 Boston Pops July 4 Spectacular.

BSO/Boston Pops Performances, July 23-August 1

Film music continues to grow in popularity, thanks in large part to our very own John Williams, who reinvigorated the art form for the modern era and whose compelling music continues to delight and thrill audiences around the world, both in and out of the movie theater. On July 23, Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Orchestra salute the world's best-known film composer with a program that includes familiar and less-familiar music, as well as exclusive filmed interviews with the master himself.

The following evening, July 24, brings what is sure to be a major highlight of the season as John Williams leads the world premiere of his Violin Concerto No. 2, with returning guest Anne-Sophie Mutter as soloist. For this performance, Mr. Williams shares the podium with BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons, who leads Copland's Quiet City-with BSO English horn Robert Sheena and BSO principal trumpet Thomas Rolfs as soloists-American composer Jessie Montgomery's Starburst, and Stravinsky's Firebird Suite (1919 version).

Please note: Through a partnership between the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Deutsche Grammophon, along with broadcast distributor C Major Entertainment, Tanglewood's July 24 performance will be available from July 25 as a global video stream on the DG Stage platform (www.dg-stage.com) as well as through ARTE in Germany and France, a leading European public broadcaster and digital service that promotes cultural programming throughout the continent. This concert will also be made available on additional broadcast outlets in Europe, as well as in Asia and the U.S., with further details to be announced at a later date.

On July 25, Andris Nelsons leads Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3, with returning pianist Yefim Bronfman as soloist, and Schumann's Symphony No. 4. Opening this program is the Beethoven-inspired work Jeder Baum spricht (Every Tree Speaks) by Iman Habibi. The Iranian-Canadian composer was one of several commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra as part of its celebration of Beethoven's 250th birthday. The work-representing the composer's imagining of Beethoven's response to the climate crisis-was influenced in part by the "Pastoral" Symphony and the "fate" motif of the Fifth Symphony.

BSO Artistic Partner Thomas Adès, who also directs this year's Festival of Contemporary Music, leads the BSO on July 31 in his own O Albion, an arrangement for string orchestra of a movement from his 1994 Arcadiana for string quartet. Distinguished pianist Kirill Gerstein joins Mr. Adès and the orchestra for Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Winds, and rounding out the program are two Haydn symphonies-No. 64, Tempora mutantur, and No. 45, Farewell.

TMC alumnus Alan Gilbert returns to the Tanglewood podium on August 1 to lead the BSO in Schumann's The Bride of Messina Overture (which the composer characterized as a "theater overture" to the Schiller tragedy), Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 with American violinist Stefan Jackiw as soloist, and the Serenade for orchestra by Swedish composer/conductor/pianist Wilhelm Stenhammar.

2021 Festival of Contemporary Music, Sunday, July 25 - Monday, July 26

BSO Artistic Partner Thomas Adès is in his third summer as Director of the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood; he also holds the title Merwin Geffen, M.D., and Norman Solomon, M.D., Festival of Contemporary Music Director. This mini-FCM-three concerts instead of the usual seven or so-nonetheless includes 12 composers from seven countries-the U.S., Hungary, Scotland, England, Finland, Denmark, and China. Excepting György Ligeti (1923-2006), all the composers are living, spanning the generations from Ligeti and György Kurtág (both born in the 1920s) to the young Chinese composer Xinyang Wang (b. 1989).

Three of the composers-Judith Weir, Sean Shepherd, and Andrew Haig-are former TMC Fellows. Andrew Haig's piece is a co-commission stemming from the partnership between the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. The piece was written to be performed by both the Gewandhaus Orchestra's Mendelssohn Academy Orchestra and the Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center; it receives its American premiere performance on July 25. The performance of Xinyang Wang's Between the Resonating Abysses will be a world premiere.

Mr. Adès has once again favored composers whose reputations have skirted mainstream stylistic currents. The individualism of such older composers as Ligeti, Kurtág, Steve Reich, and Per Nørgård set a high standard for younger generations-including that of Adès himself-to solve their own unique artistic and expressive problems. The resulting programs vary widely in musical voice ranging in size from duos (Kurtág, Nørgård's two-clarinet Hut Ab!) to orchestral. Instrumental Fellows work with their conducting colleagues as well as Mr. Adès and TMC conducting faculty head Stefan Asbury; they also have the opportunity to perform with concerto soloists-the acclaimed violinist Anthony Marwood in Ligeti's concerto, and TMC Fellow Momo Wong, violin, in Kaija Saariaho's Graal théatre. Of special interest to close the festival is Reich/Richter, a large ensemble score by Steve Reich accompanying the film Moving Picture by Corinna Betz and the famed German painter Gerhard Richter.

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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