The problem with making a list of Tanglewood summer highlights is that almost nothing on the schedule qualifies as a lowlight, not even soloists or composers we've never heard of.
In one fell swoop, Tanglewood became a year-round venue for the first time in its 82-year history when it launched the new Linde Center for Music and Learning in the summer of 2019.
Through Verdi’s affecting search for the meaning of life and the devastation of loss, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus served brilliantly as a Greek chorus of legend.
Verdi's Requiem is for human voices, and it was ultimately the soloists and members of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus who made the BSO's 2013 Tanglewood performance of this piece successful.
Had composer and conductor Oliver Knussen not died in Suffolk last year at the age of 66, he would have presided over this year’s Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. It seemed fitting as well that the first sounds to put the new hall to test were Knussen’s stunning 'Prequel to Opening Signal.'
The opera is famous not so much for its plot as for its melodies, which make it one of Puccini’s most accessible works and an ideal starting point for opera newbies.
The West Stockbridge Chamber Players will perform a harvest concert Nov. 1. Led by clarinetist and artistic director Catherine Hudgins, the West Stockbridge Chamber Players is an ensemble made up of Boston- and Berkshire-based musicians. The concert will feature works by Beethoven, Martinů, and Mozart.
Perhaps, however, in playing this piece year after year to close the Tanglewood season, the BSO has forgotten what a pregnant masterpiece it really is.
