ciated with Tanglewood are planned. Some, by Michael Gandolfi, André Previn, and John Harbison, are brief concert openers. The world premiere of Edgar Meyer’s Double Concerto for Violin and Double Bass is slated for July 7; a Tanglewood Music Center-commissioned work by Gunther Schuller will be played by the TMC
Norman Timonera
Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, home of Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival
Ravinia Festival
pressure to have more popular programming. The innkeepers would love it: on the annual James Taylor weekend”—Taylor plays three concerts over the July 4 weekend—“we have 17,000-plus people for each concert; they back up the Massachusetts Turnpike for miles.” To accommodate that demand, Tanglewood has gradually expanded the season before
Programming a summer orchestra festival is an art of its own, with different parameters than those of the winter season. the winter season, which are fresh in their minds,” says Anthony Fogg, the BSO’s artistic administrator, who devises the programming with Volpe and input from the marketing department. This summer, for the anniversary, eight world premieres of commissioned pieces by composers assoamericanorchestras.org
Orchestra on July 8. Three commissioned works by former TMC Fellows are also slated. The BSO presents large-scale events at Tanglewood, such as this summer’s Damnation of Faust and La Vida Breve; top-drawing soloists, like Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax, are The Boston Symphony Orchestra in performance regulars. Tanglewood can also make at Tanglewood, 2011. The summer home of the space for programs with less than Boston Symphony Orchestra celebrates its 75th blockbuster appeal, however. “Ozawa anniversary this July. Hall, which opened in 1994, changed Tanglewood,” Volpe says. “We can a niche audience as well as a more casual program everything from a John Williams crowd. For new audiences, old music may movie event to a student concert with 22 be new; some portion of the “old” audience people.” The annual Festival of Contemmay want actual new music. porary Music has benefitted from the building of this additional venue. This five-day, six-program festival, co-directed Downtown, Uptown this year by John Harbison and Oliver What if a festival didn’t have to worry Knussen, attracts a dedicated crowd of about box-office income? The free tennew-music fans, and the small hall enables week outdoor Grant Park Music Festival Tanglewood to have it both ways, serving in Chicago is a case in point. The $4.8 Hilary Scott
and after the orchestra’s residency, into June and through Labor Day, presenting artists like Diana Krall, Garrison Keillor, and Chick Corea. “We have a mix of works that are core repertoire for the orchestra, as well as pieces that they’ve performed in Boston during
Tenor Salvatore Licitra (pictured, right) joined soprano Patricia Racette and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conductor James Conlon for Ravinia Festival’s semi-staged production of Puccini’s Tosca in 2011. That year was the 75th anniversary of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s summer residency at Ravinia Festival.
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