The Tanglewood Music Center, the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer academy for advanced music study, will present its annual Festival of Contemporary Music from July 19-25 in Lenox, Mass.
Directed by Chinese-American composer-conductor Bright Sheng, this year's Festival will focus on American music of the last 15 years, including works by John Adams, Elliot Carter, John Harbison, Leon Kirchner, George Perle, Steve Reich, and Joan Tower, and the world premiere of For Aaron, commissioned by the TMC from American composer Lukas Foss, a member of the first Tanglewood Music Center (then the Berkshire Music Center) class in 1940, who celebrates his 80th birthday this year.
Instead of a single composer-in-residence as in past summers, this year's FCM will feature the work of three composers - Mr. Sheng, Mr. Foss, and composer William Bolcom - in a prominent fashion. Chamber music by all three composers will be explored during the festival and a larger work by each will also be performed.
The 2002 Festival of Contemporary Music is an all-American festival, paying special attention to important American music of the past 15 years. The 2002 Festival will feature seven days of new music events ranging from instrumental and vocal chamber music to orchestral works, beginning July 19 with Federico Cortese leading the Boston Symphony and Sir James Galway in William Bolcom's Lyric Concerto, for flute and orchestra, and ending July 25 with the annual Fromm Concert at Tanglewood, this year celebrating Lukas Foss' 80th birthday with a concert performance of his opera Griffelkin, featuring the Boston Modern Orchestra Project under the direction of conductor Gil Rose.
Stefan Asbury will continue in the Festival as Associate Director for New Music Activities, and pianist Ursula Oppens and soprano Lucy Shelton, both TMC faculty members, will coordinate the Festival's instrumental and vocal chamber music.
Now in its 39th year, and a highlight of the Tanglewood season since its inception, the annual Festival of Contemporary Music features performances by Tanglewood Music Center Fellows, special guest artists, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with selected works featuring members of the TMC faculty. The Festival of Contemporary Music is made possible with the generous support of Dr. Raymond and Hannah H. Schneider, with additional support through grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Helen F. Whitaker Fund, and The Aaron Copland Fund for Music.
The 2002 Festival of Contemporary Music opens Friday, July 19, at 8:30 p.m. in the Koussevitzky Music Shed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra's contribution to this year's festival, a performance of William Bolcom's Lyric Concerto, for flute and orchestra, conducted by Federico Cortese and featuring Sir James Galway as soloist. This program opens with the Overture to Rossini's The Siege of Corinth and closes with Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4. Prior to this concert, BSO Concertmaster Malcolm Lowe will be joined by Mr. Bolcom, the latter on piano, in a Prelude Concert in Ozawa Hall at 6 p.m. This prelude is free to ticketholders for that evening's BSO concert.
The Tanglewood Music Center pays tribute to renowned soprano and longtime TMC faculty member Phyllis Curtin on July 20 at 2:30 p.m. in the Theatre with "A Celebration of American Art Song," a program of music Ms. Curtin premiered or had close ties with during her esteemed career. The program, featuring performances by Vocal Fellows from this year's TMC class, includes Make Our Garden Grow from Leonard Bernstein's Candide; John Cage's The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs; Virgil Thomson's Susie Asado; Theodore Chanler's The Midget and Thomas Logge; Ned Rorem's The Serpent, I am Rose, and Some Trees; Roger Sessions' On the Beach at Fontana, Aaron Copland's Vocalise, and selections from Bernstein's Two Love Songs, Copland's Poems of Emily Dickinson, Carlisle Floyd's The Mystery: Five Songs of Motherhood, Scott Joplin's Treemonisha, and William Schuman's Five Rounds on Famous Words. This program also includes the world premiere of Vignettes: Letters from George to Evelyn, a Tanglewood Music Center commission from TMC faculty member Alan Smith written especially for this concert.
The Festival salutes some of the giants of 20th century American composition in a 10 a.m. concert Sunday, July 21, in Ozawa Hall, including John Cage (Credo in Us), Jacob Druckman (Valentine and Tromba Marina), Aaron Copland (Sextet), Morton Feldman (Extensions 4), George Crumb (Madrigals, Book 1), Stefan Wolpe (Piece for trumpet and seven instruments), and Charles Ives (The Innate, Largo Risoluto No. 2, and Halloween). Later that day, at 8:30 p.m. in Ozawa Hall, the FCM presents the first of four programs of American Music of the Last 15 Years, including Frank Zappa's G-Spot Tornado, Milton Babbitt's Triad, Evan Chambers' Cold Water, Dry Stone, Leon Kirchner's from Triptych, John Adams' Chamber Symphony, and songs of William Bolcom - Twilight After Haying, The Clearing, Oh to be a Dragon, and September 1, 1939.
On Monday, July 22, at 8 p.m. in Ozawa Hall, the second installment of the FCM's American Music of the Last 15 Years includes Joan Tower's three Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman, on a program with Donald Crockett's Scree, Augusta Read Thomas' Passion Prayers, Elliot Carter's Oboe Quartet, and Steve Reich's Triple Quartet. Earlier that evening, at a 6 p.m. Prelude Concert in Ozawa Hall, TMC Vocal Fellows will be featured in John Corigliano's Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan.
The third session of American Music of the Last 15 Years - on Tuesday, July 23, at 8:30 p.m. in Ozawa Hall - features the world premiere of For Aaron, commissioned by the TMC from American composer Lukas Foss, a member of the first Tanglewood Music Center (then the Berkshire Music Center) class in 1940, who celebrates his 80th birthday this year. This concert also features two works from this year's FCM director, Bright Sheng - his Four Movements for Piano Trio and Two Poems from the Sung Dynasty - on a program with Julia Wolfe's Believing, George Perle's Critical Moments, and John Harbison's Fourteen Fabled Folksongs. At 6 p.m. in Ozawa Hall, another of Mr. Sheng's works, his Three Songs, will also be featured on a Prelude Concert program with Steve Mackey's Great Crossing, Great Divide and Joel Hoffman's Fantasia Fiorentina.
FCM Director Bright Sheng takes the podium on Wednesday, July 24, at 8:30 p.m. in Ozawa Hall, leading the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and soloist Qiang Zhang in his own Nanking! Nanking! - a Threnody for Orchestra and Pipa. Conductor Stefan Asbury joins the TMCO for the rest of this program - this year's Margaret Lee Crofts Concert - leading the orchestra in Stephen Hartke's The Ascent of the Equestrian in a Balloon, Christopher Rouse's Envoi, Stephen Albert's Flower of the Mountain, and Aaron Jay Kernis' Musica Celestis. Prior to this concert, at a 6 p.m. Prelude Concert in Ozawa Hall, last year's Paul Jacobs Commission - Arlene Sierra's Neruda Settings - will receive its world premiere on a program with David Lang's Cheating, Lying, Stealing and "Quietness" and "Drinking Song" from David Del Tredici's Three Baritone Songs. In addition, a brief panel discussion on the topic of American music of the last 15 year will be held following the Prelude Concert and prior to the 8:30 p.m. TMCO concert. This special panel will feature Bright Sheng, TMC faculty member Ursula Oppens, and musicologist Carol Oja, among others.
The 2002 Festival of Contemporary Music closes on Thursday, July 25, at 8:30 p.m. in Ozawa Hall with the annual Fromm Concert at Tanglewood, this year celebrating the 80th birthday of American composer Lukas Foss with a concert performance of his opera Griffelkin. This special performance will feature the Boston Modern Orchestra Project under the direction of conductor Gil Rose, with the Back Bay Chorale, Boston Children's Opera, and soprano Kendra Colton in the title role.
Festival of contemporary music director Bright Sheng
Born in December 1955 in Shanghai, China, Bright Sheng began piano studies with his mother at the age of 4. During China's "Cultural Revolution," he worked for seven years as a pianist and percussionist in a folk music and dance troupe in Qinghai Province near the Tibetan border, where he also studied and collected folk music. In 1978, when universities reopened, he was one of the first students accepted by the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where he earned his undergraduate degree in music composition. Mr. Sheng moved to New York in l982 and received graduate degrees at Queens College (M.A.), and Columbia University (D.M.A.). Among his important teachers were Leonard Bernstein (composition and conducting), George Perle, Hugo Weisgall, Chou Wen-Chung, and Jack Beeson. In addition to composing, Mr. Sheng is an active conductor and pianist, and frequently serves as musical advisor to leading orchestras and festivals. Since 1998, he has been Artistic Advisor to the "Silk Road Project," an international program that identifies, archives, and interprets musical traditions of the Far Eastern trade routes. He currently is Artist-in-Residence with the Washington Performing Arts Society. In July 2002, The Silver River will be a focus of New York's Lincoln Center Festival, accompanied by concerts of and symposia on Mr. Sheng's music. He currently is working on two major commissions, both scheduled to premiere in 2003: for the Santa Fe Opera, Madame Mao, based on the story of Mao's duplicitous wife and set to a libretto by the director Colin Graham; and a quadruple concerto for the New York Philharmonic, featuring soloists Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax. Mr. Sheng received the coveted MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in November 2001. In 1999, at the invitation of President Clinton, Mr. Sheng received a special commission from the White House; the resulting Three Songs for Pipa and Cello was premiered there by soloists Wu Man and Yo-Yo Ma at a State Dinner honoring the Chinese Premiere Zhou Rongji. Since 1995, Mr. Sheng has been Professor of Music in composition at the University of Michigan.
Festival Of Contemporary Music History
New music has been an important part of the Tanglewood Music Center since the Festival's beginnings. In 1956, Paul Fromm, a German-born wine importer from Chicago and one of this century's most significant patrons of music, offered to underwrite two contemporary music concerts at Tanglewood. Starting the next summer, the Fromm Foundation provided several fellowships each year specifically for performers who would play new music and who would work with the composers-in-residence on the preparation of new works. In 1964, under the leadership of then BSO Music Director Erich Leinsdorf, the Tanglewood Music Center increased its focus on new music even further. Rather than bringing certain Fellows to Tanglewood as specialists in new music, every participant in the school performed in concerts of contemporary music, often with the composer present to coach and discuss their work. Also in 1964, the new-music activities of the TMC were combined for the first time into a single week of intense concert activity. Most of the concerts were given by the Fellows of the Music Center, in varying combinations of small chamber ensembles, large chamber ensembles or small orchestra, and full orchestra. This "festival within a festival" - officially named the Festival of Contemporary Music - has remained a Tanglewood fixture ever since.
The Fromm Foundation at Harvard and its history at Tanglewood
For nearly 30 years, the Festival of Contemporary Music was unofficially called the "Fromm Festival" in fond homage to the support of the late Paul Fromm, who in 1954 founded the Fromm Music Foundation, which is now based at Harvard University. In 1992 the Foundation instituted an annual Paul Fromm Concert and a Paul Fromm Award for Composition in cooperation with the Tanglewood Music Center, enabling a performance and residency by a visiting soloist or ensemble, and a commission (the Paul Fromm Award) for a young composer whose new work would be premiered during the following season's Festival of Contemporary Music.
The New Fromm Players
Thanks to a grant from the Fromm Foundation, the 2002 Festival of Contemporary Music will feature performances by a new ensemble made up of recent alumni of the Tanglewood Music Center concentrating their summer studies on contemporary music. This five-person group - the New Fromm Players - will spend the summer in a post-graduate setting working on demanding new repertoire with TMC faculty members and visiting composers. Beyond the boundaries of the Festival, the New Fromm Players will also work with the TMC's Composition Fellows, giving performances of their music throughout the summer. This year's New Fromm Players are violinist Caroline Pliszka (TMC 2000, 2001), violinist Yonah Zur (TMC 1995, 2000, 2001), violist Robert Meyer (TMC 2000, 2001), cellist Mickey Katz (TMC 1999, 2000), and clarinetist Kai-Yun Lu (TMC 1997).
Ticket Information
All Festival of Contemporary Music concerts take place in Tanglewood's 1,180-seat Seiji Ozawa Hall, except for the Boston Symphony Orchestra concert on Friday, July 19 (Koussevitzky Music Shed), and the 2:30 p.m. concert on Saturday, July 20 (Theatre). Tickets, available at the Tanglewood Box Office, are required for the July 19 BSO performance and the July 25 Fromm Concert featuring Boston Modern Orchestra Project. All other Festival of Contemporary Music events are general admission at $10 ($20 for the TMC orchestra concert on July 24). Friends of Tanglewood are admitted free to all Festival of Contemporary Music events with the exception of the specific concerts mentioned above. Except for those events requiring a ticket, seating is unreserved and available one hour before concert time.
All programs and artists are subject to change. Tanglewood information is available online at www.tanglewood.org. For further information, please call the Boston Symphony Orchestra at 617-266-1492.
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Winter Storm Warning Issued for Berkshires
Another snowstorm is expected to move through the region overnight on Friday, bringing 5 to 8 inches of snow. This is updated from Thursday's winter weather advisory.
The National Weather Service in Albany, N.Y., has posted a winter storm warning for all of Berkshire County and parts of eastern New York State beginning Friday at 4 p.m. through Saturday at 1 p.m.
The region could see heavy to moderate snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour overnight, tapering off Saturday morning to flurries.
Drivers should exercise caution on Friday night and Saturday morning, as travel conditions may be hazardous.
Saturday night should be clear and calm, but warming temperatures means freezing rain Sunday night and rain through Monday with highs in the 40s. The forecast isn't much better through the week as temperatures dip back into the teens with New Year's Eve looking cloudy and frigid.
Many homeowners are showing their holiday spirit by decorating their houses. We asked for submissions so those in the community can check out these fanciful lights and decor when they're out.
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