Tanglewood 2011 Summer Season Schedule: more pop, less solo and chamber music, cautious orchestral programming…but still lots of good things. (REVISED)

James-taylor
James Taylor. Photo: Danny Clinch.

There will be a modicum of grumbling in this preview, which doesn't mean that Tanglewood no longer  offers a variety of superb music-making which will appeal to music-lovers of many different tastes.

With this season, it is apparent that the change of scheduling — more importantly the shape of the season — at Tanglewood is intended to be permanent. In the past the Music Director and the BSO got the Festival off to a rousing start on the Fourth of July weekend with a Tchaikovsky symphony or some other grandiose work of popular appeal. (I don't know how long the actual Fourth of July program has been a pop concert.) Beginning in 2008, that holiday weekend has become the property of James Taylor, the ever-popular singer, guitarist, and local resident. In fact the entire first week of the season will be a James Taylor festival, with performances in Ozawa Hall on June 28th, 29th, and 30th, and in the Music Shed with the Boston Pops on July 1st, followed by A Prairie Home Companion on July 2nd, culminating in two performances of The Essential James Taylor on July 3rd and 4th. The BSO concerts now begin and end a week later than in the past.

 

Read the full preview on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the Arts!

Michael Miller