By Dave Read – Classical guitarist Milos drew a large and appreciative audience to Ozawa Hall on July 16, the third program to feature guitar we’ve enjoyed this season at Tanglewood in the Berkshires, following concerts by Richard Thompson, also in Ozawa Hall and by Rodrigo y Gabriela in the Koussevitsky Music Shed. A full appreciation of the marvelous possibility the guitar affords an artist was apparent in each of those three programs; the opportunity to attend all three almost constitutes an embarassment of riches! (Alas, that’s life in these bucolic hills.)
Twenty years on the Tanglewood beat, we are delighted by the new buildings uphill from Ozawa Hall, blending into the old familiar vista – so soon ago itself an architectural and acoustic revelation.
Lenox the Berkshires summer photos
Article updated July 16, 2019 by Dave Read
Following a busy weekend at Tanglewood in the Berkshires, where Maestro Andris Nelsons conducted three programs comprised of a dizzying array of music composed by Copland, Grieg, Verdi, Beethoven, and HK Gruber, who was present to enjoy the audience’s enthusiastic response to his Aerial, Concerto for trumpet and orchestra, sharing the limelight with trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger, whose vertuosity and flair was thrilling, we captured a few snapshots of Lenox, as dusk approached.
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2019 Tanglewood schedule
The Boston Symphony Orchestra has released the schedule for the 2019 season at Tanglewood, which will be remembered for the opening of the Tanglewood Learning Institute, the four buildings overlooking Seiji Ozawa Hall on the Leonard Bernstein camopus.
Music director Andris Nelsons will be present for the month of July, conducting 13 programs, including the world premiere of a new work by Kevin Puts, The Brightness of Light, based on letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz on July 20, and a concert performance of Wagner’s complete Die Walküre on july 27 and 28.
JT and Yo-Yo on the porch
This video of James Taylor being accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma on Sweet Baby James, recorded Sept. 15, 2008 on the porch of the Red Lion Inn at Stockbridge, is blowing up the Internet – at least my little piece of it!
Richard Thompson at Tanglewood, June 21, 2019
By Dave Read – Richard Thompson strode to center stage in Seiji Ozawa hall June 21, carrying a guitar, which was all it took to fill the august band box with beautiful sound. Besides being a first-ballot shoo-in for the guitar hall of fame, artist division, Thompson also is a master at the art of stagecraft. His 110 minute concert revealed him to be a generous, tenacious, and pretty funny guy. Hip to him since the days of Fairport Convention, this was my first concert, and it was awesome.
- Buy Richard Thompson music;
- Read about Richard Thompson at wikipedia.
- Listen and watch as Richard Thompson performs his classic song “Shoot Out the Lights” on his Lowden guitar and chats with Mark Segal Kemp about his approach to playing both acoustics and electrics.
And somehow, I heard Buddy Holly throughout the show. Something about that big bold acoustic sound* – the quality of the strings, the resonance of the soundboard, the spirit of the one animating the tools of his trade.
It was a sound vein mined to such great effect by Dylan until he got bored with it and veered away in 1965 at Newport to create rock ‘n roll’s first tributary – Dylan music. Meanwhile, back across the pond, Thompson and his mates formed bands with cool names such as Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and Pentangle.
… to be continued.
*That may be my entry in the redundancy tournament.
Live From Here at Tanglewood, June 15, 2019
By Dave Read – Chris Thile has the hardest job in show biz, following Garrison Keillor as host of a live radio broadcast from the Koussevitsky Music Shed at Tanglewood. The show he ran June 15, 2019, was on par with the 16 editions of Keillor’s that we covered.
Just as we remember the bit from the initial show in 2000, when the pretend Bill Clinton responds to Keillor’s inquiry as to what it’s like to be leaving the house he has called home for eight years by mimicing Bob Dylan singing Like a Rolling Stone, Thile’s troupe had us rolling in the aisles with something as funny and as original – and therefore, memorable.
They created a universe in which whenever a put-upon father (Father’s Day on the horizon) responded to his teenager in an unsatisfactory way, a clip from the awesome Harry Chapin’s Cats in the Cradle would fill the air and guilt-trip dad into action!
Thile also has pre-existing Tanglewood conditions – his maternal grandfather, a composer, had a piece performed here sixty some years ago, AND he himself is a wrangler in Yo Yo Ma’s Goat Rodeo. Keillor had one too – a second date with his eventual wife when she was a student here at BUTI. The both are right up front about how much they like Tanglewood, especially that this show concludes their live radio season. And the audience seems pretty happy too.
Listen to the show.
Cellphone snaps of the lawn audience and a couple views of the stunning new Tanglewood Learning Institute up by Ozawa Hall.
Dave Read reads five poems
Once you start the video, you can fast-forward to my poems at around 1:10. Poem titles are:
1.Vice Versa
2.Big Apple Byte
3.Hold Still
4.In Loco Parentis, or Mark & Sheryl to the Rescue
5.It’s Not Up to Chuck & Nancy
6.Jared has Four Diamonds,* Every Kick begins with K
I made a mistake in It’s Not Up to Chuck & Nancy – Martin Luther called Henry VIII “pig, dolt and liar (not idiot).”
IWOW (In Words Out Words), June 4, 2019. Deb Koffman's Art Space, Housatonic, Massachusetts. from CTSB on Vimeo.
IWOW (In Words Out Words), June 4, 2019. Deb Koffman's Art Space, Housatonic, Massachusetts.
I’m happy to provide the text for these, just give me your name and email address:[smlsubform] Posting them here would make it more difficult to publish them elsewhere.