By Dave Read, Aug. 16, 2026 performance – It was a homecoming for Marin Alsop to conduct the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in one of their final performances; in 1989, she won the TMC’s Koussevitzky Conducting Medal, which she earned under the tutelage of Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, and Gustav Meier.
After fourteen years as Music Director, in 2021, Ms. Alsop became director laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and in 2025 was awarded the Golden Baton from the League of American Orchestras.
As prelude to Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, Ms. Alsop led the orchestra in a performance of Anna Clyne’s Masquerade, which the composer describes in the program. “Masquerade draws inspiration from the original mid-eighteenth century promenade concerts held in London’s pleasure gardens.” As performed today, the piece was composed to both attract and hold onto the attention of pedestrians, regardless their original destination.
It served as a felicitous segue to Bruch’s concerto, another composition that commands the attention of an audience. Although the violin has been front and center at Tanglewood this season with a roster of all-star soloists, it may have found new heights of brilliance in the hands of Ray Chen, in his Tanglewood debut today.
No better accompaniment to the balance of a summer afternoon than Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, which was given a sublime reading by the Tanglewood fellows today. Comprised of five movements and without a choral element, the piece lends itself to such a valedictory-type performance, as it was also featured in 2023, with Andris Nelsons conducting.
Tanglewood tickets and transportation to the Berkshires
For Tanglewood tickets and other information, please visit the website of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Here is information on how to get to the Berkshires.