Summer is here and festivals are reemerging, so this month is the time for what is truly one of America’s most cherished outdoor music series. Since 1937, Tanglewood, in Lenox, Massachusetts, has been the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As always, classical music is the meat of the program, with a varied selection of pop and rock names peppering the calendar. The 2022 Tanglewood summer schedule promises attendees of all ages an exciting assortment of concerts, talks, workshops, and open symphonic rehearsals, with many of them taking place in the center’s historic Koussevitzky Music Shed.
This year, Tanglewood takes off with a Beatle in the Berkshires when Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band start the season (June 17), an event that’s immediately followed by an evening with Bonnie Raitt and Lucinda Williams (June 18). The next week brings the Mavericks with Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets (June 26) and the Black Crowes performing their classic 1990 album Shake Your Money Maker in its entirety (June 29). Recurring Tanglewood fave James Taylor’s two shows are already sold out (July 3 and 4), but tickets remain for the Silk Road Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens (July 28), Earth, Wind and Fire (August 9), Brandi Carlisle and the Indigo Girls (August 30), Judy Collins and Richard Thompson (September 3), and the festival’s closing night with Van Morrison (September 4).
On the classical side of the spectrum, the BSO’s Tanglewood season officially opens with a concert conducted by the orchestra’s music director Andris Nelsons that features the BSO debut of baritone Jack Canfield and includes Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 and Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” (July 8). Nelsons next leads the orchestra, which is joined by soprano Nicole Cabell and pianist Aaron Diehl through works by Samuel Barber, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, and Carlos Simon (July 9); and, with the Tanglewood Music Center Conducting Fellows, a selection of music by Schubert, Strauss, and Ravel (July 11). Pianist Emanuel Ax presents two “Pathways from Prague” programs of pieces by Janacek and Dvorak at the center’s Seiji Ozawa Hall (July 7 and 9), and the Boston Pops perform live orchestral accompaniment for The Empire Strikes Back (July 15). Native American Poet Laureate Joy Harjo orates (July 30) and conductor Cristian Macelaru debuts with the BSO and cellist Yo-Yo Ma with works by Anna Clyne, Elgar, Debussy, and Enescu (August 14). Tanglewood celebrates composer John Williams’s 90th birthday in an evening of his beloved films scores and music he wrote specifically for the BSO and the Boston Pops (August 20), while further festival highlights include Grammy-winning and vocalist and composer Cecile McLorin Savant singing music from her new album, Ghost Song (August 21).
