Tanglewood 75th Anniversary Celebration, featuring many of the iconic artists identified with the fete, will air on THIRTEEN’S Great Performances Friday, August 10 at 9 p.m. ET as part of the PBS Arts Summer Festival (check local listings).
Located in the beautiful Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, Tanglewood is one of the world’s most beloved music festivals and serves as the summer home for the famed Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO).
Tanglewood 75th Anniversary Celebration will feature the BSO, the Boston Pops Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, under the direction of conductors Keith Lockhart, Andris Nelsons, John Williams, and David Zinman.
Performers will include pianists Emanuel Ax and Peter Serkin, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and vocalist James Taylor, as well as the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, John Oliver, conductor. The wide-ranging program, taped on July 14, will include Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man”; Leonard Bernstein’s Three Dance Episodes from On the Town; selections from the Great American Songbook (“Over the Rainbow,” “Shall We Dance,” and “Old Man River”); Franz Joseph Haydn’s Piano Concerto in D, 2nd and 3rd movements; Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Andante cantabile for cello and strings; Pablo de Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy, for violin and orchestra; Maurice Ravel’s “La Valse”; and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy.
“The BSO is one of the many great regional arts institutions to be featured on Great Performances over its four decade history,” said David Horn, executive producer, Great Performances. “GP has enjoyed a long association with the BSO and its summertime home at the Tanglewood festival, dating back to our extensive broadcast collaborations with Leonard Bernstein. We are delighted to return to Tanglewood for this 75th anniversary concert, which also represents a wonderful homecoming celebration for us.”
The Tanglewood concert is the seventh program in the PBS Arts Summer Festival, which includes documentaries from independent filmmakers that explore a wide spectrum of international art forms and offer an in-depth look at music, theater, art, architecture and cultural history from some of the world’s unique locations. Award-winning television, film and stage star Anna Deavere Smith serves as weekly host for the Summer Festival.
Major funding for the telecast is provided by the Great Performances telecast of the Tanglewood 75th Anniversary Celebration is made possible by the Irene Diamond Fund, The Mugar Foundation, The Lillian Goldman Programming Endowment, the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, Victor and Sono Elmaleh, The Starr Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, public television viewers and PBS.
Tanglewood 75th Anniversary Celebration is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Inc, C Major Entertainment, ZDF/ARTE and Unitel/CLASSICA.
Tanglewood 75th Anniversary Celebration is directed by Bill Cosel. For Great Performances, John Walker and Mitch Owgang are producers; Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.
