French conductor Emmanuel Krivine will lead the July 24 all-Ravel program featuring pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet in both the Piano Concerto in G and Concerto for the Left Hand 24.  Hans Graf, Music Director of the Houston Symphony, will conduct Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 on a program with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K.414, with soloist Leon Fleisher, on July 29. In addition, the esteemed Spanish conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos — who was already scheduled at Tanglewood to conduct the BSO on August 5 and 12, and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra on August 14—and TMC faculty conductor Stefan Asbury will now take the podium for the gala Tanglewood on Parade concert on the evening ofAugust 2, joining the originally scheduled conductors Christoph Eschenbach and John Williams.

These programs were originally to be led by James Levine, who on May 6 announced his withdrawal from all of his scheduled Tanglewood appearances on the advice of his doctors.
WEEK 1 (JULY 8­–14) – CHARLES DUTOIT TO LEAD BSO’S OPENING NIGHT ALL-ITALIAN PROGRAM ON JULY 8 AND  BERLIOZ’S REQUIEM ON  July 9

For the opening concert of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2011 Tanglewood season on Friday, July 9, Charles Dutoit will lead the Boston Symphony Orchestra, soprano Angela Meade, mezzo-soprano Kristine Jepson, tenor Roberto DeBiasio, bass-baritone James Morris, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus in a gala concert featuring opera excerpts from Bellini’s Norma and Verdi’s I lombardi, as well as Rossini’s William Tell Overture and Respighi’s resplendent Pines of Rome.  The previously announced program had included Verdi’s Overture to La forza del destino, the overture to Rossini’s La Cenerentola (now replaced by the William Tell Overture), and Canzonas for brass by Gabrieli.

Maestro Dutoit will also step in to conduct the BSO, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and tenor Russell Thomas in Berlioz’s monumental Requiem on Saturday, July 9.

WEEK 2 (JULY 15–21) – JOHN STORGAARDS LEADS ALL-SIBELIUS PROGRAM FEATURING VIOLINIST NIKOLAJ ZNAIDER, July 16

John Storgaards, in his BSO debut, leads the orchestra Saturday, July 16, and is joined by Danish violinist Nikolaj Znaider (making his Tanglewood debut) for an all-Sibelius program featuring the soaring Violin Concerto, the gripping Symphony No. 5, the beloved tone poem Finlandia, and Valse triste.

WEEK 3 (JULY 22–28) – EMMANUEL KRIVINE LEADS ALL-RAVEL PROGRAM FEATURING PIANIST JEAN-YVES THIBAUDET, July 24

WEEK 4 (JULY 29–AUGUST 4) HANS GRAF LEADS BSO IN MOZART/MAHLER PROGRAM FEATURING PIANIST LEON FLEISHER, July 29

”]The fourth week of Tanglewood 2011 gets underway on Friday, July 29, with Austrian conductor Hans Graf leading the Serge and Olga Koussevitzky Memorial Concert, featuring longtime Tanglewood presence Leon Fleisher in Mozart’s elegant Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K.414, on a program with Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.  Serge Koussevitzky, BSO Music Director from 1924 to 1949, played a major role in the founding of Tanglewood, the BSO’s summer home since 1937, and the Tanglewood Music Center (founded in 1940), the BSO’s prestigious summer music academy for the training of professional musicians.  Mr. Graf appears with the orchestra regularly, having last conducted the BSO at Symphony Hall in March 2009.  He filled in for Maestro Levine at Tanglewood in July 2010, leading a program of music by Richard Strauss, Joh. Strauss II, and Joh. Strauss I.

 

RAFAEL FRÜHBECK DE BURGOS AND STEFAN ASBURY JOIN JOHN WILLIMAS AND CHRISTOPH ESCHENBACH FOR TANGLEWOOD ON PARADE CONCERT, August 2

”]One of the festival’s most beloved traditions, Tanglewood on Parade (Tuesday, August 2), provides an opportunity to see and hear all of the festival’s orchestras perform in a single extended concert. Besides the previously scheduled conductors Christoph Eschenbach and John Williams, frequent BSO guest conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and Tanglewood Music Center Conducting Program Coordinator  Stefan Asbury will now join the roster of conductors leading this gala concert, which will open with Wagner’s Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and close with the traditional TOP finale, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. In addition, the program will include Vaughan Williams’s Serenade for Music, with 16 former TMC vocalists joining the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Stefan Asbury’s direction, as a 90th-birthday tribute to Phyllis Curtin, who celebrates that birthday in December. Ms. Curtin’s career in opera on both sides of the Atlantic established her as one of the most prominent and important American singers of her generation. In 1946, while a student at Tanglewood, she sang in the American premiere of Britten’s Peter Grimes under the direction of Leonard Bernstein. Also highly regarded as an extraordinary teacher, Ms. Curtin has for decades drawn countless young singers to her master classes at Tanglewood, where she has been a Tanglewood Music Center faculty member since 1964.  This lively evening features performances by the BSO, the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and the Boston Pops, culminating in a dazzling fireworks display.

 

TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER ORCHESTRA CONCERT, July 25

Please note that the previously scheduled concert performance of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and cast of professional singers, which was to have taken place on July 25, will be replaced by a new Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra program.  Details will be announced at a later date.

 

HIGHLIGHTS OF TANGLEWOOD 2011

”]From an all-Italian Opening Night Boston Symphony Orchestra program under the direction of Charles Dutoit on July 8, four appearances by living legend Yo-Yo Ma, a Boston Pops Cole Porter tribute led byKeith Lockhart, and the incredibly popular Film Night with John Williams, to the welcome returns ofItzhak Perlman and Christoph Eschenbach and special appearances by favorite artists Joshua Bell, Stephanie Blythe, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Christoph von Dohnányi, Kurt Masur, andPeter Serkin to the closing BSO performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under the direction of Lorin Maazel, Tanglewood 2011 brings classical music lovers and Boston Pops fans a wonderfully wide-ranging selection of artists and repertoire.

 

Tanglewood 2011 also presents some of the best from the worlds of jazz, pop, and rock, including four extraordinary appearances by singer/song writer legend James Taylor and the first Tanglewood performance by Grammy award-winning Train, to the annual Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion program and the season-ending Labor Day Weekend Jazz Festival.

From a world premiere performance by the Mark Morris Dance Group, two all-Ravel solo piano programs by Jean-Yves Thibaudet, a concert version of Handel’s Orlando, and a recital by Stephanie Blythe to the debut of the Mark O’Connor String Quartet, and mid-season jazz appearances by Brad Mehldau and John Pizzarelli’s Radio Deluxe, the Ozawa Hall schedule offers concertgoers a rich variety of performances in the intimate surroundings of this acclaimed concert setting.

Nurturing and presenting the best of the future of classical music, Tanglewood 2011 brings the debut of 27 important new artists, a Festival of Contemporary Music program under the esteemed direction of Charles Wuorinen, and a wide variety of orchestral, operatic, and chamber music performances by the young musicians of the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO’s world-renowned music academy for young professional musicians.

TICKET INFORMATION IN BRIEF

The 2011 Tanglewood music festival, now in its 74th year as the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, opens on Tuesday, June 28, with a world premiere performance by the Mark Morris Dance Group, and closes with the annual Labor Day Weekend Jazz Festival, September 2-4. For detailed information about the 2011 Tanglewood season, including how to purchase tickets, priced from $9-$115, visit www.tanglewood.org. Tickets are available through Tanglewood’s website, www.tanglewood.org, and through SymphonyCharge at 888-266-1200.  Tanglewood continues to offer free lawn tickets to young people age 17 and under and a 50% discount on lawn tickets to college and graduate students.

Tanglewood brochures with complete programs and information on how to order tickets are available by calling 617-638-9467. For further information, please call the Boston Symphony Orchestra at 617-266-1492 or visit www.tanglewood.org.  For Berkshire tourist information and reservations, contact the Berkshire Visitors Bureau at 800-237-5747 or http://www.berkshires.org.