All-Star Weekend at Tanglewood Features Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, Stephanie Blythe, Pepe Romero

Emanuel Ax

Emanuel Ax

(LENOX, Mass.) – A full weekend’s program at Tanglewood includes an evening of Spanish music with Maestro Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos leading the BSO on Friday in a program dedicated to Spanish and Spanish-inspired music, featuring world-renowned guitar virtuoso and fellow Spaniard Pepe Romero making his Tanglewood debut. Saturday night’s program features cellist Yo-Yo Ma performing as soloist in Schumann’s Cello Concerto with German-Hungarian conductor Christoph von Dohnányi leading the BSO. On Sunday afternoon, Stephanie Blythe and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra pay homage to Brahms with a concert dedicated entirely to his music, followed by a Sunday evening recital in Ozawa Hall featuring Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Emanuel Ax performing music by Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12 – MAESTRO FRÜHBECK DE BURGOS AND PEPE ROMERO JOIN THE BSO IN SPANISH PROGRAM

Pepe Romano

Pepe Romano

Maestro Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos returns for the second week in a row to lead the BSO in an August 12 program dedicated to Spanish and Spanish-inspired music, repertoire championed by Mr. Frühbeck throughout his career. World-renowned guitar virtuoso and fellow Spaniard Pepe Romero makes his Tanglewood debut in this concert, highlights of which include Preludes from Bizet’s Seville-set opera Carmen; Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, surely the best-known work for guitar and orchestra; and the Interlude and First Dance from Falla’s La vida breve (Life is Short), an opera about the doomed love of a gypsy woman for an upper-class man.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 13 – CHRISTOPH VON DOHNÁNYI AND YO-YO MA

Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma

Two of classical music’s most decorated artists join the BSO August 13 as the inimitable cellist Yo-Yo Ma performs as soloist and German-Hungarian conductor Christoph von Dohnányi leads the orchestra. Opening the program is Prokofiev’s effervescent Symphony No. 1, Classical. Mr. Ma takes the lead in Schumann’s free-flowing and adventurous Cello Concerto, and the evening concludes with Brahms’s monumental Symphony No. 1, with which the composer finally took up the imposing symphonic mantel of Beethoven.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 14 – STEPHANIE BLYTHE JOINS THE TMCO IN THE SHED FOR THE LEONARD BERNSTEIN MEMORIAL CONCERT

Stephanie Blythe (photo Kobie van Rensburg)

Stephanie Blythe (photo Kobie van Rensburg)

On Sunday afternoon, the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra pays homage to Brahms with a concert dedicated entirely to his music, including Nänie, a work for chorus and orchestra that sets a poem by Schiller contemplating mortality; Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny), something of a miniature counterpart to the German Requiem; the Alto Rhapsody¸ a piece for mezzo-soprano, male chorus, and orchestra written as a wedding gift for Schumann’s daughter; and the great Symphony No. 2. The young orchestra is conducted by Mr. Frühbeck and joined by mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 14 – EMANUEL AX, YO-YO MA, AND ANTHONY MCGILL

Sunday evening, Mr. Ma and pianist Emanuel Ax renew their longstanding and widely celebrated musical partnership with an Ozawa Hall recital to include music from three of the all-time masters of chamber music: Beethoven’s Sonata No. 3 in A for cello and piano, Op. 69, Brahms’s Trio in A minor for clarinet, cello, and piano, Op. 114, and Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, D. 821, arranged for clarinet and piano. Mr. Ma and Mr. Ax are joined by the principal clarinetist of the Metropolitan Opera, Anthony McGill, who makes his Tanglewood debut.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 16 – THE PHILHARMONIA BAROQUE ORCHESTRA PERFORMS HANDEL’S ORLANDO

August 16 marks one of the highlights of the 2011 Tanglewood season as the California-based Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra makes its Tanglewood debut in dramatic fashion with a complete performance of Handel’s opera seria Orlando under Music Director Nicholas McGegan. Inhabiting the roles of this Baroque masterpiece, which tells the story of a great soldier in Charlemagne’s army who falls in love with an infidel, are soprano Dominique Labelle, soprano Yulia van Doren (Tanglewood debut), mezzo-soprano Diana Moore (Tanglewood debut), countertenor Clint van der Linde (Tanglewood debut), and baritone Wolf Matthias Friedrich (Tanglewood debut).

FREE PRELUDE CONCERTS BY MEMBERS OF THE BSO AND FELLOWS OF THE TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER

The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s free Prelude Concerts in Ozawa Hall take place at 6 p.m., before each Friday- and Saturday-evening Shed concert. The prelude concert on August 12 will include Dahl’s Concerto a tre for violin, cello, and clarinet and Dvo?ák’s Piano Quintet in A, Op. 81, featuring Haldan Martinson and Julianne Lee, violins; Rebecca Gitter, viola; Mickey Katz, cello; Michael Wayne, clarinet; and Ieva Jokubaviciute, piano. On Saturday, August 6, Tanglewood Music Center Fellows present a 6 p.m. prelude concert including music by Beethoven and Schumann. The Friday- and Saturday-evening Prelude Concerts are open to all ticket holders for the evening’s Shed concert.

Tickets are available through Tanglewood’s website, through SymphonyCharge at 888-266-1200, or by visiting the Symphony Hall Box Office at 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA. Shed tickets are priced from $9-$115, with Saturday Morning Rehearsals priced from $10-30. Ozawa Hall tickets are priced from $11 to $99.

 

 

 

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