Dawn Upshaw (photo Brooke Irish)
(LENOX, Mass.) – Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, soprano Dawn Upshaw, and pianists Ursula Oppens and Peter Serkin will be featured performers in Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary Music, running now through Monday, July 27, 2015, in Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood. The festival features programs curated by Oliver Knussen, John Harbison, and Michael Gandolfi; a memoriam tribute concert to Gunther Schuller; and a dozen new works commissioned in honor of the Tanglewood Music Center’s 75th anniversary season.
The festival will feature the world premiere of Gunther Schuller’s “Magical Trumpets,” on a program with several works by composers Schuller championed: Maderna, Carter, Perle, and Wuorinen, on Thursday, July 23, at 8pm. Conductor Jonathan Berman will conduct Schuller’s Magical Trumpets and Concerto da Camera, as well as Maderna’s Serenata 2 and Wourinen’s Megalith for piano and ensemble, featuring Peter Serkin as soloist (a TMC75 commission). Stefan Asbury will lead the TMC Fellows in Carter’s “A Sunbeam’s Architecture.”
On Friday, July 24, at 2:30pm, John Harbison will conduct the Tanglewood Music Center Fellows in a program featuring pianist Ursula Oppens in works by Primosch, Dallapiccola, Harbison, Helen Grime, Shulamit Ran, and Levinson.
The Saturday, July 25 program at 2:30pm, featuring soprano Dawn Upshaw, includes new works by Augusta Read Thomas, Steve Mackey, Bright Sheng, and Michael Gandolfi.
The festival continues on Sunday with two concerts, and concludes on Monday, July 27, at 8pm in Ozawa Hall, with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and the BUTI Chorus in a program of works by Leonard Bernstein, Lukas Foss, Aaron Copland and Charles Ives.
TMC75 commissions features works by composers with close ties to the TMC: orchestra works by Andreia Pinto Correia, Detlev Glanert, Einojuhani Rautavaara, John Williams, and Robert Zuidam; a dramatic cantata by Betsy Jolas; chamber works by Bright Sheng, Augusta Read Thomas, and Charles Wuorinen; string quartets by Oscar Bettison, Colin Matthews, and Marc Neikrug; and vocal works by Steven Mackey, Ned Rorem, Sean Shepherd, Alan Smith, and Yehudi Wyner.