Leonard Bernstein was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first American conductor to receive international acclaim. According to music critic Donal Henahan, Bernstein was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history". He was the recipient of many honors, including seven Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, 16 Grammy Awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Kennedy Center Honor.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, the BSO performs most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at Tanglewood.
John Towner Williams KBE is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career that has spanned seven decades, he has composed some of the most popular, recognizable and critically acclaimed film scores in cinema history. Williams has won 25 Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. With 53 Academy Award nominations, he is the second most-nominated individual, after Walt Disney. His compositions are considered the epitome of film music, and he is considered among the greatest composers in the history of cinema.
Seiji Ozawa is a Japanese conductor known for his advocacy of modern composers and for his work with the San Francisco Symphony, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna State Opera, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where he served as music director for 29 years. He is the recipient of numerous international awards.
Gunther Alexander Schuller was an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, educator, publisher, and jazz musician.
The Tanglewood Festival Chorus, directed by James Burton, is a chorus which performs with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops in major choral works. The Tanglewood Festival Chorus (TFC) was organized in the spring of 1970, when founding conductor John Oliver became director of vocal and choral activities at the Tanglewood Music Center, the summer home of the BSO. Originally formed for performances at the BSO's summer home at the behest of the BSO's conductor designate Seiji Ozawa, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus is the official chorus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops Orchestra year-round, performing in Boston, New York and Tanglewood.
Tanglewood is a music venue and festival in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. It has been the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937. Tanglewood is also home to three music schools: the Tanglewood Music Center, Tanglewood Learning Center, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Besides classical music, Tanglewood hosts the Festival of Contemporary Music, jazz and popular artists, concerts, and frequent appearances by James Taylor, John Williams, and the Boston Pops Orchestra.
John M. McCollum was an American tenor who had an active singing career in operas, concerts, and recitals during the 1950s through the 1970s. As an opera singer he performed with companies throughout North America, mostly working with second tier opera houses. He was much more successful as a singer of oratorios and other works from the concert repertoire, and enjoyed a particularly productive and lengthy relationship with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As a concert singer he sang a wide repertoire but drew particular acclaim for his performances in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel.
Kirill Gerstein is a Russian-American concert pianist. He is the sixth recipient of the Gilmore Artist Award. Born in the former Soviet Union, Gerstein is an American citizen based in Berlin. Between 2007-2017, he led piano classes at the Stuttgart Musik Hochschule. In 2018, he took up the post of Professor of Piano at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule in Berlin in addition to the Kronberg Academy’s Sir András Schiff Performance Programme for Young Artists.
James Lawrence Levine was an American conductor and pianist. He was music director of the Metropolitan Opera from 1976 to 2016. He was terminated from all his positions and affiliations with the Met on March 12, 2018, over sexual misconduct allegations, which he denied.
The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is a professional orchestra in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Apollo's Fire, The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra is a popular and critically acclaimed period-instrument ensemble specializing in early music based in Cleveland, Ohio. The GRAMMY-winning ensemble unites a select pool of early music specialists from throughout North America and Europe. Under the direction of Artistic Director Jeannette Sorrell, the ensemble has been noted internationally for creative and innovative programming, and praised by BBC Music Magazine for "forging a vibrant, life-affirming approach to early music... a seductive vision of musical authenticity."
The Tanglewood Music Center is an annual summer music academy in Lenox, Massachusetts, United States, in which emerging professional musicians participate in performances, master classes and workshops. The center operates as a part of the Tanglewood Music Festival, an outdoor concert series and the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO).
A concert performance or concert version is a performance of a musical theater or opera in concert form, without set design or costumes, and mostly without theatrical interaction between singers.
Andris Nelsons is a Latvian conductor who is currently the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. He has previously served as music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, chief conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, and music director of the Latvian National Opera.
Kati Ilona Agócs is an American-Canadian composer and a member of the composition faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.
Gil Rose is the founder and conductor of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), founder and General-Artistic Director of Odyssey Opera, Artistic Director of Monadnock Music Festival, Professor of Practice at Northeastern University, and Executive Producer of the record label "BMOP/sound."
James Burton is a British conductor and composer. He is currently the Boston Symphony Orchestra Choral Director and Conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. He also holds the position of Director of Orchestral Activities and Master Lecturer in Music at Boston University.
Stanley Silverman is an American composer, arranger, conductor and guitarist.
Gertrude Robinson Smith was an arts patron, philanthropist and a founder of the Berkshire Symphonic Festival, which came to be known as Tanglewood. At the height of the Great Depression, Smith gathered the human resources and secured the financial backing that supported the festival's early success. Her leadership from the first concerts in August 1934 through the mid-1950s has been recognized as foundational to assuring the success of one of the world's most celebrated seasonal music festivals.
