“Tanglewood on Parade”, a full day and evening of music and fun, is an annual tradition at Tanglewood. This year, it was part of a week of concerts and other events curated by Yo-Yo Ma under the theme “We the People: Our Shared Past, Present and Future” to mark 250 years of American independence. A welcoming message from Ma describes ‘We the People’ as “a celebration of the ways that music can help us find sympathy with others through time and space, and of culture’s ability to turn the ‘other’ into ‘us’.”
Throughout the afternoon, diverting entertainments were scattered around the huge lawns, some intended for adults and others for children. This year’s lineup included magicians, a strong man, a singer of native American songs, giant puppets, and the inflation of a huge hot-air balloon that took attendees on brief ascents. Indoors, Tanglewood Music Center Fellows performed in the Seiji Ozawa Hall and the Linde Center’s Studio E, and then, as a prelude to the evening’s gala concert, Yo-Yo Ma was joined in the Koussevitzky Shed by two other TMC faculty members and three TCM Fellows for a performance of Brahms’s String Sextet No.2 in G, Op.36, with the Fellows playing the first-chair parts. The concluding gala concert in the Shed brought together the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra.
I attended two of the afternoon concerts by TMC Fellows. First, in Ozawa Hall, TMC Piano Fellows Ariel Mo, Roy Ranen, Cameron Akioka and August Baik each played a work by Frederic Rzewski preceded by a guest artist’s performance of the song upon which it was based. Baik’s playing of ‘Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues’ was particularly spectacular.
Later in the afternoon, TMC Vocal and Instrumental Fellows performed in Studio E. Bass-baritone Raphaël Laden-Guindon showed off a fine voice and excellent communicative skills in his renditions of the humorous texts of Virgil Thomson’s ‘Mostly about Love’, ably accompanied by Ranen. Next, Soprano Zoe McCormick and pianist Pauline Jing Pu were excellent in three of Samuel Barber’s ‘Hermit Songs’, followed by baritone Holden Turner’s rendition of three quite interesting songs by Francis Poulenc, accompanied by Akioka.
The vocal highlight of the concert was Chinese mezzo-soprano Ya Gao’s stunning account of three selections from Maurice Ravel’s ‘Chansons madécasses’. Her voice is gorgeous, her musicianship superb, and her enunciation of the French lyrics crystal clear. She was beautifully accompanied by an instrumental trio comprised of Jamie Kim (flute), Max Healy (cello) and Mo (piano). Gao is a singer to be watched for as her career takes off!
Tenor Will Benoit performed two songs, one by Roberta Slavitt and the other by Joni Mitchell, in Domenic Salerni’s arrangements for voice and string quintet, the fine accompaniment provided by Instrumental Fellows Hannah Goldstick and Andrew Lin (violins), William Mathangani (viola), Kaya Ralls (cello), and Eugene Zhang (double bass). The concert ended with three selections from Sheila Silver’s ‘Songs of Resilience’. After soprano Diana Agasian and mezzo-soprano Danielle Casós each sang one song, the two collaborated in Silver’s gripping ‘Free Speech’, engaging in a mother-daughter dialogue, written by Lucile Lichtblau, that made a strong emotional and political statement about America today. Both Silver and Lichtblau were present to join the singers and the excellent pianist Jessica Yuma in receiving the audience’s enthusiastic applause.
The evening’s nearly three-hour-long gala concert was preceded by square dancing on the lawn and a parade across the lawn to the Shed, a marching band leading school children costumed and bearing flags of Latin American countries. Yo-Yo Ma greeted concertgoers and announced that the opening work, Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, would be performed by the TMC Orchestra without a conductor, a feat that Ma described as requiring “collective dedication to an idea, through the attention and care of the musicians to one other”, and intended “as a tribute to the spirit of equality and democracy embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights”.
For the Beethoven Sixth, the TMC Orchestra’s strings were augmented by about a dozen BSO musicians, including concertmaster Nathan Cole, as well as by Ma, who, instrument in hand, unobtrusively took a seat in the back row of the cello section just before the symphony began. The conductorless ensemble gave the ‘Pastoral’ a fine performance, evocatively portraying the sounds of nature and the rustic life of the countryside’s inhabitants. Changes of tempos and dynamics were ably managed without any noticeable disconnects, even though Cole seemed to do little more from the concertmaster’s chair than give an upbeat to launch each movement.
After intermission, Samy Rachid led the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Allison Loggins-Hull’s ‘Rhapsody on a Theme by Joni’ with BSO principal flute, Lorna McGhee, as the excellent soloist. The composer, who had introduced the piece, identifying the titular “Theme by Joni” as Joni Mitchell’s song, ‘My Old Man’, returned to the stage to acknowledge the audience’s applause. Next, Anna Handler, who entered appropriately sporting a cowboy hat, led the Boston Pops (largely comprised of BSO players) in a delightful account of John Williams’s ‘The Cowboys Overture’, the music evoking riders on horseback herding and roping cattle on the western plains. Finally, Ken-David Masur, conducting without a baton, led the combined BSO and TMC Orchestras in Tchaikovsky’s stirring ‘The Year 1812 — Festival Overture’, Op.49 — a fitting way to end a day of festive celebration.
.jpg?w=160&resize=160,160&ssl=1 "Baroque Bridges: Ensemble Hesperi joins forces with Buskaid Soweto String Ensemble")
.JPG?w=160&resize=160,160&ssl=1 "Thrilling moments, terrific theatre, intimacy & transcendence: Sir Antonio Pappano conducts Berlioz's Requiem at BBC Proms with London Symphony Orchestra")
