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Prometheus | Music for the Senses

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Symphony Hall, Boston, MA

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Yefim Bronfman, piano
Anna Gawboy, lighting research
Justin Townsend, lighting designer
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
 James Burton, conductor

Anna CLYNE Color Field
WAGNER Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde
Intermission

LISZT Prometheus
SCRIABIN Prometheus, Poem of Fire, for piano, color organ, chorus, and orchestra

This week's performances by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus are supported by the Alan J. and Suzanne W. Dworsky Fund for Voice and Chorus.

A program of color: It opens with Anna Clyne’s Color Field, inspired in part by the vibrancy of a Mark Rothko painting. Followed by Richard Wagner’s ecstatic Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde, and Franz Liszt’s Prometheus. The program closes with Alexander Scriabin’s Prometheus, Poem of Fire. When Alexander Scriabin wrote Prometheus, Poem of Fire, he conceived of a “light organ” that would project colors corresponding to his music. Prometheus premiered in 1911 with future BSO Music Director Serge Koussevitzky, whose 150th birthday year we celebrate in 2024.

The April 5 Friday Preview will be with Robert Kirzinger, Director of Program Publications, and Anna Gawboy, lighting researcher. The talk will begin at 12:15pm, and admission is included with a ticket to that afternoon's performance.


Saturday, April 6, at 6:15pm
Admission included with 8pm concert ticket on April 6

Anne Chao, flute
Cynthia Tseng, piano

MESSIAEN Le Merle Noir

Panel Discussion: How We Hear – the evolution of music perception
Dr. Lisa Wong, moderator
(Associate Co-Director, Arts & Humanities Initiative, Harvard Medical School)
Dr. Aniruddh D. Patel
(Tufts University, author of Music, Language, and the Brain)
Alexandra Rieger
(Cognitive Neuroscientist, Mechatronic Sensory Design Engineer, and Multi-Instrumentalist; Ph.D. candidate, MIT)

Thursday's performance will end around 9:15pm, Friday's performance will end around 3:15pm, and Saturday's performance will end around 9:45pm.

  • The Walter Piston Society Concert
A headshot of Yefim Bronfman wearing a tuxedo

Performance Details

Apr 4, 2024, 7:30pm EDT

"Music, really, is something that’s incorporated into the brain."

– Dr. Lisa Wong, Harvard Medical School

Getting Here

A view of the empty Symphony Hall, with the stage in the distance

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