Tanglewood Learning Institute

Recently described by the New York Times as “the North Star of her instrument’s ever-expanding universe,” musician, interdisciplinary artist, and educator Claire Chase presents a concert of works from her 24-year commissioning initiative, Density 2036, part of the Density Arts family of programs. Performing selections of new works by composers like Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveros, Anna Thorvalsdottir, Vijay Iyer, Marcos Balter, Sarah Hennies, Suzanne Ferrin, George Lewis, and so many more, Chase is cultivating a new body of repertory for the flute each year until the 100th anniversary of Edgard Varèse’s groundbreaking 1936 flute solo, Density 21.5. In this spirit, Density Arts will commission, produce, and record a new program of flute music every year until 2036.

Natalia Bernal, vocals 
Jason Ennis, guitar, composer, and arranger 
Mike Eckroth, piano 
Mary Ann McSweeney, bass 
Conor Meehan, drums 

Kids 4 Harmony, special guests 
    Sean Elligers, artistic director 

Inspired by the rich cultural legacy and striking natural beauty of her native Chile, singer Natalia Bernal fuses Andean and other South American folkloric traditions with elements of jazz, blues, and rock. With her quintet and special guests Kids 4 Harmony, she’ll perform arrangements of jazz classics, Latin American music, and original compositions. 

The Eagles Trombone Ensemble is comprised of 20 members from western Massachusetts and eastern New York. It was founded by Mike Oft who also directs the group. Former BSO principal trombone Ron Barron is the conductor. The ensemble’s repertoire consists of pop tunes from the 1940’s through the 1990’s. They have performed at the Linde Center for Music and Learning twice previously. This performance is free, but tickets are required. 

Onward Still — An Original Dance Work by Ken Ossola 

Boston Conservatory at Berklee Associate Professor of Dance and former Boston Ballet principal dancer John Lam directs Onward Still, an original work by renowned choreographer Ken Ossola (former dancer from Nederlands Dans Theater), created for and performed by Boston Conservatory contemporary dance majors. The piece also features original music by Dutch composer Polle van Genechten and lyrics by Martino Muller, performed live by students from Boston Conservatory at Berklee and Berklee College of Music.

In collaboration with Boston Conservatory at Berklee. 

Hilary Poriss, Professor and Chair, Department of Music, Northeastern University

Trumpet greats Jon Faddis and Randy Brecker share the stage with the next generation of trumpet superstars – Benny Benack and Bria Skonberg – along with the Ted Rosenthal Trio, performing music of trumpet legends Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, and others. In addition to amazing trumpet virtuosity and improvisational creativity, the concert will feature the vocals of Benack and Skonberg who have toured together with Jazz at Lincoln Center, and follows up on last September’s sold-out Linde Center performance of Rosenthal's Bernstein & Bop: A Saxophone Colossus.

Karen Slack, soprano 
Kevin Miller, piano

A dazzling collaboration of music and storytelling featuring soprano Karen Slack and new music by acclaimed composers Jasmine Barnes, Damien Geter, Jessie Montgomery, Shawn Okpebholo, Dave Ragland, BSO Deborah and Philip Edmundson Composer Chair Carlos Simon, and Joel Thompson along with carefully selected traditional repertoire. Each work reflects the beauty, humility, passion, and power of the Queens being celebrated. The Boston Symphony Orchestra on behalf of the Tanglewood Learning Institute is a project co-commissioner of African Queens.

Concert Theatre Works
Parker String Quartet

Rainer Maria Rilke’s nine letters to aspiring poet Franz Kappus are a clarion call to artists everywhere. Maurice Ravel’s single, masterful string quartet combines with Rilke’s letters in a unique union of music and text. The production reimagines the lost letters of Franz Kappus, the young poet, completing this famous correspondence in a new concert-theater work translated by Damion Searls and reimagined as a dramatic dialogue by Bill Barclay.

Robert Kirzinger, BSO Director of Program Publications
Dawn Upshaw, TMC Head of the Vocal Arts

What feelings form when I try to recuperate the signal?

Acclaimed poet Aracelis Girmay explores the legacy of her great-grandmother in this words-and-music collaboration with director Dawn M. Simmons, composer Brittany J. Green, and violist Ashleigh Gordon of Castle of our Skins.

“Lois Davis was born in Georgia in 1909 and died in Chicago thirty-five years later, the mother of seven children,” Girmay writes. “When my own children were born, I began to think about her death differently. In this seam-torn work, through arrangements of syntax, gesture, and pitch, I am trying to attune my language to a flickering frequency in relation to this mother and her people and the ‘black noise’ (Saidiya Hartman) we are still making together.”

In collaboration with The Authors Guild Foundation.

The Tanglewood Learning Institute, Tanglewood Music Center, The Clark, and Pulitzer Prize winning art critic Sebastian Smee have teamed up to create a very special evening celebrating French music and art of the late nineteenth century, ranging from the Romantic period into early Modernism. Fellows from the Tanglewood Music Center will present a performance of chamber music featuring Fauré's Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 15 along with Ed Gazouleas, Director of the Tanglewood Music Center, who will introduce selected excerpts from the piece highlighting key musical ideas and themes. Following their performance, Sebastian Smee (The Washington Post) explores the art and artists who were so central to this period, notably many of the French artists whose works are at the heart of the Clark's collection. 

The permanent collection galleries will be open from 5:30pm to 7pm, so that audience members can see the works that Smee will discuss with their own eyes—works that Fauré may have seen too. 

Based on Nicholas Phan’s innovative BACH 52 web series, these programs will explore the question: “Is the music of Bach for everyone?” Tenor arias from Johann Sebastian Bach’s church cantatas will be paired with interviews with various guests probing this question and examining the relevance of Bach’s music to today’s increasingly secular and diverse society.

Based on Nicholas Phan’s innovative BACH 52 web series, these programs will explore the question: “Is the music of Bach for everyone?” Tenor arias with continuo accompaniment from Johann Sebastian Bach’s church cantatas will be paired with interviews with scholars, musicians, and audience-members to probe this question and examine the relevance of Bach’s music to today’s increasingly secular and diverse society.

Eric Henry Sanders, playwright
Rosalba Rolón and John Hellweg, actors
Donald T. Sanders, director
Eve Wolf, music director

Play with Time, by Eric Henry Sanders, features the music of Philip Glass and reconfigures a conversation between Philip Glass and the visual artist Fredericka Foster. It's a music theater piece on the theme of time and uses Glass's own method of iterative composition.

In collaboration with the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts (MIFA) and Ensemble for the Romantic Century (ERC).