Tanglewood Music Center

History

The Tanglewood Music Center (TMC) was founded in 1940 as the Berkshire Music Center by the BSO's music director, Serge Koussevitzky, three years after the establishment of Tanglewood as the summer home of the BSO. He served as director of the Center until one year after his retirement with the BSO, when he was succeeded by new BSO director Charles Münch, who ran the TMC from 1951 until 1962. Munch was succeeded by BSO director Erich Leinsdorf, who was TMC director from 1963 to 1970.

In 1970, the rock scene and jazz scene were coming together, as bands like Chicago, Santana, Miles Davis and many more performed. Also in 1970, three years before he was appointed as Music Director of the BSO, Seiji Ozawa took over BSO activities at Tanglewood, with Gunther Schuller as TMC director and Leonard Bernstein as general advisor. In 1975, the Italian conductor Franco Ferrara began teaching conducting at TMC. Schuller remained as director until August 1984 when he resigned over differences with Ozawa. Pianist and conductor Leon Fleisher took over the direction of TMC in 1985, but resigned abruptly several years later in 1997 after a "lengthy, bitter dispute" with Ozawa. Fleisher was replaced by Ellen Highstein, the current TMC director as of 2017. Ozawa was succeeded as BSO director in 2001 by James Levine, who conducted some TMC concerts and operas and worked with the student conductors in addition to leading Tanglewood's BSO programs. Levine left the BSO in 2011 after health issues. On May 16, 2013, the BSO announced Andris Nelsons as its 15th—and current as of 2017—Music Director, and he has conducted the TMC Orchestra and worked with the conducting fellows there on several occasions.

Performance and other facilities

Tanglewood activities take place on 210 acres (0.85 km²) of meadow, most of which was donated to the BSO in 1936 by the Tappan family.

Students of the TMC are typically housed in Miss Hall's School, a boarding school for high-school aged girls in nearby Pittsfield. Until 1999, composition students at the festival were housed separately at the Koussevitzky mansion (Seranak) near the grounds; this practice ended with Highstein's appointment as director.

Students and faculty

Koussevitzky's vision for the TMC was an institution where students would work closely with faculty members of the BSO and guest artists, as well as with each other. The selection process is extremely competitive: in 2007, there were over 1500 applicants, from whom 156 Fellows were chosen.

Alumni of the TMC constitute a significant presence in the professional classical music scene: it is estimated that 20% of American symphony orchestra members, as well as 30% of all first-chair players, have attended the program. Notable alums in composition include John Adams, Luciano Berio, Leonard Bernstein, William Bolcom, Mario Davidovsky, David Del Tredici, Jacob Druckman, Lukas Foss, Michael Gandolfi, John Harbison (who attended as a conductor/vocalist), Russell Peck, Ned Rorem, Steven Mackey, Richard Aaker Trythall, and composer and conductor Oliver Knussen, among many others. Conducting alums include Leonard Bernstein, Robert Spano, Eleazar de Carvalho, Seiji Ozawa, Lorin Maazel, Claudio Abbado, Michael Tilson Thomas, David Zinman, Christoph von Dohnanyi, and Zubin Mehta. Other notable TMC alumni include Dawn Upshaw, Wynton Marsalis, and Burt Bacharach.

Festival of Contemporary Music

The Festival of Contemporary Music is an annual event at Tanglewood, organized by the Tanglewood Music Center. It began in 1964 as a project of then BSO Music Director Erich Leinsdorf, the newly appointed coordinator of contemporary music studies at the TMC, Gunther Schuller, and noted contemporary music patron Paul Fromm. Recent Festivals have focused on composers born in 1938 (2007) and the music of Elliott Carter (2008).