The news of a full, June to September schedule for the 84-year-old concert grounds is a sign of some kind of return to normalcy for one of Berkshire County’s largest summer draws.
After the COVID-19 pandemic left the sprawling lawns of Tanglewood empty in 2020, it rebounded in 2021 with noticeable concessions to the ongoing public health crisis.
“We had a shortened season, we had programs presented without intermission, we had certain health and safety protocols that we put in place," said BSO Vice President of Artistic Planning Anthony Fogg. “We sat at the end of the season and just talked through. We did some audience survey. And so elements of the approaches will apply to the summer. There’s some recalibration of our programming, in many ways. We are more vigilant in our approach to sanitation, to spacing on the lawn. So elements will certainly carry over from last summer into Tanglewood 2022.”
The core of the season is as always the orchestra itself.
“We have an eight-week season with the BSO, most of the concerts in July, with our music director, Andris Nelsons, but also great series of guests and wonderful soloists, some of the most beloved of our time, some who are new to Tanglewood," Fogg told WAMC. "As well though, we have a couple of concerts with the Boston Pops, a wonderful set of recitals in the Ozawa Hall. And then all of our activity with the Tanglewood Music Center, which is our high level-training program, as well as the Tanglewood Learning Institute, which was a new entity that was inaugurated in 2019.”
The institute will feature talks from luminaries like Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner and U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo.
“Flanking that main part of the summer will be what we refer to as our Popular Artists Series, which brings some of the great names in the popular musical genre to Tanglewood- Including our beloved James Taylor on July 3rd and 4th and Brandi Carlile and Ringo Starr and Earth, Wind & Fire," said Fogg. "It's a great lineup.”
There’s also programming for young people, like a July 23rd family concert by members of the BSO conducted by Thomas Wilkins.
“We're doing a 90th birthday celebration for John Williams on the 20th of August with some of John's closest friends," said Fogg. "We're doing all of the Beethoven piano concertos over one weekend with pianist Paul Lewis. Garrick Ohlsson’s playing all of Brahms’ piano music. We have the Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens, some wonderful string quartets, and great soloists- Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, the list goes on.”
Despite the excitement of the season announcement, forecasting the zigs and zags of the pandemic months in advance remains a challenge. Fogg says the BSO will closely monitor the situation with guidance from both national entities like the CDC and local ones like the Tri-Town Health Department, as well as its own team of medical advisors. Tanglewood’s health and safety protocols for 2022 remain TBD for now.
“We're going to be realistic about what the protocols should be, and we're not announcing these until much closer to the beginning of the festival, which is the middle of June, so we can provide the most informed information, we can take the most intelligent approach to these health and safety issues," Fogg told WAMC. "And absolutely, if plans need to be modified, so be it. We've all been on the rollercoaster of changing things in our lives over these last two years, so we will go into the season with open eyes and a flexibility of approach.”
You can learn more about the 2022 Tanglewood season here.
