I went looking around the web for a song that might work to celebrate Jarrett's acceptance into the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, but none of the ones I found--by the Rolling Stones, Alanis Morrissette, the Traveling Wilburys--seemed to say quite what I wanted to say. Congratulations for breaking my heart? Not really. It all felt a little like a parallel trip to the Hallmark store, where all the cards are too specific in their congratulations. A person accepted into a chorus is not (a) recently engaged or married, (b) the parent of a new baby, (c) the recipient of a new job or degree, (d) a new homeowner, (e) a new pet owner, or (f) the possessor of whiter teeth, and it is so very hard to find a card saying, "Congratulations on the continuance of your public singing career, you bad-ass tenor, you!"
Instead, I'll tell you about the TFC and their upcoming season:
In the spring of 1970, John Oliver was named director of vocal and choral activities at the Tanglewood Music Center and began the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. This summer, the TFC - now a Boston Symphony institution - celebrates its 35th anniversary, and on Sunday, August 7, the group joins Spanish conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos in three major but seldom-heard choral works by Brahms: his Nänie, Gesang der Parzen, and Schicksalslied. This program closes with Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. Mr. Frühbeck de Burgos leads his second BSO program at Tanglewood, featuring two works tied to the Don Quixote story, on Friday, August 12. Manuel de Falla's Master Peter's Puppet Show, based on an episode in Cervantes' Don Quixote, features small orchestra, vocal soloists, and puppets, here featuring soprano Awet Andemicael, tenor Peter Bronder, baritone David Wilson-Johnson, and the Virginia-based Bob Brown Puppets. The second half of the program offers a more traditional telling of this classic story in Strauss' Don Quixote, with cellist Truls Mork and BSO Principal Violist Steven Ansell as soloists.
Well, Congratulations on the continuance of your public singing career, you bad-ass tenor, you! I hope you're saving that green lawn chair for me.
(if only he could get rid of some of that snow.)
1 comment:
Cheers, Fury. As it turns out, the newly accepted TFC members start with the fall BSO concerts rather than the summer Tanglewood performances. But I'll definitely be there for the Brahms program, even if it's just in the audience. The last time I heard the Nänie, it was when I was in Washington and singing in the Cathedral Choral Society at Washington National Cathedral--the guest conductor for that program? Robert Shaw.
The good news is that all the snow already melted.
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