WEBCAST OF ANDRIS NELSONS-LED TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER ORCHESTRA GALA PERFORMANCE OF MAHLER’S SYMPHONY NO. 8, “SYMPHONY OF A THOUSAND,” NOW AVAILABLE FOR ON DEMAND VIEWING AT WWW.TANGLEWOOD.ORG/MAHLER8

August 27, 2015

WEBCAST OF ANDRIS NELSONS-LED TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER ORCHESTRA GALA PERFORMANCE OF MAHLER’S SYMPHONY NO. 8, “SYMPHONY OF A THOUSAND,” NOW AVAILABLE FOR ON DEMAND VIEWING AT WWW.TANGLEWOOD.ORG/MAHLER8

BSO MUSIC DIRECTOR ANDRIS NELSONS LED THE GALA PERFORMANCE OF MAHLER’S SYMPHONY NO. 8, IN CELEBRATION OF THE TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER’S 75TH ANNIVERSARY, SATURDAY, AUGUST 8; PEFORMANCE FEATURED TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER ORCHESTRA, TMC ALUMNI, THE TANGLEWOOD FESTIVAL CHORUS, BUTI CHORUS, AMERICAN BOYCHOIR, AND EIGHT DISTINGUISHED VOCAL SOLOISTS

CONDUCTOR AND MUSICIAN INTERVIEWS AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES FOOTAGE FROM THE MAHLER 8 PERFORMANCE ALSO AVAILABLE ON DEMAND

 
A special webcast of the Tanglewood Music Center 75th Anniversary Gala performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, “Symphony of a Thousand,” led by BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons, is now available for on-demand viewing at www.tanglewood.org/mahler8, bringing the TMC’s anniversary celebration to viewers around the world. In addition to the performance video, the webcast features conductor and musician interviews, as well as behind-the-scenes footage of the preparations for the Mahler Symphony No. 8 performance. One of the highlights of the 2015 Tanglewood season, the August 8 performance celebrated the TMC’s 75-year history of nurturing young musicians.

The performance showcases the talented young Fellows of the 2015 Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, as well as alumni of the Tanglewood Music Center, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Chorus, the American Boychoir, and a cast of internationally acclaimed soloists, including sopranos Erin Wall, Christine Goerke, and Erin Morley; mezzo-sopranos Mihoko Fujimura and Jane Henschel; tenor Klaus Florian Vogt; baritone Matthias Goerne; and bass Ain Anger.

The Tanglewood Music Center, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s acclaimed summer academy for advanced musical study, marked its 75th anniversary season this summer with events and programming that spotlighted its past accomplishments and celebrated its standing as one of this country’s preeminent places for the creation of new music and opportunities for collaborative music-making in the area of recital, chamber music, vocal, and orchestra performance. Click here for further information about the TMC’s 75th anniversary season.

The BSO’s webcast of the Tanglewood Music Center 75th Anniversary Gala Concert performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 is made possible by a generous gift from Lizbeth and George Krupp in honor of Bernice T. Krupp.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
One of the largest-scale works in the classical concert repertoire—as its descriptive title suggests—and Mahler’s most ambitious work, the Symphony No. 8, “Symphony of a Thousand,” stretches to some 80 minutes in length and calls for several hundred (if usually not reaching a thousand) musicians. A powerfully dramatic two-part edifice that reflects disparate inspirations yet is united by the common theme of salvation through love, its first section is an ecstatic, expansive setting of the 9th-century Pentecostal hymn “Veni creator spiritus,” in which the faithful beseech the Holy Spirit to strengthen their Christian resolve and ward off the powers of evil, while the second is a treatment of the final scene from Part II of Goethe’s Faust, in which the fallen hero’s condemned soul is saved from eternal damnation by the divine intervention of the Mater Gloriosa—the Virgin Mary.

Composed in the course of a single summer in 1906, the Eighth Symphony marks a return to the use of vocal forces after the composer’s purely instrumental Symphonies Nos. 5–7. But unlike his Second, Third, and Fourth Symphonies, which incorporated singing in isolated movements and as part of a more varied sonic canvas, the Symphony No. 8 is sung in its entirety, resembling a grand oratorio or massive cantata more than a traditional symphony. “Hitherto I have always used words and voices simply in an explanatory way, as a shortcut to creating a certain atmosphere and to express something which, purely symphonically, could only be expressed at great length, with the terseness and precision only possible by using words,” Mahler said when discussing this novel work. “Here, on the other hand, voices are also used as instruments: the first movement is strictly symphonic in form but all of it is sung. … It really is … a ‘pure’ symphony in which the most beautiful instrument in the world is given its true place—and not simply as one sonority among others, for in my symphony the human voice is after all the bearer of the whole poetic idea.” Merging religious profundity and operatic theatricality as well as moments of poignant intimacy and those of overwhelming bombast, the Eighth Symphony is the ultimate embodiment of the inherent juxtapositions and contradictions that run through Mahler’s life and work.

ADDITIONAL TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER 75TH ANNIVERSARY HIGHLIGHTS
The Tanglewood Music Center, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s acclaimed summer academy for advanced musical study, marked its 75th anniversary season in the summer of 2015 with events and programming that spotlighted its past accomplishments and celebrated its standing as one of this country’s preeminent places for the creation of new music and opportunities for collaborative music-making in the area of recital, chamber music, vocal, and orchestra performance. Many of the world’s most renowned classical music figures of the 20th and 21st centuries—including Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Osvaldo Golijov, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Wynton Marsalis, Leontyne Price, Ned Rorem, Bright Sheng, and Dawn Upshaw—have passed through the TMC’s programs since the academy’s founding in 1940.

The TMC’s 75th anniversary celebration was rich and multifaceted, highlighted by more than 30 newly commissioned works; and the annual Festival of Contemporary Music, July 20-27, which featured 15 premiere performances. In addition to the free webcast of the August 8 performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, the TMC celebrated its anniversary with free weekly 75th anniversary music streams, featuring some of the best of the TMC’s 75-year performance history, available at www.tanglewood.org throughout the summer. The Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra—the TMC’s most prestigious performing ensemble—performed in eight concerts throughout the summer, including programs that featured four world premieres and works of Bernstein, Brahms, Britten, Copland, Debussy, Foss, Hindemith, Ives, Mahler, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky, under the direction of Andris Nelsons, Asher Fisch, Ludovic Morlot, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Stefan Asbury. Visitors to Tanglewood this summer had a chance to learn more about the TMC and take in details of its history and mission through commemorative program books and an archival exhibit at Tanglewood’s Visitor Center.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF TANGLEWOOD, THE BSO’S SUMMER HOME SINCE 1937
One of the most popular and acclaimed music festivals in the world, Tanglewood—the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home since 1937—is located in the beautiful Berkshire Hills between Lenox and Stockbridge, MA. With an average annual attendance of more than 300,000 visitors each season, Tanglewood has a $60 million impact on the Berkshire economy each summer. Tanglewood presents orchestra concerts by the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, and visiting ensembles, featuring many of the greatest classical musicians of our time; recital and chamber music concerts in the intimate setting of Ozawa Hall; programs highlighting the young musicians of the Tanglewood Music Center; and performances by some of today’s leading popular artists. Tanglewood is family-friendly, with free lawn tickets available for children and young people age 17 and under, and a variety of special programs for children, including Kids’ Corner, Watch and Play, and the annual Family Concert. Tanglewood is also the home of the Tanglewood Music Center (which celebrated its 75th anniversary this year), the BSO’s preeminent summer music academy for the advanced training of young professional musicians, and Days in the Arts, a multi-cultural arts-immersion program that gives 400 fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-graders from communities across Massachusetts the opportunity to explore the arts throughout each week-long session of the summer. These are just two of the BSO’s many educational and outreach activities, for which more information is available at www.bso.org—the largest and most visited orchestral website in the country, receiving about 7 million visitors annually and generating over $95 million in revenue since its launch in 1996. The Boston Symphony Orchestra is online at www.bso.org. Music lovers can follow the BSO on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bostonsymphony, on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bostonsymphony­and on Instagram at http://instagram.com/bostonsymphony.

SPONSORSHIP
Commonwealth Worldwide Chauffeured Transportation is proud to be celebrating its twelfth year as the Official Chauffeured Transportation Provider of the BSO. Visit Sarasota County returns for a second year as Sponsor of the Boston Pops at Tanglewood Series. The Sunday, August 9, 2:30 p.m. concert is Sponsored by EMC Corporation.

For further information, call the Boston Symphony Orchestra at 617-266-1492. The Boston Symphony Orchestra is online at www.bso.org. All programs and artists are subject to change.

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Saturday, August 8, 8:30 p.m. Shed
TMC 75th Anniversary Gala
The Leonard Bernstein Memorial Concert
Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra
Alumni of the Tanglewood Music Center
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Erin Wall, soprano (Magna Peccatrix)
Christine Goerke, soprano (Una Poenitentium)
Erin Morley, soprano (Mater Gloriosa)
Mihoko Fujimura, mezzo-soprano (Muller Samaritana)
Jane Henschel, mezzo-soprano (Maria Aegyptiaca)
Klaus Florian Vogt, tenor (Doctor Marianus)
Matthias Goerne, baritone (Pater Ecstaticus)
Ain Anger, bass (Pater Profundus)
Tanglewood Festival Chorus, John Oliver, conductor
BUTI Chorus, Ann Howard Jones, conductor
American Boychoir, Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, conductor
MAHLER Symphony No. 8

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