Tanglewood Music Center to Open 2026 Season with TMCO Concert and Opening Exercises

The Tanglewood Music Center (TMC), the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer academy for advanced musical training, opened its 2026 season this week with the first of its eight concerts by the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra (TMCO) on July 6. The next afternoon, the annual Opening Exercises convocation took place on July 7 in Ozawa Hall, closing with the Fellows and faculty rising to sing Randall Thompson's Alleluia, a tradition since the TMC's first summer. 

Founded in 1940 by legendary BSO Music Director Serge Koussevitzky as the Berkshire Music Center, the TMC's 2026 cohort includes 122 Fellows ages 19 to 32 from 24 states and 11 nations. Selected through a rigorous application and audition process, the Fellows study in one TMC's six programs (Composition, Conducting, Instrumental, Library, Piano, and Vocal Arts) and have the unique opportunity to learn and perform with Andris Nelsons, BSO musicians, TMC faculty, and Tanglewood guest artists. Tuition, room, and board are offered free of charge for this immersive and transformative summer experience. For many, a summer fellowship at the TMC represents the final milestone before beginning a professional career in music. The TMC plays an outsize role in training the next generation of instrumentalists, vocalists, conductors, and composers. Notable TMC alumni include Claudio Abbado, John Adams, Marin Alsop, Leonard Bernstein, Tania León, Seiji Ozawa, and Dawn Upshaw, as well as countless orchestral musicians around the world including over 45 players in the BSO. 

Noting the breadth of the repertoire that TMC Fellows perform over their summer together, TMC Director Edward Gazouleas stated: “Our programming spans centuries, from 16th-century works by Gabrielli to original works created on site by our Composition Fellows. It reflects the themes that inform much of Tanglewood's programming this summer: America 250, Faith in Our Time, and Music and the Natural World.”

In addition to the weekly TMCO performances and Prelude Concerts, highlights of the TMC's 2026 schedule at Tanglewood include the annual Festival of Contemporary Music, Tanglewood on Parade, and the Silent Film Project, as well as numerous vocal and chamber recitals and open workshops. TMC Fellows also perform free concerts in the community. More about the TMC. 

This summer's TMC programs and events are described below. 

TMCO Performances (weekly through August 16)

TMC Fellows perform in eight concerts as the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra from July 6 to Aug. 16. This year's TMC Conducting Fellows Julian Gilewski and Lauren Smith jointly lead several of the TMCO programs along with Andris Nelsons and guest conductors. The TMCO concerts are in Ozawa Hall with the exception of the August 16th closing concert. 

TMC conducting Fellows Gilewski and Smith made their Tanglewood debuts on July 6 in the TMCO's first Monday evening program. Gilewski led Ives' Variations on America, programmed in honor of America's 250th birthday two days before, and Smith took the podium for Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. It concluded with an unconducted performance of Beethoven's beloved Symphony No. 6, Pastoral, with ten BSO musicians joining. The TMCO is set to reprise the conductor-less Pastoral alongside members of the BSO on August 4 for Tanglewood on Parade. 

The following Monday, Andris Nelsons conducts the TMCO in Beethoven's iconic Symphony No. 5, as well as Haydn's Symphony No. 31, nicknamed Hornsignal due to the prominent use of four horns throughout the piece. Smith conducts Beethoven's Overture to Egmont, and Gilewski leads Brahms' Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56a (Mon., July 13, 8 p.m.). 

In the third TMCO program of the season, Nelsons conducts two tone poems by Strauss, Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel. Gilewski and Smith lead Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 84 and Hindemith's Konzertmusik for strings and brass, Op. 50 (Mon., July 20, 8 p.m.). 

The fourth TMCO program concludes the annual Festival of Contemporary Music, with festival director Esa-Pekka Salonen leading a program titled Nordic Boomers featuring music by Hans Abrahamsen, Anders Hillborg, and Magnus Lindberg. Finnish cellist Senja Rummukainen makes her Tanglewood debut performing Salonen's own Cello Concerto (Mon., July 27, 8 p.m.). 

The next week, Salonen is joined by Gilewski and Smith for three seminal works from the first half of the twentieth century: Debussy's La Mer and Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin (Fellows conducting), and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra (Salonen conducting), commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky, Tanglewood's founding music director, and premiered by the BSO in 1944 (Mon., Aug. 3, 8 p.m.).

The sixth TMCO program features Gilewski and Smith conducting TMC Vocal Fellows in an evening of American opera, with arias and scenes from Copland's The Tender Land, John Adams' El Niño, John Harbison's The Great Gatsby, Missy Mazzoli's Proving Up, Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, and TMC 1990 alumnus Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar, which premiered at Tanglewood in 2003 (Mon., Aug. 10, 8 p.m.).   

The final TMCO concert is a special Sunday afternoon performance in The Shed, conducted by Marin Alsop. The first woman to serve as the head of major orchestras in the United States, South America, Austria, and Great Britain, Alsop is an alumna of the Tanglewood Music Center, where she studied with Leonard Bernstein. She leads a crowd-pleasing program of Anna Clyne's Masquerade, Bruch's Violin Concerto with virtuoso Ray Chen (Tanglewood debut), and Mahler's Symphony No. 5 (Sun., Aug. 16, 2:30 p.m., with Open Rehearsal on Sat., Aug. 15 at 10:30 a.m.). 

Festival of Contemporary Music (July 23-27)

The annual Festival of Contemporary Music (FCM) is the centerpiece of the TMC season. Directed this year by Esa-Pekka Salonen, FCM takes place in Ozawa Hall from July 23 through 27 and offers five concerts performed by Fellows with a focus this summer on works by Salonen and other Nordic composers. Each FCM program is organized by theme: Those We Have Lost Too Soon; Meta Music: Music About Other Music; The Next Generation; Gen Z Paired with Iconic Works; and Nordic Boomers. Salonen conducts the TMCO in the final FCM program, which features the debut of highly acclaimed young Finnish cellist Senja Rummukainen. All FCM concerts are offered free, with the exception of the July 27 closing concert, which is ticketed. 

The FCM opening night program, titled Those We Have Lost Too Soon, presents a series of works by recently-deceased composers and musical meditations on life and death. The program opens with Salonen's own Arabesques for Olly, composed in memory of Oliver Knussen (d. 2018), followed by Steven Stucky's (d. 2016) Four Poems of A.R. Ammons and two works by Kaija Saariaho (d. 2023): Lonh and Terra Memoria, written in memoriam "for those departed."  Knussen's own Songs for Sue, written in 2003 in memory of his late wife Susan Knussen, closes the program (Thurs., July 23, 8 p.m.). 

In the second FCM program, Salonen presents Meta Music: Music About Other Music, a program that places contemporary composers in dialogue with works that span musical history from the Medieval era to today. Salonen's Saltat sobrius—a fantasy on Pérotin's ca. 1199 organum quadruplum Sederunt Principes—opens the program; also appearing are Nico Muhly's Two Motets, an orchestration of William Byrd's "Bow thine ear, O Lord" and "Miserere mei, Deus"; Peter Maxwell Davies's Fantasia on a Ground and Two Pavans (after Henry Purcell); and Salonen's Fog, a fantasy on the Prelude from Bach's Partita for Solo Violin No. 3 composed for Frank Gehry's 90th birthday (Fri., July 24, 2:30 p.m.). 

The Saturday FCM program The Next Generation showcases four Millennial composers: Alisson Kruusmaa (mesmerism); Gabriella Smith (Anthozoa); Anna Berg (remains of confetti unexploded); and Lisa Streich (Sternenstill) (Sat. July 25, 6 p.m.). 

The intergenerational programming continues on Sunday morning, with a series of compositions by Generation Z composers Delfin Demiray, Maya Miro Johnson, Hannah Ishizaki, and Jessie Cox paired with Lutosławski's Chantefleurs et Chantefables and Ligeti's Melodien (Sun., July 26, 10 a.m.). 

The FCM closes Monday night with Nordic Boomers, a program of works by Hans Abrahamsen (let me tell you), Anders Hillborg (Kongsgaard Variations), and Magnus Lindberg, performed by the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. Salonen brings a touch of self-awareness to the program, including himself in the mix (Cello Concerto, featuring Senja Rummukainen). Salonen conducts his own concerto as well as Lindberg's composition, while Tanglewood Music Center Conducting Fellows Lauren Smith (let me tell you) and Julian Gilewski (Kongsgaard Variations) join for the remainder of the program (Mon., July 27, 8 p.m.).  

Tanglewood on Parade (August 4)

The TMC Fellows play a central role in the annual Tanglewood on Parade (TOP), which this year is part of We the People: Our Shared Past, Present, and Future, a week of concerts and events curated by Yo-Yo Ma. Following the opening of the grounds at 2 p.m., Fellows offer a chamber music concert at 2:30 p.m. at the Linde Center, a piano concert at 3:30 p.m. at Ozawa Hall, and a vocal concert at 4:30 p.m. at the Linde Center. At 6 p.m., The Shed opens for a performance of the Brahms Sextet No. 2 in G, Op. 36 with TMC String Fellows alongside BSO concertmaster Nathan Cole, TMC Director and violist Edward Gazouleas, and Ma.  

Square dancing on The Shed lawn begins at 7 p.m. followed by a grand parade of BSO and TMC musicians to The Shed stage for the evening's 8 p.m. concert. The TMCO performs Beethoven's Symphony No. 6, Pastoral, unconducted, and combines forces with the BSO to conclude the concert with the customary performance of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Also on the program are Allison Loggins-Hull's Rhapsody on a Theme by Joni with conductor Samy Rachid, soloist Lorna McGhee, and the BSO and John Williams' The Cowboys Overture with the Boston Pops (Tues., Aug. 4, 2 to 9:30 p.m.). 

Click here for the full schedule and repertoire listings for this year's Tanglewood on Parade. 

TMC Chamber Music, Recitals, Preludes, and Workshops

TMC Fellows offer weekly chamber music performances for free on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. in Ozawa Hall (July 5 to August 16). Many of these programs include music by the 2025 and 2026 TMC Composition Fellows. Additional free TMC recitals at Tanglewood include music by Charles Ives performed by the Vocal Fellows (Sun., July 5, 7 p.m.), nineteenth century works performed by the Vocal Fellows (Sun., July 12, 7 p.m.), and new pieces by the 2026 TMC Composition Fellows performed by the New Fromm Players (Mon., July 13, 1:30 p.m.). Click here for a full list of free performances by the TMC Fellows. 

Fellows also offer Prelude Concerts on Saturdays at 6 p.m., available for ticketholders to the 8 p.m. Shed concerts on those evenings at no additional charge (July 11 to August 15). Prelude Concert repertoire is selected to complement that evening's Shed program and may be found in full on bso.org.  

Each Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., Tanglewood Learning Institute (TLI) and TMC collaborate to present TLI Open Workshops at the Linde Center, opening a scheduled class from one of TMC's areas of study to the public to offer a firsthand look at the educational process. Facilitators for this year's Open Workshops are pianist Jacob Greenburg (July 1), conductor James Ross (July 8), pianist Emanuel Ax (July 15, with second date on Thurs., July 16 at 4 p.m.), violinist Nathan Cole (July 22), Music Director Andris Nelsons (July 29), composer Annea Lockwood (Aug. 5), and oboist John Ferrillo (Aug. 12). Art of Conducting workshops with TMC Conducting Fellows are led by Nelsons (Sun., July 12, 11 a.m.), Esa-Pekka Salonen (Fri., July 13, 1:30 p.m.), and Marin Alsop (Thurs., Aug. 13, 4 p.m.). 

By popular demand, the TMC offers two performances at the Linde Center of the TMC Silent Film Project, this year pairing scenes from the 1927 silent film Metropolis with new music by TMC Composition Fellows (Sun., Aug. 9, 7 p.m. & 9 p.m.). 

TMC Performances in the Community

In addition to the above performances at Tanglewood, TMC Fellows collaborate with other Berkshires nonprofits to offer community performances throughout the region. 

Inspired by Yo-Yo Ma's upcoming We the People week and in collaboration with the Tanglewood Learning Institute, TMC Fellows perform Brahms Sextet No. 2 in G, led by Edward Gazouleas, at the Clark Art Institute (Sun., July 19, 3 p.m., click here for tickets). They bring the same piece to Greenagers, a nonprofit based in South Egremont that engages youth in environmental efforts and community-building (Wed., Jul. 22, 7 p.m.).  

TMC Fellows perform at two Parading to Tanglewood events also leading up to the We the People Week and Tanglewood on Parade: A Gathering at Berkshire Busk! in downtown Great Barrington (Sat., Aug. 1, 6:30 p.m.) and A Gathering at Community Day at the Village at Hancock Shaker Village (Sun., Aug. 2, 12 p.m.). Both events are free and open to the public. 

TMC continues an ongoing collaboration with FreshGrass Institute offering TMC Composition Fellows the opportunity to create and experiment with spatial audio and electroacoustic composition at Studio 9. Located at the Porches Inn in North Adams, Massachusetts, the performance and recording venue is built around a Meyer Sound Constellation system that transforms the acoustic character of the room, allowing composers to shape how sound moves through and inhabits space and placing listeners inside immersive sonic environments. Composition faculty Senem Pirler, Nina C. Young, and Todd Reynolds guide Fellows in learning Meyer Sound's Spacemap Go spatial audio tools and developing original works for the Constellation system, culminating in a spatial audio showcase open to the public (Fri., Aug. 14, 7 p.m., click here for tickets). 

Ticketing

Tanglewood.org is the official site for all tickets. Tickets may also be purchased at the Tanglewood Box Office (see hours) or by calling 888-266-1200 on Monday–Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday 12:30–4:30 p.m.  

Most of the concerts that are part of the Festival of Contemporary Music are offered free; seating is general admission and does not need advance reservation. Tickets are required for the closing FCM concert on Monday, July 27. 

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