WE THE PEOPLE at Tanglewood to Feature Jon Batiste, James Taylor, and More

The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) announces exciting new additions to We The People: Our Shared Past, Present, and Future, a weeklong residency curated by Yo-Yo Ma at the Tanglewood Festival featuring concerts, conversations, community gatherings, and educational events that offer a window into his perspective on the American experiment. As previously announced, We The People events take place from August 1 through 9 at Tanglewood and in the surrounding community and reflect on The American Project and the role of music in civic life. 

Additions to An American Journey (Aug. 8)

Jon Batiste, an eight-time Grammy, Academy, and Emmy Award–winning singer, songwriter, composer, and pianist, joins the array of previously announced special guests appearing with Ma and the BSO on August 8. The “An American Journey with Yo-Yo Ma and Friends” program includes singer-songwriters James Taylor, Aoife O'Donovan, and Jennifer Kreisberg, historian Heather Cox Richardson, and Founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative Bryan Stevenson. Conductors Teddy Abrams and Ken-David Masur lead an eclectic program that combines music, history, civic ideas, and personal stories to explore the triumphs, tragedies, and human experiences that illuminate the enduring promise of America as a nation.  

Newly added to the “An American Journey” repertoire is Julia Wolfe's Liberty Bell, a 10-minute work for more than 100 musicians. Inspired by American cultural iconography including coins, postage stamps, songs, and poetry, Liberty Bell transforms familiar symbols into a clamorous, compact orchestral miniature reflecting on the meaning of liberty. The program also includes works by titans of American music including Bernstein, Copland, Foster, and Ives. Ma is soloist in the third movement of Dvořák's Cello Concerto withe BSO and performs in several of the other pieces. BSO violinist Bonnie Bewick joins O'Donovan in “Lakes of Ponchartrain.” Full program details for “An American Journey” are available here. (Aug. 8, 8 p.m.) 

New Event: We The People—Humanity in Practice (Aug. 5)

Tickets are now available for TLI Presents: We The People—Humanity in Practice, which places Ma in conversation with composer Brent Michael Davids, historian John Demos, singers Jennifer Kreisberg, Lauren Stevens, and Chris Newell, and storyteller and educator Roger Paul to share perspectives on how indigenous understandings of ecology, past, and present can help to situate the last 250 years in the context of the last 25,000 — and to reimagine the next 250. The group considers how our perspectives on the land and one another change when we center time differently and how we can put our humanity into practice to deepen our knowledge of our shared history and to understand ourselves as part of a much larger tapestry of meaning. More event details and tickets are available here. (Aug. 5, 6 p.m.) 

Tickets also may be purchased by calling 888-266-1200 on Monday–Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday 12:30–4:30 p.m. Tickets may be purchased at the Symphony Hall Box Office during regular Box Office hours. 

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