Tanglewood July 24-31: Mahler’s Fourth, Brahms 2nd, Strauss

Soprano Hei-Kyung Hong is soloist for the Mahler Fourth and Strauss’ Four Last Songs.

Juanjo Mena, Principal Guest Conductor of Norway’s Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Chief Guest Conductor at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, will lead the Boston Symphony Orchestra and soprano Hei-Kyung Hong in Strauss’s Four Last Songs and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, on a program with Berg’s Three Pieces for Orchestra, Saturday, July 31, at 8:30 p.m. Maestro Mena will fill in for James Levine, who withdrew from his 2010 Tanglewood programs earlier this month due to additional recuperative time needed after major back surgery in April.

Herbert Blomstedt will lead the BSO in an all-Brahms program featuring the composer’s Symphony No. 2 and Piano Concerto No. 1, with pianist Peter Serkin, on Saturday, July 24. Stepping in for BSO Music Director Laureate Seiji Ozawa, who withdrew from his Tanglewood appearances due to additional recuperative time needed after surgery and treatment for esophageal cancer, Herbert Blomstedt will also lead the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in Hindemith’s Symphonic Metapmorphoses of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber on July 25, replacing the originally scheduled Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé which Mr. Ozawa was to have conducted.

Up and coming conductor Keitaro Harada at Tanglewood.

The July 25 program will also feature conducting Fellows Keitaro Harada leading the TMCO in Mendelssohn’s Fingal’s Cave Overture, Cristian Macelaru conducting excerpts from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Alexander Prior leading the orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet.

Winner of the 2006, 2007, and 2008 International Conductors Workshop in Georgia, Keitaro Harada, 24, has a conducting fellowship with the James E. Rogers Institute, which provides him appointments with the Arizona Opera, Tucson Symphony, Arizona Symphony and University Philharmonic Orchestras. Romanian conductor, violinist, and composer Cristian Macelaru was recently designated the Cover Conductor for the Philadelphia Orchestra and has also conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony, served as assistant conductor for the Dallas Opera and the University of Miami Symphony Orchestra. Alexander Prior, 18, was designated the Assistant to Guest Conductors with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra in January 2010. Also a composer, Mr. Prior has led the State Symphony Orchestra of St. Petersburg in a performance of his own String Symphony No. 1 and has conducted performances of his ballet Mowgli, commissioned by the Moscow Stat Classical Ballet.

Conductor Juanjo Mena will lead the BSO’s July 31 Program

JUANJO MENA

Currently Principal Guest Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in Norway and Chief Guest Conductor at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, Juanjo Mena has appeared with many of the principal symphony and chamber orchestras of his native country. Mr. Mena has also served as Music Director of the Bilbao Symphony, Artistic Director of the Jesús Guridi Chamber Orchestra, and Associate Conductor of the Euskadi Symphony Orchestra in Spain. Mr. Mena’s North American debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra resulted in an ongoing relationship, making annual appearances with the orchestra since 2006. Other recent and upcoming debuts include the Atlanta Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Houston Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Oregon Symphony and The Philadelphia Orchestra. Born in Spain in 1965, Juanjo Mena began his musical training at the Vitoria-Gasteiz Conservatory, studying composition and orchestration. He studied conducting at the Royal Higher Conservatory of Music in Madrid and continued his studies in Munich.

Maestro Herbert Blomstedt at Tanglewood July 24-25

HERBERT BLOMSTEDT

Herbert Blomstedt is the Conductor Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, where he served as Music Director from 1985 to 1995. Throughout his tenure, he and the Symphony appeared to critical acclaim at major European concert venues and festivals including Edinburgh, Salzburg, Munich and Lucerne. He was Music Director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig for seven seasons, from 1998-2005, and he is Honorary Conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, the Danish and Swedish Radio Symphonies, and the Bamberg Symphony. Maestro Blomstedt has guest conducted the world’s major orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, Munich Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and The Philadelphia Orchestra. Born in the U.S. to Swedish parents, Mr. Blomstedt began his musical education at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm and at the University of Uppsala. He later studied conducting at the Juilliard School in New York, contemporary music in Darmstadt and renaissance and baroque music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He worked with Igor Markevich in Salzburg and Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood.

TANGLEWOOD TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets are available through Tanglewood’s website, www.tanglewood.org, through SymphonyCharge at 888-266-1200, or by visiting the Symphony Hall Box Office at 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA. In general, Shed tickets are priced from $9-$115, with Open Rehearsals priced at $17. Ozawa Hall tickets are priced from $11 to $97.

Tickets are also available for purchase in person at the Tanglewood Box Office at Tanglewood’s Main Gate on West Street in Lenox, MA. The Tanglewood Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday, open through intermission on event days and open from 10 a.m. through intermission on Sundays. Beginning on July 10, the Box Office will be open for extended Saturday hours, 9 a.m. through intermission. There is a service charge for each ticket purchased online or by phone and all ticket prices include a $1 Tanglewood grounds maintenance fee. For further information, call the Boston Symphony Orchestra at 617-266-1492 or visit www.bso.org.

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