Andris Nelsons conducts Carlos Simon, Barber, Ellington and Gershwin featuring Nicole Cabell, soprano and Aaron Diehl, piano
Tanglewood
Koussevitzky Music Shed, Lenox/Stockbridge, MA
BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons is joined by the dynamic soprano Nicole Cabell for this all-American program. The BSO premiered Samuel Barber’s gorgeously nostalgic Knoxville: Summer of 1915, based on a text by James Agee, in 1948. Complementing Barber’s small-city observations is George Gershwin’s exuberant, jazzy, and occasionally homesick tone poem An American in Paris. The multifaceted American pianist Aaron Diehl joins the orchestra for Duke Ellington’s New World A-Coming, transcribed from Ellington’s 1943 Carnegie Hall performance. Opening the program is Washington, D.C.-based composer Carlos Simon’s Motherboxx Connection, a 2021 piece inspired by the Afrofuturist-leaning artist collective Black Kirby.
Ticket includes admission to 6pm Prelude Concert.
Gates open at 5:30pm
Performance Details
Jul 9, 2022, 8:00pm EDT
Program Notes & Works
Motherboxx Connection
The title of Simon’s Tales: A Folklore Symphony, of which Motherboxx Connection is the opening movement, suggests ties to such earlier African American composers as William Dawson (e.g., his Negro Folk Symphony) and William Grant Still.
Knoxville: Summer of 1915, for soprano and orchestra
Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is one of the bona fide classics of American music (not quite attaining the status of the composer’s universally beloved Adagio for Strings).
New World A-Coming, for piano and orchestra
Ellington's New World A-Coming was informed by, and takes its title from, a 1943 social history of Harlem by the prominent journalist Roi Ottley: New World A-Coming: Inside Black America.
An American in Paris
The Boston Pops began playing the piece regularly in 1929 with performances under Alfredo Casella, but the first BSO performance came much later, on August 9, 1974, at Tanglewood with Arthur Fiedler conducting.
Berkshire Night
Year-round Berkshire County residents get free tickets to this concert!
- Tickets are available for in-person pickup only at the Main Gate Box Office beginning July 5.
- Must show valid proof of year-round Berkshire residency with a Massachusetts driver’s license or ID.
- Two-ticket limit per person.
