InTune

The BSO regularly hosts a variety of events and gatherings to celebrate and pay tribute to the many generous donors in the BSO’s community. These events bring together like-minded music lovers to enjoy time together, and often with members of the orchestra. At one such event at Tanglewood this summer, BSO bassist Todd Seeber, Eleanor L. and Levin H. Campbell chair, spoke to members of the Walter Piston Society, which recognizes those who have provided for the future of the BSO, Boston Pops, or Tanglewood through an irrevocable deferred gift, or by including the BSO in their long-term plans. His remarks, which trace his career with the BSO and the many donor connections in the orchestra’s long history, are reproduced here, edited for length and clarity.

It’s great to see you all again, and to be back performing here and at Symphony Hall. This year, Tanglewood has an even more intense energy than ever, for this extraordinary orchestra, for the Tanglewood Music Center and its Fellows, working with our beloved music director Andris Nelsons in what we could certainly describe, artistically, as a Golden Age.

As some of you may remember, in the “before times,” I took part in the orchestra exchange with Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in the spring of 2019, moved to Leipzig, and spent the most amazing months playing with the Gewandhaus Orchestra, where Maestro Nelsons is also Music Director. For me, that time was an incredible period of artistic renewal and development, soaking up the long, rich musical heritage of that city, forging lasting professional and personal relationships, doing research, and having incredibly unique musical opportunities, like playing cantatas in Bach’s church, and performing the entire Wagner Ring cycle in the opera house. I can’t tell you how often I now draw upon those experiences in my work with the BSO! I look forward to more of my colleagues having the same opportunity in the future.

In thinking about the history of Leipzig, going back eight centuries, with its links to Bach, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Mahler, it’s interesting and even awe-inspiring to consider that here at Tanglewood, we are within living memory of our own grand history. The names that echo throughout the grounds, and the titans that so many of us in the orchestra have worked with—Koussevitzky, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, John Williams, Thomas Adès, Yo-Yo Ma—are the figures of our own time. Here at Tanglewood, we continue to generate the legacy of classical music, and are humbled to participate. We work daily and exhaustively at the passing down and preserving of the finest music-making, while fostering the brightest innovations of our own time. We are living the culmination of Koussevitzky’s vision: wonderful new commissions alongside the greatest works of the past, performed either in recital by our fine fellows, or with great artists like Maestro Nelsons, Paul Lewis, and more.

Next year will mark my 35th year in the BSO. As a teacher and representative of the BSO bass section, I have the pleasure of hearing Tanglewood Music Center Fellows audition, arranging for student bass players to sit in and play with us, advocate for chamber music repertoire, sit in with the TMC orchestra, teach masterclasses and coach chamber music new and old. In this way, our BSO traditions are passed along to new generations, and we all benefit from the energy exchanged with these young players — the finest in the country. I played with Bernstein and others; we have colleagues who have worked with Shostakovich, my teacher played for Stravinsky, and an early stand partner of a retired colleague even played chamber music with Brahms. The TMC is our “jewel in the crown”—it’s in a class of its own, unique in the world. Bernstein said it was not a school where students seek grades, but rather where they are “planets seeking their orbit in the universe.” I cannot thank you enough for your support of this great orchestra and for all that goes on in our musical community. We love performing for you. Thank you.

If you are interested joining the Walter Piston Society by making a planned gift or bequest to the BSO, Tanglewood, or Boston Pops, to help sustain it for years to come, please contact us today by calling 888-244-4694 or emailing us at plannedgiving@bso.org. Or, visit bso.org/support/gift-planning for more information.