Quarter Notes

The Fall and Winter months at Tanglewood are a vastly different time from the summer. Visitors are few and the snow-covered, sweeping lawns and gardens around the boarded-up Shed, Ozawa Hall, Tappan House, and the Linde Center, become the property of the birds and other small animals residing there on borrowed time, before the busy hubbub of the summer takes over once again.

Long-time Berkshire resident and Tanglewood volunteer Joe Brindisi, who visited Tanglewood recently to take some photographs, describes the landscape as “a beautiful, serene place with gray clouds overhead and white snow on the ground; waiting to wake up after a long sleep when it will leave the darkness behind and become a place of vibrant color and beautiful music.” We have also included winter photographs from BSAV Executive Committee member and avid photographer Lynn Harding.

However, Tanglewood in the off-season is not completely void of music. The recently-constructed Linde Center for Music and Learning has fall, winter, and spring seasons that attract audiences, including the full and part-time residents of the Berkshires who seek year-round performances beyond the summer season. The Linde Center had its debut concert in the summer of 2019 and has hosted ongoing concerts that keep music alive year-round.

The 2022-2023, Fall/Winter/Spring schedule features five Sunday afternoon chamber music concerts featuring Boston Symphony Orchestra musicians and guests in Studio E of the Linde Center, where the audiences are enthusiastic and the seats are filled. A team of BSAV ushers who, this season, include Deborah Terrell, Joe Brindisi, Stephen Foley, Bob Ginsburg and Art Blumenthal, have worked at these programs this year. The schedule is as follows:

Sunday, October 16: BSO members included violinists Bonnie Bewick and Takumi Taguchi, violist Steven Laraia, and cellist Mickey Katz. The musicians performed selections from La Lyre Armenienne (arr. Aslamazyan), Fazil Say's String Quartet, Op. 29 (Divorce), and Dvořák's popular American Quartet.

Sunday, December 11: BSO Assistant Principal Second Violin Julianne Lee, violinist Lisa Ji Eun Kim, violist Mary Ferrillo, cellist Alexandre Lecarme, and bassist Carl Anderson presented Ginastera's String Quartet No. 1, Freya Waley-Cohen's Conjure for string trio, and Dvořák's String Quintet in G, Op. 77 .

Sunday, March 12: A 3pm performance with BSO violinists Lucia Lin and Bracha Malkin, violist Rebecca Gitter, cellist Owen Young, harpist Charles Overton, and pianist Vytas Baksys, who will perform Michael-Thomas Foumai's Printing Kapa and Defending Kalo for harp and violin, Beethoven's String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat, Op. 74, and Still's Ennaga for harp, piano, and string quartet.

Sunday, April 16: A 3 p.m. performance with BSO violinists Sheila Fiekowsky and Lisa Ji Eun Kim, violists Mary Ferrillo and Daniel Getz, and cellists Adam Esbensen and Oliver Aldort, who will present Caroline Shaw's Limestone & Felt for viola and cello, Prokofiev's Sonata for Two Violins, and Brahms' String Sextet in G, Op. 36 .

More information on the upcoming concerts, including how to get tickets, can be found below.

Flexibility and an agile corps of BSAV Tanglewood volunteers who respond when and where they are needed continue to help make it possible for audiences through Massachusetts and the surrounding areas to enjoy year-round musical programs. At the Linde Center this past October, volunteer Art Blumenthal ushered at a piano concert given by Emanuel Ax as a fundraiser for the Stockbridge Library. “Studio E was packed,” said Blumenthal. “The grounds were exquisite with color, the music was wonderful, acoustics were outstanding, and, judging from the audience, the program was a huge success,” he said.

BSO Community Chamber Concerts, held year-round, also offer audiences the opportunity to experience the unique intimacy of chamber music through free programs, performed by orchestra members in various community venues throughout Massachusetts. Over this past year community chamber concerts were held in Adam, Groton, Methuen, Dorchester, and Framingham, along with Northeastern University's Fenway Center, where BSAV volunteers once again served as ushers and worked at the door, checking people in.

Stephen Foley, who has been a volunteer with the BSAV for 10 years and ushers frequently during the summer, has volunteered for community concerts around the state. He often travels vast distances from his home in Longmeadow. “One of the best concerts I volunteered at,” he said, “was a community concert at Jack’s Abbey, a craft brewery, bar, and restaurant located in Framingham, MA, where members of the BSO brass section did a special event. The program was coordinated by Community Outreach and was “outstanding,” he said. Stephen has also worked at community Chamber concerts at Taconic High School, at the Berkshire Park Street Baptist Church and in Boston.